Duron/Athlon/T-Bird??? suggestions!

[LiquidFusion]

I am running(well it states below) but im definately gonna upgrade KT7a(what r the pros to having a raid board if im not gonna have a raid drive, if any?) and i was wanting to know what chip is the best in opinion-cause i can get a Duron 800 for$121 but an athlon 850 i have to pay$189 (more money) and i thought that Durons OC higher/better am i wrong. I dont have tbird prices yet but how do they compare as far as rice and OCing(to the durons and athlons)-I want at LEAST a 800mhz chip-but probably gonna go higher to start with-id like something that i can run at 1.2ghz with air cooling

[hooziewhatsit]

In my opinion, you should probably buy a cheap duron, maybe a 700-800, then when the Palomino's come out, it should be a fairly painless upgrade to a much better chip..

btw, with the raid, I *think* it's only a few more dollars, and even if you don't use the raid feature, you would still have the option to run 4 more ide devices in the future...

anyways, just my $.02

[hooziewhatsit]

In my opinion, you should probably buy a cheap duron, maybe a 700-800, then when the Palomino's come out, it should be a fairly painless upgrade to a much better chip..

btw, with the raid, I *think* it's only a few more dollars, and even if you don't use the raid feature, you would still have the option to run 4 more ide devices in the future...

anyways, just my $.02

[LiquidFusion]

thanks for the info. Im not too bright on any kind of expansion devices, could you give me some examples of IDE devices that i could add? also what is a good price for a Duron 800?-how soon are the Palamino's coming out?

[Rob Cork]

The only devices it would be worth running off the ATA100 RAID controller would be other UDMA100 hard drives - and if you wanted to add more and use the raid settings you would be restricted to using drives of the same size, which could be restrictive if you buy them at different times (get a small drive now and it might be difficult to find a same size one later). Any cd/dvd drives you wanted to add you might as well run off the basic UDMA100 connectors. I personally feel the whole RAID thing is always going to be pretty pointless unless you're using it in a business with data that you absolutely cannot lose. The big advantage though would be the extra two UDMA100 headers - you could have all your hard drives on the RAID controller, just don't use the RAID settings - then you have another two connectors free so you can have up to 4 cd drives (no more having to change cd when you want to play a different game!). The KT7a would give you a max of four cd/dvd/hard drives, which may not be enough in the future.

[Rob Cork]

Hey cool it says 'Senior Member' below my name :-) - Dan?