View Full Version : Processor for an email/web machine?
Ah well i was planning on building a web/emailing machine (with some light Sims gaming) for my sister and mother and i come to find that my old, trust Athlon 1400Tbird is chipped... it's a mother of a chip too, along the short edge of the core is a chunk out as long as 1/3 of that edge! Anyway, i'm needing a replacement for this and a good, and cheap mobo for this system.
I was thinking either the Duron 1.3ghz or an Athlon XP 1700+. Whichever one runs cooler would be my choice as this case will have no extra case ventilation (probably). But hey, there may be more bang-for-buck out there perhaps in the tualatin area or somewheres.
TIA, Chowdy.
funnyperson1
08-26-03, 04:12 PM
I would definately go with the 1700+ tbredb for bang for buck. Also people have run this chip at stock speeds as low as 1.1V.
Currently I have no AC and it is 90* outside and I have my chip overclocked to 1.85ghz with 1.6V and the temp is 48C with my fan running at 7V.
In an airconditioned environment this chip will run fine at stock speeds with a cheapy heatsink (prolly even the amd retail one), especially if you undervolt it. Also the Duron 1.3 is still ceramic based and will definately put out more heat.
Tualatins are real nice for low heat but they are a little expensive for performance given. My 1.1a ran at stock speed at 1.2 Volts with a Pentium 1 heatsink with no case fans the higest the temp went was 37C.
The advantage of the Athlon though is that if you get say a K7S5A when you feel like it you could throw in some ddr and a faster cpu and have a pretty decent system. The tualatin upgrade path is pretty much dead.
c627627
08-26-03, 06:06 PM
For Quarter 4 of 2003: email & web can be done for well under $50 with one of these:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20030826071248.html
but for
September 2003: For entry level or for advanced use:
Cheapest guaranteed T-Bred B $49
http://www.gameve.com/store/gameve_viewitem.asp?idproduct=267
This is because with a SK6+ Thermalright for $10 or so (or go for the better $15.99 SK-7) you can OC sky high.
http://www.svcompucycle.com/thersk7socco.html
Pretty much any 80x25mm will do with SK-7 or another one for SK6+.
Look for directions on how to apply thermal paste (it comes with sk-7) but this is a good one:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_alumina_instructions.htm
http://www.arcticsilver.com/ceramique_instructions.htm
seiferoth10
08-26-03, 08:26 PM
look for an old school via C3 (actually, i had one a month ago, but threw it away). i pretty sure those can be cooled passively
You could go real cheap and buy a Duron/mobo combo for less than $100 with onboard vid/sound/lan.... the sims can run on a 2MB PCI vid card.... I tried! It worked fine. For this situation. power is not an issue, nor is good graphics speed.
1700+ tbredB and ECS k7s5a for a cheap system (k7s5a supports SDR and DDR I believe)
funnyperson1
08-26-03, 09:39 PM
Originally posted by AMD_Me
1700+ tbredB and ECS k7s5a for a cheap system (k7s5a supports SDR and DDR I believe)
You are correct sir.
look for an old school via C3 (actually, i had one a month ago, but threw it away). i pretty sure those can be cooled passively
yes but these have trouble playing a simple video let alone playing the sims.
The 1700+ T-Bred B suggested above is a great choice for that rig. It will run Windows with e-mail and web smoothly while playing your sims fine without no expensive video card.
You could really passively cool the T-Bred as well.
Originally posted by seiferoth10
look for an old school via C3 (actually, i had one a month ago, but threw it away). i pretty sure those can be cooled passively That is a great solution for basic email/web surfing machine, but he also said that he would like to play some sims or other light games. Unfortunately the sims is a muther of a game as far as cpu and graphics card goes and the comp will need more poop to run that game at reasonable framerates. A duron 1 gig or better or a Celeron 1 gig or better with at least 256mb or ram would be a much better option for light gaming. A Celeron would be a great cpu if you are really looking to keep temps down in a stuffy case with no ventilation. If you can find a psu with the vents situated right above the cpu to exhaust the heat well then a Duron or even a tbird would work ok too. I just set up a system for my inlaws in a stuffy case with no spot in the rear and with a standard psu and only the one fan in the front bringing cool air in the cpu overheated after about 20 minutes of just being idle. But then I found a psu with the vents that sat right over the cpu and it kept temps in the low 50's even under heavy loads. This was with a 1333 tbird with a stock Athlon XP hsf on it. So with all that said, a tbird setup or even an Athlon XP setup with some ddr would be your best bet if you think that you can keep it cool, but if you are really doubting it then shop these forums for a PIII and either a Tualatin cpu or a PIII 1 gig or Celeron 1 gig since they run cool even in a stuffy case. Just make sure that you have at least 256mb of memory and at least a GF2 MX400 and you should have a pretty descent web browsing and email comp that can at least play the SIMS. Good luck man.
Tyranos
08-27-03, 01:02 AM
Just email and web stuff? What about an old k62 system? Those would be fine, and cheap as hell.
crave_silence
08-27-03, 09:25 AM
Originally posted by Yodums
You could really passively cool the T-Bred as well.
Have you done this with success? What kind of case ventilation did you have, and at what voltage? I tried passively cooling an underclocked low end duron outside of the case with a glaciator II and it would always eventually overheat.
funnyperson1
08-27-03, 09:30 AM
teh problem with the Durons are that they were ceramic and retained heat like anything
crave_silence
08-27-03, 10:27 AM
Originally posted by funnyperson1
teh problem with the Durons are that they were ceramic and retained heat like anything
I suppose that's true. Still made me a little gun shy to try it with anything faster.
Were all of the tbred-b's that you say people have run at 1.1 volts dlt3c's ? Or do I have a chance of getting that kind of low voltage out of a dut3c?
Originally posted by funnyperson1
Tualatins are real nice for low heat but they are a little expensive for performance given. My 1.1a ran at stock speed at 1.2 Volts with a Pentium 1 heatsink with no case fans the higest the temp went was 37C.
I personally prefer Tualaltin Celerons, good overclocking headroom on the FSB, and I don't see the point the extra cache on the server chips. The tualatin celerons have the same amount of cache as the non-smp tualatin p3s. Also those tualatin celerons run COOOOOL. They are good competition with the VIA C3, my via runs at like 25C and my tualatins run at like 32C. Also when you realize that the Via C3 is a hyperclocked cyrix chip running on the GTL bus, you suddenly want the tualatin. I have a sneeking suspision that you can run the tualatins without a heatsink becasue of that IHS, like you could with the p2s. My thin fin alluminum heatsinks are always COLD to the touch, it really freaks me out even though I am running prime95 in the background.
****EDIT****
Also the tualatin celerons are a good deal, they are only $39 (1.3 ghz) bucks on pricewatch, I got 5 for my rendaring rigs, while a 1.26ghz p3 is $163 :eek: and the 1.4 ghz is $208 :eek:. So a Tualatin celeron or tualeron is a really good deal, also thermallly it is better than a duron at the same price, only problem with it is the non-ddr cpu bus. Also what is the point of getting those 386 cpu core based C3s when tualatin is almost the same temps, at stock voltage.
Also if you are really looking for a cool looking e-mail/web access terminal check out the i-opener, yes it is really old and uses the super socket 7 (100mhz) bus and has emmbeded video, and it's os is a proprietory emmbeded unix on a flash chip. But it just looks cool becasue it is a all-in-one. It used to becalled some years ago the $99 computer because the company that made it expected you to use their ISP service ($24.95). The company that made the i-opener went bankrupt like most of the other .coms. THe price for a unit is between $20 and $50 on ebay fro a unhacked unit. A used unit that was connected to the phone line will have a patch that allows it to use any ISP that the .com manufacturer released to all the units when they went bankrupt. A virgin unit will never have that patch plus the phoneline for getting it is down now, so a virgin unit must be hacked. To hack the unit to use a regular OS will take some skill, mostly cutting sheetmetal with tin snips and not screwing up with plugging a HD in. I have one hacked to run at 550mhz with a k6-2+ inside, I also have another one waiting for me to have the time to do it. Here is a picture of the unit, this isn't my picture, it is from a i-opener fan site called linux-hacker.net (http://www.linux-hacker.net).
http://www.linux-hacker.net/images/iopen-front.jpg
EDIT:
Also this unit is a LCD pannel with a motherboard on the back, the whole unit is under a inch thick.
funnyperson1
08-27-03, 11:33 AM
Originally posted by bulk88
I personally prefer Tualaltin Celerons, good overclocking headroom on the FSB, and I don't see the point the extra cache on the server chips. The tualatin celerons have the same amount of cache as the non-smp tualatin p3s. Also those tualatin celerons run COOOOOL. They are good competition with the VIA C3, my via runs at like 25C and my tualatins run at like 32C. Also when you realize that the Via C3 is a hyperclocked cyrix chip running on the GTL bus, you suddenly want the tualatin. I have a sneeking suspision that you can run the tualatins without a heatsink becasue of that IHS, like you could with the p2s. My thin fin alluminum heatsinks are always COLD to the touch, it really freaks me out even though I am running prime95 in the background.
****EDIT****
Also the tualatin celerons are a good deal, they are only $39 (1.3 ghz) bucks on pricewatch, I got 5 for my rendaring rigs, while a 1.26ghz p3 is $163 :eek: and the 1.4 ghz is $208 :eek:. So a Tualatin celeron or tualeron is a really good deal, also thermallly it is better than a duron at the same price, only problem with it is the non-ddr cpu bus. Also what is the point of getting those 386 cpu core based C3s when tualatin is almost the same temps, at stock voltage.
I was talking about the celerons, 39$ is a good price, but the tualatin mobos are all around 80-100$ and that doesn't include ddr support.
THe AthlonXP route is better because DDR and better motherboards are always available.
For the price of a ST6 or TUSL2-C one could get an nforce2 board and 256mb DDR 2100.
dippy_skoodlez
08-27-03, 05:33 PM
Originally posted by funnyperson1
I was talking about the celerons, 39$ is a good price, but the tualatin mobos are all around 80-100$ and that doesn't include ddr support.
THe AthlonXP route is better because DDR and better motherboards are always available.
For the price of a ST6 or TUSL2-C one could get an nforce2 board and 256mb DDR 2100.
Yea.. athlon 1700+ would be MUCH better... MUCH better performance than a Cerelon (YUCK!) and only $42 from newegg.. It may be an "a" but its only for e-mail and light gaming :) Still does its job exceptionally well....
funnyperson1
08-27-03, 06:16 PM
Originally posted by dippy_skoodlez
Yea.. athlon 1700+ would be MUCH better... MUCH better performance than a Cerelon (YUCK!) and only $42 from newegg.. It may be an "a" but its only for e-mail and light gaming :) Still does its job exceptionally well....
Now now, the tualatin celerons were formidable in their time, its just that the PIII platform is now 5 years old.
At newegg.com there's a Biostar motherboard on sale that uses the Nforce2 ultra 400 chipset. it has onboard sound and onboard lan and looks perfect for what they're going to do. Also, the video is my old Geforce4ti4200, so it'd make a good comp that my friends could come over and enjoy some LANage on (when my parents and sister aren't on it, of course :P). Somehow, the gf4 works even after i thought it got totally messed up after the fan failed (weird).
So here's the linky to the mobo http://www.newegg.com/app/Viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=N82E16813138227&searchdepa=0&srchFor=
and the 1700+ from the same vendor http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=N82E16819103352
dustybyrd
08-27-03, 11:56 PM
I was talking about the celerons, 39$ is a good price, but the tualatin mobos are all around 80-100$ and that doesn't include ddr support.
THe AthlonXP route is better because DDR and better motherboards are always available.
For the price of a ST6 or TUSL2-C one could get an nforce2 board and 256mb DDR 2100.
that's not totally true...
you can get a soyo TISU with great overclocking options for $55...from www.mwave.com
i have it...
the performance of my 1.0 at 1.62ghz is on par with a non-overclocked 1700+....
not bad for $100 total (free RAM at officemax pc133...)
now that is cheap...
funnyperson1
08-28-03, 07:10 AM
Originally posted by dustybyrd
that's not totally true...
you can get a soyo TISU with great overclocking options for $55...from www.mwave.com
i have it...
the performance of my 1.0 at 1.62ghz is on par with a non-overclocked 1700+....
not bad for $100 total (free RAM at officemax pc133...)
now that is cheap...
Well it depends what apps you use it for, my Celly 1.1a@1.67 with also free 512mb ram is slower than my 1700+ at stock speeds in games and other apps which are memory intensive.
My main point was that a tualatin system really isn't very upgradeable whereas an Athlon XP system still has quite a bit of life in it. Especially if this is true:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles819/
dustybyrd
08-28-03, 12:03 PM
Well it depends what apps you use it for, my Celly 1.1a@1.67 with also free 512mb ram is slower than my 1700+ at stock speeds in games and other apps which are memory intensive.
My main point was that a tualatin system really isn't very upgradeable whereas an Athlon XP system still has quite a bit of life in it. Especially if this is true:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles819/
i agree....but for surfing the web and email?
i would get the cheapest system that would also be very cool....the celeron tualatin might be able to run with only a heat sink and no fan with very low voltage and a case fan...
what about the 1700+ for low temps?
Originally posted by crave_silence
Have you done this with success? What kind of case ventilation did you have, and at what voltage? I tried passively cooling an underclocked low end duron outside of the case with a glaciator II and it would always eventually overheat.
I'm currently passively cooling my 1600+ XP which I know is cooler than a T-Bred but the difference can't be that huge since right now my temperatures are only 35-37 full load while my case temps hits around 23-24. I'm cooling it with an AX7 and a Vantec Stealth and I have 7 other Vantec Stealths in the system - all of which are different sizes (80, 92, and 120mm).
It should work well, the main thing is to bring in a lot of ventillation but I have a full tower so it is not hard. With a mid tower I would consider some 120mm blowholes.
crave_silence
08-28-03, 03:09 PM
Originally posted by Yodums
I'm currently passively cooling my 1600+ XP which I know is cooler than a T-Bred but the difference can't be that huge since right now my temperatures are only 35-37 full load while my case temps hits around 23-24. I'm cooling it with an AX7 and a Vantec Stealth and I have 7 other Vantec Stealths in the system - all of which are different sizes (80, 92, and 120mm).
It should work well, the main thing is to bring in a lot of ventillation but I have a full tower so it is not hard. With a mid tower I would consider some 120mm blowholes.
Ah... Full disclosure!
While I'll agree with you that by strict definition your chip is passively cooled, the addition of 7 (albeit quiet) fans to your system makes calling it passively cooled a bit of a stretch... :)
I was hoping to have a lot less fans (somewhere close to zero) and let convection off of the heatsink be enough to cool the chip. I've got basically that setup going with my watercooled setup right now -- the radiator is outside the system and has no fans. True silence is blissful. I was just hoping to make it happen on a low voltage chip without all of the w/c action. It sounds like it may just be wishful thinking.
dustybyrd
08-28-03, 05:00 PM
I was hoping to have a lot less fans (somewhere close to zero) and let convection off of the heatsink be enough to cool the chip. I've got basically that setup going with my watercooled setup right now -- the radiator is outside the system and has no fans. True silence is blissful. I was just hoping to make it happen on a low voltage chip without all of the w/c action. It sounds like it may just be wishful thinking.
i bet you could do it with 2 120mm fans for the case...and a 1-1.1ghz tualatin that is undervolted...no fan on the heat sink...
you might be able to do the same thing with a 1700+ as well if undervolted...and underclocked
Originally posted by funnyperson1
Well it depends what apps you use it for, my Celly 1.1a@1.67 with also free 512mb ram is slower than my 1700+ at stock speeds in games and other apps which are memory intensive.
My main point was that a tualatin system really isn't very upgradeable whereas an Athlon XP system still has quite a bit of life in it. Especially if this is true:
http://www.overclockers.com/articles819/
You have a point about upgradeability.
Originally posted by funnyperson1
I was talking about the celerons, 39$ is a good price, but the tualatin mobos are all around 80-100$ and that doesn't include ddr support.
THe AthlonXP route is better because DDR and better motherboards are always available.
For the price of a ST6 or TUSL2-C one could get an nforce2 board and 256mb DDR 2100.
I can get a tualatin baby ATX with 3 pci slots for like $42, MSI 6318 I belive.
crave_silence
08-28-03, 10:18 PM
Originally posted by dustybyrd
i bet you could do it with 2 120mm fans for the case...and a 1-1.1ghz tualatin that is undervolted...no fan on the heat sink...
you might be able to do the same thing with a 1700+ as well if undervolted...and underclocked
Man, you all think even an undervolted 1700+ tbred-b needs 120mm fans on the case? I may be more tolerant of marginally warm temperatures ( still stable) than most people, but I really feel like I should even be able to get away with one of the dead quiet nmb fans on a good heatsink, which should be quieter than a pair of 120 mm fans even at 7 volts.
I guess I'm just going to have to try it.
Am I right in thinking that the abit NF7 is one of the only boards that will let you undervolt?
Any other places besides excaliber that you can pick up a guaranteed dlt3c?
dustybyrd
08-28-03, 10:47 PM
Man, you all think even an undervolted 1700+ tbred-b needs 120mm fans on the case? I may be more tolerant of marginally warm temperatures ( still stable) than most people, but I really feel like I should even be able to get away with one of the dead quiet nmb fans on a good heatsink, which should be quieter than a pair of 120 mm fans even at 7 volts.
yeah you're probably right...one 80mm panaflo L1a on the heat sink might be all you need...especially with an sk7 from svc.com for $15
that should be quieter than two 120mm case fans...but then you get no airflow and the hard drives and mobo might get a little hot...depending on your room temp
maybe get one 120mm fan or 80 mm sucking air out of the back of the case and one 80mm fan on the heat sink...
funnyperson1
08-28-03, 10:48 PM
The AN35Ultra allows voltage down to 1.1V.
i believe gameve.com also has guaranteed dlt3cs
I come to find there's a 1.6 duron coming out! Wow...if it uses the scktA format.. maybe i should go for that if the price is right. if not, then the 1700+ would seem to be a better choice.
funnyperson1
08-29-03, 11:38 PM
The only price indications I have seen on it are price is lower than 50$.
dustybyrd
08-29-03, 11:49 PM
if the duron 1.6 and the 1700+ are both about the same price...why get the duron?
Originally posted by dustybyrd
if the duron 1.6 and the 1700+ are both about the same price...why get the duron?
I don't know either but the Duron is WAY more ghetto.
by "if the price is right" i meant if it's cheaper than the 1700+... and i guess at $50, it's gonna be about the same. So i guess 1700+ it is.
PS: what's wrong with ghetto?
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