Building the Ultimate Athlon System

**JonMarsh** · 12 July 2001, 10:57 Thursday

Hey Trevor!

I'll always vote in favor of building new Athlon systems, but then I've only built one *ntel box in the last two years, and that was to put on the network in the office.

What do you plan on doing with this system? That may have a significant input on some of your choices. Is this a general purpose do-all PC, or is it primarily dedicated to one purpose, with just a bit of cross functionality desired? (for example, workstation desktop, gaming rig, or HTPC?)

The last box I built a few months ago is a "legacy" gaming system; legacy, in that I have a number of sims and other games which either have only 3DFX support, or the 3DFX support is so much better than D3D that it's not even funny. So, video is a late model high end 3DFX card, audio is an SB Live 5.1 platinum, MB is an MSI 266 DDR board, and CPU was the most powerful I could be for under $200 (what, me a cheapskate?!?), which was a 1.2 GHz at that time. RAM is 384 MB; even B17 and FLYII with high res textures work well with that. HD is a 60 MB ATA100 Maxtor, 'cause Costco had them at good prices. Chasis is an Addronics mid tower, that matches the height of my NEC XM29Plus, and includes a 300 watt supply, quite adequate to the task.

What will work best for you depends on what you're going to do with the PC. My HTPC uses an aluminum case for looks and drive layout, an Antec 400W supply (loafs most of the time, which means fan speed is low), an MAudio 24/96 audio board (no EAX or wizzy multichannel digital voices, but 24/96 ADC and DAC, with very clean SPDIF outputs!), and of course, a 32MB Radeon DDR video card for DVD playback. It's got a measly 10GB disk, because it doesn't need anything more, afterall, for DVD playback and a couple of sims and games. More than 128 MB of ram isn't really useful, either, for DVD and RPG's.

Now, my duaghters system is running XP, and it because a little snappier when I upgraded it from 128MB to 256 MB, but it's the "old clunker" of the house, a first gen 600MHz Athlon. My own desktop is a 750 MHz system, also with 256 MB, but running WIN2K, since I do work work, and "mission critical" audio design on it. SP1 and SP2 installed; only with the latter has it reached it's potential, since the earlier IDE drivers stank, quite frankly.

BTW, XP at this state is quite glitchy, I'm hoping that the RC1 candidate due to ship shortly will calm things down without sacrificing performance. At least the error recovery is good- it does a lot of spontaneous re-boots some days, but never lost any data, so far.

Let us know what you're planning for your system as it evolves, and have fun- it's a great time to get really good PC stuff really, really cheap!

Regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**SiliGoose** · 12 July 2001, 22:59 Thursday

Trevor,

If you're willing to wait for WinXP to release (October, I think) you should reconsider your motherboard option too. Mobo's based upon nVidia's nForce chipset should be released in September. If you're not familiar with nForce I suggest you do a search...it's memory bandwidth and sound capabilities (optional) are very impressive on paper.
Nothing wrong with the KG7, of course, but you said you want the fastest. nForce looks like it'll put the AMD 760-based mobo's in second place. (possibly 3rd place if the new SIS chipset delivers on its promises)

I just finished building a system that is pretty close to your specs.

For cases I recommend taking a look at Antec http://www.antec-inc.com/ and Lan Li http://www.lian-li.com.tw/english/f.htm (aluminum...very pretty). Power supplies by Antec and Enermax are great (though look at PC Power & Cooling for the very best http://www.pcpowercooling.com/).

Don't forget to investigate a good heatsink/fan for your investment. Before you buy a screaming fan I recommend going here http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/listeningroom.html to sample the sounds you'll need to learn to live with

.

-Sili

**Trevor Schell** · 13 July 2001, 00:16 Friday

Thanks Jon,
The computer will be used for just about anything from computer games, office, excel, photo enhancement, 3d, Web design, downloads, music, DVD's extras etc..just about anything that is available. However I would not use it as the primary DVD player for my HT (HTPC)
I just want something that will be able to handle whatever I decide to try out. Owning a fast PC will assist in expanding it's usage.

Since computer parts are so cheap right now it is a no-brainer to build a fast machine with some quality components.Even it is a little overkill.

Thanks Sili for the links,,I have bookmarked all of them and will have a good look at what each has to offer.
I had no idea about the Nvidea chipset. It does sound good.
Not sure if I want to wait that long. We will see. You know I could always do some upgrading in a couple of months..

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**JonMarsh** · 13 July 2001, 10:30 Friday

SiliGoose's comments about the NForce should be given some careful consideration- I think this chipset will kick a$$, particularly if you want an nVidia video solution, and their audio (derived from/developed for Xbox) looks very promising on paper also.
It's a little harder to say if the internal architectur and bandwidth improvements will pay off in appliation performance, but it's definitely one to watch. The chipset in my MSI board uses a special transport bus also, replacing the PCI connection between northbridge and southbridge, but I can't tell you if that is why it runs as well as it does- it's about twice as fast loading up save games and new areas in Baldurs gate II as the system it replaced- which was an ASUS A7V 750 MHz Athlon.

Whether you wait or not, you'll wind up with a good system. But if you really don't want to put it together until XP release is out, then it may be smart to sit on the sidelines until October and see what your money will buy you then, as long as you have something to use for now. That's always an issue, it seems like, that there is something new and better just around the corner.

BTW, XP is something of a code pig, so far, and benching a few things, I'd say going from WIN2K to XP you should plan on a 30% faster system just to have the same overall performance. It's very nice visually, and I've been able to get very good DVD playback by loading a codec into the system so that MM8 was enabled for DVD, but gaming performance is definitely a question mark with current drivers. If gaming is a very high priority, you may still want to consider WIN98SE. (I own copies of almost every non-server version of Windows that's ever existed, but don't really care for ME particularly).

Regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Trevor Schell** · 13 July 2001, 23:45 Friday

How is this for a PC case.

Thoughts?

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**JonMarsh** · 16 July 2001, 11:01 Monday

It looks nice, Trevor, but you know what they say about beauty being skin deep?

Does it come with a std. power supply- if so, how many watts, and is it variable speed fan?

What are the arrangements for internal cooling fans? The two cases I've been using the last two years have front screened air intakes with air flow right across the hard disks. I think this is an important reliability feature with the increasing speeds and operating temperatures of ATA-66 and ATA-100 drives.

One has three 5" bays, a 3-1/2" front bay, and two internal 3-1/2" bays. The Addtronics 6896 (I think that's the right number) comes standard with a 300W supply. It matches the height of my NEC XM29 Plus. Also includes supplementary CPU fan, no tool disassembly, Price locally about $100.

The other (ATC-201) has four 5" bays, two external 3-1/2" bays, and three internal 3-1/2" bays, with front panel USB connectors with a hinged cover. And it's no taller than the first system- it's the all aluminum case I used last Xmas for my HDTPC. No power supply std. in this one- I used a 400W Antec.

Of couse, there are many considerations, cost certainly being one- there's a low cost "no name" supply I've been using for friends on tight budgets which I buy locally for under $60 which includes a 300W supply, in a mini-tower configuration.

Naturally, you'll want to figure out *your* criteria for a good case selection, then maybe your friends here at HTGuide and elsewhere can make suggestions relevant to your needs.

Happy shopping!

-Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Trevor Schell** · 16 July 2001, 23:13 Monday

Hey Jon,

That Aluminum one looks like the ATC 201 from Coolmaster. This was available at the PC mods Website.
It is supposed to be an overclockers dream.
I was looking at that one and printed out the order sheet.
How tall is it in inches?

I was going to sway away from any colored or aluminum units since I did not figure the beige DVD and CDR would not look very good in them,,However the picture you put up looks pretty decent.

Let me know what other cases may be suitable.

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**JonMarsh** · 17 July 2001, 11:03 Tuesday

Hi Trevor,

497 mmm tall.

http://www.coolermaster.com/home.html

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Trevor Schell** · 21 July 2001, 12:24 Saturday

If my math is correct 497mm is equivilent to 19 1/2 inches.
My clearance is only 18 1/2 inches in my desk port,, So this one won't work.

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**JonMarsh** · 23 July 2001, 11:49 Monday

Hi Trevor,

Get a new desk!

Best regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Trevor Schell** · 23 July 2001, 21:01 Monday

LOL,,John,
Don't temp me like that because I probably would,

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**Trevor Schell** · 19 August 2001, 11:57 Sunday

Just an update as to where I am, at this point.

DVD rom--Pioneer 16X
CDR--Plextor 16/10/40a
Speakers--Klipsch Promedia 4.1
Soundcard--SB 5.1 Live
Gateway--3Com Home Ethernet
Ram--4 dimms of Crucial 256 meg pc2100 DDR ram
Motherboard--Abit KG7-Raid( Just ordered Online)
HardDrive--40 GB Quantum Fireball
Keyboard--MicroSoft Internet Pro
Mouse--Intellimouse optical
Fan--Thermal Take Dragon ORB 3

Assecories..(already existing)
-21" Trinitron Monitor
-HP 5370 Scanner
-HP K80 Office Jet Fax/Printer/Scanner/Copier
-HP Photo Smart P1000 printer

I hope that I did not miss anything.

Next on the list is:
-AMD processor
-Case..(Still haven't decided,likely the Addtronics 6896)
-GForce 3 graphics card

Then I can Build

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**Bing Fung** · 19 August 2001, 12:13 Sunday

Don't forget the 3.5 floppy Trev, while not really used, they come in handy

Bing

**SiliGoose** · 19 August 2001, 22:15 Sunday

Very nice indeed.

Don't forget cables, cables, cables...

May I suggest these beauts: http://www.plycon.com/silver.htm

-Sili

Building the Ultimate Athlon System

Building the Ultimate Athlon System

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