New SYStem

[Mad Butter]

New System: How this system sound!!! New one baby.

AMD XP 1900
K7T266 Pro2-RU (K7T266 Pro2-RU)
Radeon 8,500 or Geforce 3 Ti 200(which is better? I am a gamer if that helps!)
512DDR 2,100 Ram
Retail heat sink and fan
Audigy Sound Blaster
Ethernet Card
Modem
56X CD-Rom

[funnyperson1]

hte 8500 and Ti200 are in entirely different price ranges.....the 8500 would crush the Ti though......depends on how much money you want to spend...

[wildone]

well I wouldnt say crush ,an ati for 2d quality and a gf3 for compatibility , the thing is there have been some awesome nvidia drivers release and my 3d mark score is nearly 8K on a ti 200,but either of those cards will give you awesome gameplay.

wildone

[Oni]

Stick w/ the 8500. Its cheeper and 0wns the GF3 Ti200 you were planning on getting.

[wildone]

I still wouldnt say owns ,both cards have there stronger and weaker points ,here is mine compared to a retail 8500 at nearly the same clock speed and fsb,its funny though the high res test the gap gets alot smaller and even loses 2 of the 3 first test.

wildone

[wildone]

here is the rest

[thestramel]

8500 for all-around 2d/3d and DVD playback, Ti200 for good 3d, decent 2d. Also, you may want to reconsider the Audigy if you get a KT266A/KT266 board.

[jmommo2]

im also working on a new system, which will be only my second machiine to ever assemble. the first one i built was as cheap as i could, (amd k62-450, 256MB pc100, 13.6GB hard drive, NIC, etc...) and now i want to build one that should be top of the line. (is that even possible??) i got a great deal for $50.00 for a case with 4 5.25" slots, a floppy drive, and 128MB 2100DDR memory. i am going to use an asus a7v266-e motherboard. it has onboard RAID level 0 and 1, onboard sound, 3 GB memory max, and the other usual. im going to use an athlon xp 1900+ with thermaltake volcano 6 fan and up the memory to 1 GB to start. i want to try out RAID and hook up 2 maxtor 40.9 GB hard drives (i chose these because they have an 8.5 ms seek time and a 133MB/s transfer ratee. everything else i saw has a max 100MB/s trans rate)I will run these in a RAID 0 array and i think (i am still learning) i should be able to double the speed if i use data striping. i just want to use the onboard sound for a while, and now i am looking for a video card that would work out. i may use windows xp on this, but if that doesnt seem necessary i will just stick with win98se. any help, or hints would be greatly appreciated. this is my first post here, just joined the seti team as well, and i look forward to alot of great information sharing.

[wildone]

Originally posted by jmommo2
im also working on a new system, which will be only my second machiine to ever assemble. the first one i built was as cheap as i could, (amd k62-450, 256MB pc100, 13.6GB hard drive, NIC, etc...) and now i want to build one that should be top of the line. (is that even possible??) i got a great deal for $50.00 for a case with 4 5.25" slots, a floppy drive, and 128MB 2100DDR memory. i am going to use an asus a7v266-e motherboard. it has onboard RAID level 0 and 1, onboard sound, 3 GB memory max, and the other usual. im going to use an athlon xp 1900+ with thermaltake volcano 6 fan and up the memory to 1 GB to start. i want to try out RAID and hook up 2 maxtor 40.9 GB hard drives (i chose these because they have an 8.5 ms seek time and a 133MB/s transfer ratee. everything else i saw has a max 100MB/s trans rate)I will run these in a RAID 0 array and i think (i am still learning) i should be able to double the speed if i use data striping. i just want to use the onboard sound for a while, and now i am looking for a video card that would work out. i may use windows xp on this, but if that doesnt seem necessary i will just stick with win98se. any help, or hints would be greatly appreciated. this is my first post here, just joined the seti team as well, and i look forward to alot of great information sharing.

I build PC's on the side so any help you need you can ask here or just PM and I will help you all I can,I like Nvidia's compatibility but ATI's 2d quality is awesome ,it just depends on what you like.

wildone

[jmommo2]

thanks Wildone!!
I have a 3 year old daughter, so I don't get to play alot of games, but when I do I generally play quake3 team arena with some buddies. we also play diabloII and good old age of empires as well. i have a nvidia geforce2 mx/mx 400 in my old machine, and it am pretty happy with it in this current configuration. I will be putting this system together in about 3 months, and am very excited because you all seem to know alot about getting the most bang for your bucks. maybe I should repost the machine configuration I am in the process of building.

300 watt power supply
ASUS A7V266-E Motherboard
VIA KT266A Chipset
266MHz Frontside bus
3 GB Max PC2100 DDR
5 PCI
1 AGP Pro/4X
1 ACR
On Board C-Media CMI-8738 Audio Controller
On Board 2 Channel ATA33/66/100
On Board Promise IDE RAID Controller (RAID 0 or 1)

1152MB PC2100 ECC DDR

Video Card Undecided

Athlon XP 1900+ (by the time I buy it maybe there will be an XP
2000+ out??)

2 Maxtor 40.9 Gb hard drives in RAID 0 array (8.5ms seek time
and 133MB/s transfer rate)

Generic 52x CD-ROM Drive

I will be putting in a few more fans on this machine


From what I read in the cut sheets on the motherboard, this board has alot of overclocking features. As I said earlier, I am fairly new to modding/building computers, but it definately has me interested and again, thanks for all the help!!

[wildone]

It looks like it will be a very nice system,lets just hope that they have a better,safer,and less permanent way to unlock the XP's.
The only reason I havent went with an XP is because of the unlocking problems people are haveing with this chip.I would get a larger power supply if I were you ,I mean that one may work but my 300 strugles badly and I think it holds me back sometimes.

wildone

[funnyperson1]

just a question, is that Ti200 oced?

[wildone]

yeah ,but they overclock very well ,and even at default I get over 6700 , and thats without disableing anything on a clean driver install.

wildone

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by wildone
yeah ,but they overclock very well ,and even at default I get over 6700 , and thats without disableing anything on a clean driver install.

wildone

ys but so do the 8500s....most peopel who bought retail have gotten 300/620 and the comparison isnt realy fair, but like i said before it just depends on much money you want to spend...

[wildone]

well the system I compared to was at 305/305

I tried to find the closest one I could ,fsb and cpu speed and such

wildone

[Mad Butter]

So overall, what is the best video card for just games. Not DVD's or anything liek that. Just for games. The 8,500 or the Geforce 3 To 200?

[wildone]

Originally posted by Mad Butter
So overall, what is the best video card for just games. Not DVD's or anything liek that. Just for games. The 8,500 or the Geforce 3 To 200?

I would say the Nvidia for compatibility alone,thats what made me go with them ,I have owned a couple of ati cards but Nvidia is awesome with updates.

wildone

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by Mad Butter
So overall, what is the best video card for just games. Not DVD's or anything liek that. Just for games. The 8,500 or the Geforce 3 To 200?

well from most of the people i know who have 8500s they havrent been having many problems and its a lot faster than a Ti200......for me the 8500 is better, but if you dojnt believe that ATI will come out with new drivers...or you just like Nvidia better.....get the Ti200.....

[Mad Butter]

Well i just wanted to let you know I got my video card overlcocked to 172/220. Is that good. What should i crank it up to saftly? i have the two retaill heatsinks and fans on them right now. What should I crank it up to without burning it out? Or it it ok at what it is at right now?



thx. -evan

[Mad Butter]

I think I am going with the Geforce 3 Ti 200. What can i overclock it to you think safely without locking up? and I'm talking with retail heat sink and fan. Nothing else fancy.

[wildone]

Originally posted by Mad Butter
I think I am going with the Geforce 3 Ti 200. What can i overclock it to you think safely without locking up? and I'm talking with retail heat sink and fan. Nothing else fancy.

mine is totally stock ,it will do 225/510 all day long but will lock up in 3dmark2k1,but I can play any of my games at this rate without a problem ,really it just depends on the card you get ,they are all different.

wildone

[Mad Butter]

Thanks but my video card only goes up to 220 for the max. How is your up to 500 something. I do my overclocking from the software I have for my video card. Do you do it another way.




-evan

[Mad Butter]

Oh and by the way,. you know how celeron sucks and it has no cache.........It if oyu have a nice video card like a Geforce 3 Ti 200 and since it has a GPU, will it process it all by itself without using the celeron processor or will I have to buy an AMD XP 1900 which I want really bad anyway/

[wildone]

yeah use geforce tweak utility ,it just takes the limit off of coolbits ,also your cpu will make a difference ,but not a whole lot,I will show you a comparison tommorow or in a few,when I have just a bit more time.

wildone

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by Mad Butter
Oh and by the way,. you know how celeron sucks and it has no cache.........It if oyu have a nice video card like a Geforce 3 Ti 200 and since it has a GPU, will it process it all by itself without using the celeron processor or will I have to buy an AMD XP 1900 which I want really bad anyway/

actually ever since the Celly 300A they have had 128mb cache, and the Celly 1.2 has 256...

[RangerJoe]

Originally posted by jmommo2
300 watt power supply <------ get much bigger
ASUS A7V266-E Motherboard
VIA KT266A Chipset
266MHz Frontside bus
3 GB Max PC2100 DDR
5 PCI
1 AGP Pro/4X
1 ACR <------ you will never use this
On Board C-Media CMI-8738 Audio Controller
On Board 2 Channel ATA33/66/100
On Board Promise IDE RAID Controller (RAID 0 or 1)

1152MB PC2100 ECC DDR

Video Card Undecided

Athlon XP 1900+ (by the time I buy it maybe there will be an XP
2000+ out??)

2 Maxtor 40.9 Gb hard drives in RAID 0 array (8.5ms seek time
and 133MB/s transfer rate)

Generic 52x CD-ROM Drive

I will be putting in a few more fans on this machine

ok...to start get at least a 431 watt psu for that computer, you can never have TOO much power...enermax makes a good 431 watter

i want to stick out the idea of the soyo dragon plus...i have heard nothing but good about this board....raid, onboard lan, 5.1 sound....look around...this is certainly something good to look at

dont get the volcano 6 hsf....i say get the new swiftech w/ copper base, and just but something like the panaflo H1A 80mm fan on top....very quiet, yet effective for your cpu

concerning the maxtors...no...not for raid...get two 40gb IBM deskstars...these have 8.5ms seek time, 3 year warranty, and are infinitly better than maxtor hdd's www.cnetpc.com has these for under $100.....check them out, because they are BETTER, and if they crap out, you get new ones

unless you are running a hardcore server on this computer, get non-ecc ram, it is faster...and also, you might want to consider getting 2700 ddr, or 2400 ddr ram.

and a very good case is the antec sx1200...its a full tower case, comes with two 80mm fans, it has slots for 3 more 80mm's, and one slot for a 92mm. www.emscomputing.com has them for $59 i think...this case will give you much more room, for it has 6-5.25 bays.

i think that is all i saw that you might want to reconsider...PM me or i should be on for a while tonight...or contact me on AIM

[Mad Butter]

Can someone give me step by step instructions of how to overclock my Geforce 3 Ti 200? I want to get the best use out of it but no extra special cooling. Just retail cooling. what do you think i can get it up to and how do I do it?



Thx.. -evan

[Mad Butter]

Anybody?

[wildone]

Originally posted by Mad Butter
Anybody?

Oh yeah I can hook you up,just get a utility to OC your card with ,so have you got the card yet?I will have to look around for the place to get one because the site I always used before went down or something,I will let you know ,or send you a couple of OC files privately.

wildone

[Mad Butter]

Thank you. What is your IM if oyu have 1. i am always on IM. Thanks.




-evan

[jmommo2]

RangerJoe
"concerning the maxtors...no...not for raid...get two 40gb IBM deskstars...these have 8.5ms seek time, 3 year warranty, and are infinitly better than maxtor hdd's www.cnetpc.com has these for under $100.....check them out, because they are BETTER, and if they crap out, you get new ones"

Personally, I have used Maxtor in the past at home and work and had no problem whatsoever. The only reason I was thinking about these is that they have a 133MB/sec transfer rate compared to the 100MB/sec all the other 7200 RPM drives I saw through a distributor were specced at. Also I can get them for 99.99 a piece and that seemed like a fair price.
(I am still in the process of getting all the components, and I'm getting all cooling related stuff now, figuring that every week I wait the price falls.)

In regards to the power supply, do you just need more supply than 300W for all of the extra cooling fans, or also to help with the overclocking????

I really appreciate everyones input on this thing. I have only been checking this place out for 3 days now, and my head is still numb trying to process all of this information. :D

[Sonny]

Originally posted by wildone
lets just hope that they have a better,safer,and less permanent way to unlock the XP's.

The only reason I havent went with an XP is because of the unlocking problems people are haveing with this chip.

wildone Have seen this (http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?threadid=53394)?

[wildone]

Originally posted by Mad Butter
Thank you. What is your IM if oyu have 1. i am always on IM. Thanks.




-evan


I have aol,and msn at the moment ,just private message me your nick and I will get in touch.

wildone

[RangerJoe]

Originally posted by jmommo2
RangerJoe
"concerning the maxtors...no...not for raid...get two 40gb IBM deskstars...these have 8.5ms seek time, 3 year warranty, and are infinitly better than maxtor hdd's www.cnetpc.com has these for under $100.....check them out, because they are BETTER, and if they crap out, you get new ones"

Personally, I have used Maxtor in the past at home and work and had no problem whatsoever. The only reason I was thinking about these is that they have a 133MB/sec transfer rate compared to the 100MB/sec all the other 7200 RPM drives I saw through a distributor were specced at. Also I can get them for 99.99 a piece and that seemed like a fair price.
(I am still in the process of getting all the components, and I'm getting all cooling related stuff now, figuring that every week I wait the price falls.)

In regards to the power supply, do you just need more supply than 300W for all of the extra cooling fans, or also to help with the overclocking????

I really appreciate everyones input on this thing. I have only been checking this place out for 3 days now, and my head is still numb trying to process all of this information. :D

reason i said get a bigger psu than a 300 watt. i have a 300 watt psu for my computer. my computer will not even turn on anymore unless i take everything out of it besides the video card and the hard drive..and that is a stock speed, not at 1.44 or whatever.... now my friend let me borrow his 431 watt enermax just to test, i got my computer to run at 1.57 ghz, i had a dvd drive, cd-rw, super disk, video, sound card, modem, and lan card. i check my +5 rails, it was a 4.98 v. so i think this would be proof enough to say that with a faster computer, a 300 watt psu will not be sufficient, now if you wanted, you can get that antec case i recommended, the model sx-1240 comes with a 400 watt antec psu, which would be plenty for your computer, if you like that case and all

[wildone]

Originally posted by sonny
Have seen this (http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?threadid=53394)?

Thanks sonny ;)

Wildone

[wildone]

Originally posted by RangerJoe


reason i said get a bigger psu than a 300 watt. i have a 300 watt psu for my computer. my computer will not even turn on anymore unless i take everything out of it besides the video card and the hard drive..and that is a stock speed, not at 1.44 or whatever.... now my friend let me borrow his 431 watt enermax just to test, i got my computer to run at 1.57 ghz, i had a dvd drive, cd-rw, super disk, video, sound card, modem, and lan card. i check my +5 rails, it was a 4.98 v. so i think this would be proof enough to say that with a faster computer, a 300 watt psu will not be sufficient, now if you wanted, you can get that antec case i recommended, the model sx-1240 comes with a 400 watt antec psu, which would be plenty for your computer, if you like that case and all

Well I have a 300 watt generic one and it works fine , but it does heat up and I know it struggles ,my cpu alone is pulling about120-130 watts,then you add 3 case fans ,2 delta's,a DVD,CDR,gf3,a video editing card,2 nic's,2 hdd' 7200RPM,it will work if you get a good 300 watt ,but it will load it majorly ,I would go with a bigger one if I were you.Also on the Maxtors ,almost all HDD have a thre year warranty ,so this shouldnt be an issue ,but I have had 3 WD and 1 IBM that I have returned ,and outta 3 Maxtors ,they are all fine.

wildone

[RangerJoe]

IBM hdd's are just higher quality, i have two of the exact same computers in every way, one with a maxtor 40 gig, the other with an ibm deskstar 40 gig, and my maxtor drive fried when i was transfering files from one computer to the other, yet the ibm is fine

[jmommo2]

I just was mainly concerned with the transfer rate. the maxtor had a 133MB/sec transfer rate and everything else I saw had a 100MB/sec transfer rate.
so far that has been the only info I have been concerned with.
anyone know if this transfer rate of 133MB/sec instead of 100MB/sec is something to be excited about??

[Arkaine23]

get an oc utility like Riva Tuner. up the Gpu and memory in small steps (5 MHz should be good) and test with 3dmark2001 and some 3d games. If you don't have any lock-ups or weird screen distortions, go up another notch and test it. Keep going until you get a problem, then back it down by 5-10 MHz.

On my Leadtek Geforce 2 Ti, the Gpu doesn't go up much... but the memory does. From 250/401 to 255/420 and just getting started.

You wanna keep your stock cooling? A Blue or Crystal orb and some radio shack heatsinks (if your card doesn't already have ramsinks)will cost less than $20 and should help you OC your card a little higher, or at least improve it's lifespan when OC'd. Or you could remove your stock HSF, lap it with wet sand paper (from rough grit to finer to ultra fine grit) and put it back on using Artic Silver 2.

If any1 wants to add something or correct me, please do. I'm a noob when it comes to OC'ing video cards.

[-EternitY-]

Why STOCK Heatsink?

Atleast put a Delta On there..

GeForce ALL THE WAY


mmm... I dont like ATI, Bad experiences in the past :mad: