I'm building a system from scratch, and I mean from scratch (nothing new to many of you, but new to me). Here's what I'm thinking at the moment:
[ul][li]AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz processor
[li]ASUS A7M266 Motherboard
[li]Antec PP403X 400 Watt Power Supply
[li]TaiSol CEK747092 CPU Cooler
[li]IBM Deskstar 60GXP 40GB 7200 RPM IDE/Ultra ATA-100 Hard Drive
[li]VisionTek GeForce3 64MB 4x AGP
[li]256MB DDRAM (DDR PC1600 with a CAS/Latency of 2, or DDR PC2100 with a CAS/Latency of 2.5? Any suggestions?)
[li]Lian-Li PC-60 Aluminum Case, with 4 USB ports (in the front), 3 fans (1 in the back, 2 of variable speed in the front), thumb screws, air filters, and a blowhole[/ul]I already have a USB keyboard, a USB optical wheel mouse, a 20GB 7200 RPM hd (making for 2 hd's), and a digital soundcard. Because I'm building this myself, I expect to pay just shy of around $1,300.00 (I left space for cables and other issues).
Any thoughts? the motherboard was chosen because (a) it was on AMD's list and (b) it looked decent. However, the site mentions "optional LAN"- what's the deal with that? An ethernet card is wired to the mobo?
The power supply was chosen because it was on ASUS's list... and seemd to have decent specs, but I'm not an EE, so I don't know. Anybody know where I could find reviews of different power supplies?
as for the vid card- it seems that the GeForce3 wins hands-down.. but which GeForce should I buy? A dozen companies make that thing... what's the difference?
AMD's site says that unbuffered RAM is mandatory for the Athlon, but crucial.com lists "registered" RAM for that particular mobo. Also, all of the Error Correction Controlled (ECC) RAM, which is preferred for the Athlon, is of type "registered". What's the deal? Is registered RAM ok? And what's this PC1600/PC2100, and is that more/less important than CAS/Latency? and what does CAS stand for?
The Lian-Li case with USB ports has the ports in the front of the case. How do I make these ports functional? How do you connect USB ports to the motherboard?
When I installed my USB keyboard to begin with, I had problems because the drivers weren't installed until after I went through the setup procedure in the OS. (And how the hell do you set up the drivers without a keyboard or mouse!!) Is this going to be a problem, or will my motherboard have native support for USB? How can I tell? Will I have to first install using a USB-PS/2 adapter?
Has anybody heard any reviews of things that might change my mind? Anybody have any opinions on any of the products? Anybody have any product choice advice, or installation advice?
Thanks to all... I don't know if I could go through with this without the support ) Liam Morley
lmorley@wpi.edu
"light the deep, and bring silence to the world.
light the world, and bring depth to the silence."
[ul][li]AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz processor
[li]ASUS A7M266 Motherboard
[li]Antec PP403X 400 Watt Power Supply
[li]TaiSol CEK747092 CPU Cooler
[li]IBM Deskstar 60GXP 40GB 7200 RPM IDE/Ultra ATA-100 Hard Drive
[li]VisionTek GeForce3 64MB 4x AGP
[li]256MB DDRAM (DDR PC1600 with a CAS/Latency of 2, or DDR PC2100 with a CAS/Latency of 2.5? Any suggestions?)
[li]Lian-Li PC-60 Aluminum Case, with 4 USB ports (in the front), 3 fans (1 in the back, 2 of variable speed in the front), thumb screws, air filters, and a blowhole[/ul]I already have a USB keyboard, a USB optical wheel mouse, a 20GB 7200 RPM hd (making for 2 hd's), and a digital soundcard. Because I'm building this myself, I expect to pay just shy of around $1,300.00 (I left space for cables and other issues).
Any thoughts? the motherboard was chosen because (a) it was on AMD's list and (b) it looked decent. However, the site mentions "optional LAN"- what's the deal with that? An ethernet card is wired to the mobo?
The power supply was chosen because it was on ASUS's list... and seemd to have decent specs, but I'm not an EE, so I don't know. Anybody know where I could find reviews of different power supplies?
as for the vid card- it seems that the GeForce3 wins hands-down.. but which GeForce should I buy? A dozen companies make that thing... what's the difference?
AMD's site says that unbuffered RAM is mandatory for the Athlon, but crucial.com lists "registered" RAM for that particular mobo. Also, all of the Error Correction Controlled (ECC) RAM, which is preferred for the Athlon, is of type "registered". What's the deal? Is registered RAM ok? And what's this PC1600/PC2100, and is that more/less important than CAS/Latency? and what does CAS stand for?
The Lian-Li case with USB ports has the ports in the front of the case. How do I make these ports functional? How do you connect USB ports to the motherboard?
When I installed my USB keyboard to begin with, I had problems because the drivers weren't installed until after I went through the setup procedure in the OS. (And how the hell do you set up the drivers without a keyboard or mouse!!) Is this going to be a problem, or will my motherboard have native support for USB? How can I tell? Will I have to first install using a USB-PS/2 adapter?
Has anybody heard any reviews of things that might change my mind? Anybody have any opinions on any of the products? Anybody have any product choice advice, or installation advice?
Thanks to all... I don't know if I could go through with this without the support ) Liam Morley
lmorley@wpi.edu
"light the deep, and bring silence to the world.
light the world, and bring depth to the silence."