Is this a good place to start?

[JohnnyBee]

Hiya, people; I'm a new kid on the block from Solihull, somewhere near the centre of England, and I've been into computers for around three years.
I want to build a fast machine at the least cost, and one which is future-proof to a degree, and it strikes me that dualling up on major components is the best way to do it in the long run.
I've been offered an Abit VP6 mobo with matched 40Gb HDD's in stripe (raid 0) and O/C P3 700's running at 1Ghz for very reasonable money.
My only concern is that the M/B doesn't support DDR, even though it will accept up to 3Gb of SDRAM.
Is this likely to be a source of future problems, and has anyone else some experience of running such a setup?
All comments and observations welcome!
JB.

[dagamore]

depends on how much they want for it, i would look at geting a amd XP/MP setup, they are cheap as well, and you get DDR ram. but the VP6 is a great board, i loved mine (got rid of it about a year ago). But even with dual 1ghz you will get better performance from a 2.4c p4 setup, and they are more futer proof.

but like i said earler you might want to look at the XP/MP setups, you can get the boards for not too much, and put in mp12-1500+'s for again not that much, and have a better setup, and have the upgrade path to dual 2800+ right now.

a great site for smp questions is www.2cpu.com , and the forums over there are great.

[IFMU]

Originally posted by dagamore
depends on how much they want for it, i would look at geting a amd XP/MP setup, they are cheap as well, and you get DDR ram.
but like i said earler you might want to look at the XP/MP setups, you can get the boards for not too much, and put in mp12-1500+'s for again not that much, and have a better setup, and have the upgrade path to dual 2800+ right now.
Think I would have to agree to at least a minor degree on this.
The cost could be a serious factor however, if its the right price, then it would be a very nice system indeed. A few major drawbacks, SDRam is one of the biggest really. If you maxed out the memory though, it could be a very nice system for quite a while.
Originally posted by dagamore
But even with dual 1ghz you will get better performance from a 2.4c p4 setup, and they are more futer proof.
That, I cant fully agree with, it may be the faster system, but what will it be used for? Gaming? Go with what dagamore said. Everything else, tons of multi-tasking type stuff, go for the dual.
Originally posted by dagamore
a great site for smp questions is www.2cpu.com , and the forums over there are great.
This I really wish I could agree with. Though the site is great, tons of excellent knowledge and info, if your even partially ignorant, be prepared to stay that way if you only go there to try to learn. Dont get me wrong, its a great site and has some great folks, but if you ask something and is considered common knowledge, prepare for it to not be answered. :shrugs:

[dagamore]

IFMU, i see you rank fits you, i had a great welcoming to the 2xpu world at 2cpu.com, and i help out everyone over there i can, it is about the only place i read just about every post on every thread.

and we have some great well writen FAQ's that are almost walk throughts.

[IFMU]

Curious, my rank fits me? Not sure I quite follow that one....

As for the rest, I am glad you had a great welcoming there, I wish I could say the same. For me and some that I know that have gone there looking for help have severely failed to receive it.

And please note, I did say it was way worth to spend time reading, without a doubt.
As well there are some folks that help, but from what Ive witnessed not everyone there is that helpful.

[dustybyrd]

Curious, my rank fits me? Not sure I quite follow that one....

As for the rest, I am glad you had a great welcoming there, I wish I could say the same. For me and some that I know that have gone there looking for help have severely failed to receive it.

And please note, I did say it was way worth to spend time reading, without a doubt.
As well there are some folks that help, but from what Ive witnessed not everyone there is that helpful.




on the thread topic....i agree with the previous comments....what will YOU be using the dual VP6 for? for non-gaming, routine use that dual would be great and if it is really cheap (close to half the price of a dual AMD or p4 2.4c) then that's a great deal...


off topic:

i think he means you (IFMU) are the "devil's advocate"...

in my experience 2cpu is a good site....obviously more info on dual boards and duallies in general, particularly highly technical mods on motherboards...

however, the response time isn't as fast and the average user knows less about overclocking and less about any computer hardware problems that are not duallie related...

[JohnnyBee]

Thanks for those swift responses folks, much appreciated.
As much of what you've all said revolves around the asking price, I can tell you that the man wants £135.... $220? ... for the mobo, both HDD's and both processors, plus 512Mb SDRAM.
As I've seen $350- ish quoted just for a VP6 mobo on this site, I reckon it sounds cheap enough.... any comments?
JB.

[dustybyrd]

Thanks for those swift responses folks, much appreciated.
As much of what you've all said revolves around the asking price, I can tell you that the man wants £135.... $220? ... for the mobo, both HDD's and both processors, plus 512Mb SDRAM.
As I've seen $350- ish quoted just for a VP6 mobo on this site, I reckon it sounds cheap enough.... any comments?
JB.


yeah, that sounds like a good deal...about $50 below market value for all items at cheap prices...and again depending on what you want to use it for, a good deal....

i think that you can get a vp6 for less than $100...not $350

[JohnnyBee]

Jeez, that was a quick comeback, DB; are you on your lunch break or something?
The beauty of this is that it's a going concern, directly removed from it's case and ready to reinstall into a new home..... no formatting or other messing about.
As for prices, I have to confess to being "not the sharpest scalpel in the autoclave"; however I'm looking at the overall cost and the ease with which I can make it work.
Looking at the specs of your setups you'd have a good idea of whether lack of DDR would make a whole heap of difference, as I'm looking to use it for image rendering and Video editing.
Any ideas?
JB.

[dustybyrd]

Looking at the specs of your setups you'd have a good idea of whether lack of DDR would make a whole heap of difference, as I'm looking to use it for image rendering and Video editing.
Any ideas?
JB. [/B]


i do a lot of waiting in between experiments in a neuro-biology lab...

anyway i have actually used a dual p3 1.4@1.62ghz system before and it was decent...i actually had DDR RAM for it...however the bandwidth was very limited (due to p3/chipset combo not being able to use higher memory bandwidth than 1000mb/s max) and actually slightly less than an SDRAM system i had...

this system was about as fast as a 1.6ghz dual AMD...(the 512 kb cache tualatin p3's helped)...

for image rendering and video editing, SDRAM will hurt you since those items like high memory bandwidth...but depending on which software you use (if SMP capable) a dual system might help...

to give you an idea you should be able to put a dual AMD together for <$300 for the chips and the motherboard new (and maybe <$250 for used)....but this obviously doesn't include the hard drives, etc...the whole setup will also require $100 in 512 ddr ram, $100 in two 40gb hard drives, $75 in another more powerful power supply if needed, and a case?

so you could be looking at $300 more for the dual AMD?

the performance advantage would be substantial depending on the software...maybe more than twice as fast with an AMD dual 2.1ghz system with DDR..

and if you really want fast for video editing, etc...then dual 3+ghz XEONs will be 20-50% faster than a dual AMD...but at least cost twice as much as dual AMD

[JohnnyBee]

Thanks. DB.
After much trawling around, I've found an HP Kayak base unit with dual P3 800MHz CPU's, 196Mb of RDRAM and a 15Gb HDD going for around $250; sadly, no mobo specs available on that.
It does come with W2K Pro installed though, so again the laziness factor comes into play!
Question is, as P3 900's can be overclocked to 1.4 Gig anyway with safety, can I upgrade the RDRAM capability to suit?
I don't want to buy something that's going to be limited by any one factor in the future!
ATB,
JB.

[dustybyrd]

Thanks. DB.
Question is, as P3 900's can be overclocked to 1.4 Gig anyway with safety, can I upgrade the RDRAM capability to suit?
I don't want to buy something that's going to be limited by any one factor in the future!
ATB,
JB.


you will never get a p3 900 to overclock to 1.4 gig...

the best overclocks of p3 933's on single cpu systems (where it is easier to overclock) is about 1.1ghz on air and maybe a little more with better cooling...most likely a p3 933 will hit 1000 at the most...

i don't know what you mean by upgrade the RDRAM capability to suit...

[JohnnyBee]

Frankly, DB, I don't know much about RDRAM or the way they are denominated in terms of capacity; apparently there are three slots on the mobo, so would I be looking at 1.5 Gb in total, or thereabouts?
JB.

[Xaotic]

With PIIIs, the RDRAM will not perform as well as possible due to the memory bandwidth limitations of the processors. It performs better with P4s and Xeons. Additionally, the processors may be Slot-1 reducing future upgrade potential. The memory slots will be in pairs, as RDRAM has to be installed in pairs. Unoccupied slots will be filled with CRIMMs(continuity modules or blanks). Most likely that chassis will have 4 or 6 slots. Given that it has 196MB of RAM, 4 slots, or possibly all, will be filled requiring near complete purchase of RAM. A downside is that RDRAM is still expensive, far more than SDRAM. Another issue would be the fact that it'll use an OEM version board and BIOS. This will rule out many, if not all, overclocking options. I'd recommend against this unit for that price.

[JohnnyBee]

Thanks for that, Xaotic, much appreciated.
I'm getting the idea, very quickly that I'm going to have to build my own, starting with a mobo and working through the components.
What M/B would you recommend, both from a price and expansion point of view?
JB.

[Xaotic]

The forum favorite, K7D Master, is probably the best bet for general affordability and overclocking options. Use CMC's guide, it'll make everything much easier. The board will give you many options on every thing from storage to overclocking and will be fast enough for most users for some time. I use Xeons and PIIIs because I have them, but the costs are always high with respect to performance.

[dustybyrd]

The forum favorite, K7D Master, is probably the best bet for general affordability and overclocking options. Use CMC's guide, it'll make everything much easier. The board will give you many options on every thing from storage to overclocking and will be fast enough for most users for some time. I use Xeons and PIIIs because I have them, but the costs are always high with respect to performance.



i agree with Xaotic...on the Rambus issues and the dual AMD choice-K7D master....particularly because it can be found new for a reasonable price (<200 from newegg)

however, i have two asus duallies (see sig) and i chose them because i got great deals on them used...

$350 each, but that included both chips, heat sinks and RAM...

i would also look into getting a p4 2.4 or 2.6c because they can easily overclock to 3.2+ghz and these are formidable video editors (much better than a dual AMD, unless the software is SMP capable)....hyperthreading isn't bad either for multitasking...but not as good as a true dual

so it depends on whether you have SMP software, a need for strong multitasking capabilities, or the best deal...