Part's list for the Newbie!!!!

[Hookem]

Hey guy's how bout a parts list for a fast stable box that will be used for multi-tasking in 3-D Studio Max, Adobe, Dreamweaver, Soundforge, ect...Dual Display a must....Want a 1.0GHz Athlon, Athlon T-bird or better...soundcard, floppy, power supply,case,cdrw and dvd cdr drive...Newbies dont know about these things so a complete list would be appreciated!!!!

[SharkyTM]

ok.. hope i dont forget anything...

Motherboard: abit kt7a or kt7a-raid, depending on whether or not you need the extra IDE slots/want to use raid... NOTE: this uses sdram... im not up to speed on ddr boards, but a lot of others are...
CPU: T-Bird 1.2 factory unlocked, and not too much more than the 1G
RAM: Crucial 256MB CAS2, maybe 512?? Up to you
harddrives:
1 Dual IBM 75GXP 60 giggers/45 giggers
2 one IBM 60gigger 75gxp
DVD: get a pioneer slot loader, or a pioneer trayloader... up to you, slotloaders are nicer... they both are 16xdvd
CDRW: PLEXTOR ALL THE WAY get a 12x10x32... they've come down in price adnd are great drives
if posible, get a cheapo 52x cd-rom drive for installing stuff... you dont want to wear out a 200+$ drive installing windows or dreamweaver.... :)
soundcard: i love my soundblaster live... get a live!value
floppy? they're all the same... get a cheap one online from one of the places your already buying stuff(save on shipping)
case: Full tower... really nice to have... they give a lot of room to move and cool...
PSU: umm... if you have the money, get an enermax 400 or 500... if not, get at least a 350 or get two, maybe a 300 and a 250.....
get some major cooling in the case... think about modding it, look at www.hardocp.com for hints... alo look online for "case mod"

GOOD LUCK
SharkyTM

[Hookem]

Hey Sharky,
On the video card i need dual display...considering the Matrox G450 or the Gainward CardExpert GeForce2 TwinView Vivo Golden Sample...don't need it for gaming, rendering in 3-D Studio Max ect...

Thank you for your input Sharky, the number of products out there is mind bogglin to say the least.

Thank's again,
Crashmatic

[UnseenMenace]

crashmatic (Jul 03, 2001 02:28 p.m.):
Hey Sharky,
On the video card i need dual display...considering the Matrox G450 or the Gainward CardExpert GeForce2 TwinView Vivo Golden Sample...don't need it for gaming, rendering in 3-D Studio Max ect...

If your considering the G450 make sure you get the dual head as this can be useful when multi tasking between two monitors however you may also wish to consider the Geforce modified to display as a Quadro card, which is Nvida's professional graphic chipset. Details of this conversion can be found Here (http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/quadro/) and its not hard to do, if your handy with a soldering iron

[Rob Cork]

First point, as Sharky suggested, it's definitely worth considering 512MB of RAM - it's so ludicrously cheap at the moment it wouldn't break the bank at all, and would really help when running all those apps at once.

If you want to go with SDRAM, which does still makes sense as SDRAM is cheaper than DDR (though DDR is not much more expensive), then look at the KT7a or KT7a-RAID. The other really popular ocing board for SDRAM is the Iwill KK266, and it's the one I'd go for (not really much to choose between the Abit and Iwill, so it shouldn't matter which you pick - toss a coin if you need to!). On the DDR side, I know the Asus A7A266 has had very good reviews from the point of stability and performance, but I think it's ocing features are a bit limited. Iwill does a few DDR boards, not quite sure which is which but they'd be worth a look.

For cooling that TBird don't skimp - look to spend $30 or more on a hsf, it makes sense when the cpu costs over 100 bucks to give it the best protection you can. Check out the Millenium Glaciator, or the Thermalright SK6 (a review here (http://www.overclockers.com/tips519)).

Everything else Sharky said I'd go with - a point to make about Unseen Menace's GeForce suggestion though is that there is a software Quadro mod available now, which doesn't involve any soldering - details here (http://www.overclockers.com/tips523). You said you definitely wanted dualhead though, I think you can get GeForce 2MX's with it, and I'm sure there's some Radeon versions around with the option. Can't suggest any specific models I'm afraid, but I'd go with the Radeon if I could find one with dual display capabilities.

Hope you manage to fight your way through the long lists of components and make some choices - I know it's never easy :)

[SharkyTM]

well.... seems like i got most of that stuff......

about the iwill, if you get it, it has onboard audio........ so you wont need the soundcard...and the software Quadro conversion is not as comprehensive as the hardware version.........

as far as a heatsink, id go with a glaciator or an sk-6... if you dont mind the noise, go with th sk6... dont skip on the northbridge cooling either... blue orbs modified all the way..........

SharkyTM