help me build a budget rig

[funnyperson1]

Honestly the whole Tbred A,B thing doesnt seem like it will effect you much. An advantage of the NF7-S is that it can use multipliers both below and above 11. So if you run into a wall on the OC you could always run the chip at 9.5 or 9 x200 fsb for better performance.

 

[batboy]

Gautam, thanks for the heads up with GameVE. I checked it out and the NV7-S ver.2 and XP1700+ is $169 plus $15 shipping for a total of $184. The same thing at newegg.com is $158 shipped.

I realize that you'll get the "B" at gameVE, but I suspect the person I'm building this for won't care and will decide against going over the budget, but I will give her that option.

I also told her if she wanted to get the Barton XP2500+, that she could wait another payday or two to pay for my labor, but she didn't want to do that either. The mobo and 2500+ is $196 at newegg and is probably a better deal than the 1700+ at gameVE.

 

[batboy]

Funnydude, great minds think alike. I was calculating up overclocking combinations and had settled on 9X200 as being a nice realistic conservative goal too. I figure at DDR400, we can crank down the PC3500 RAM timings super aggressive too. If we can achieve this goal with it being rock stable and with it being reasonably quiet, she will be tickled pink.

 

[bulk88]

I think you should get a non MCP-T NF2, like the 8RDA non+. Only difference between MCP and MCP-T is no soundstorm audio, no chipset accelerated ethernet (must use a pci chip, not a physical chip) and no firewire acceleration (must use a pci chip, not a physical chip).

 

[skou]

Batboy, if you aren't going to be running any SATA, you really don't need the NF7-S. Just get her the NF7. I have a NF7, with the 1700+ on it, and it will boot up at 2500, and in this HEAT it folds at 2430. (But I'm running water cooling)

This was my first step into the AMD side, and I'm impressed!!

steve

 

[brennan77]

I have a Gigabyte 7VRXP with a Palomino 1800 that is unlocked. I have a Millennium Glaciator also, but that's not too good for travelling so it may not be good for your friend. We could work a deal.

 

[batboy]

Thanks for all the advice guys, I really apreciate it.

Brennan, I looked at that 7VRXP that you recommended, but I think I'd rather go with an nForce chipset rather than VIA (had a bad experience with VIA once).

Skou, thanks buddy, I think you saved us a few bucks. As near as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), the NV7-S has SATA, the NV7-M has built in video, the NV7 is the basic version, but it does have built-in sound and LAN. Is this right?

If we get the Abit NV7 ($88) and XP1700+ ($47) from newegg, then the total damage is only $135 shipped. Sounding better and better all the time. Brennan, I sent you a PM.

 

[RobP4P]

We both looked at the reviews and read some forum posts about the Abit NF7-S and are impressed. Newegg has it for $111 shipped. The XP 1700+ OEM is $47 shipped. The Barton XP 2500+ OEM is $85 shipped.

DO NOT GET THE 1700 FROM NEWEGG... they have been shipping tbred 'A' cores lately. I know from experience

I say 2500+ or 2100+ or guaranteed tbred B 1700+

look at the shuttle an35 from newegg. I built a system that hit 205fsb with buffalo pc3200 and 2500+. Good board with decent sound and LAN for cheap.

As for a quiet cheap heatsink, look at the speeze falconrock. $9

I've posted this before and some disagree with me, but when I put a 40cfm panoflo on the speeze it performed within 1-2C of my sk-7 (after I lapped both of them)

if you have an old 80mm case fan, but that on the speeze and you've got a good heatsink...but the stock fan on it is too slow to cool very well, but it is silent

checkout dansdata.com for a comparison of a lot of heatsinks, he got the same results that I did for the sk-7 and speeze with the same fan.

 

[funnyperson1]

The AN35Ultra is a solid board, mine does 230fsb no problems with it. But I think the onboard firewire and other features on the Abit may make up for the price. If they were still selling the AN35s for 63$ I would definately recommend picking one up.

As for TbredA/B he said she was going for a mild oc. Might as well get it from newegg then.

 

[deftor]

I would also not risk getting the t-bred A...th e B's are much better overclockers and produces less heat....its a waste of money buying the A's at this stage of the t-breds life. I know that it will probably not matter to the girl..but the B's are a lot more heat efficient.

 

[Supertrucker]

like deftor said, even when not overclocking, it is much easier to cool a tbred b, they have a larger die and therefore make better contact with the hsf. the tbred a was actually putting out less heat than a palamino, but the surface of the die shrank so much that it was putting out more heat per sq mm. avoid the a core

 

[batboy]

Well... with the cheaper NV7 instead of the NV7-S, then the Barton 2500+ is now within the budget.

 

[funnyperson1]

Just so you don't buy the wrong thing... its the NF7

 

[batboy]

Yikes... I've been calling the NF7 mobo a NV7 throughout half the thread.

 

[skou]

Batboy, you're right, the base NF7 has onboard lan and sound. I played with a borrowed NF7-S, and I liked it, but I found a modded NF7 for $80.00. The NB heatsink was moved to the south bridge, and a copper Iceberg was put on the NB.

I don't have memory good enough to test out the FSB, but I can still hit 2500 on my 1700+. ( that's better than a 1 GHz overclock on a 1466 CPU)

As my first experience with the Dark Side, I'm impressed.

steve

 

[Supertrucker]

ummm, your in the amd forum so intel is the dark side

for the mild overclock you are looking at batboy, just about any of the nforce2 mobos would suffice, there is the msi k7n2 delta or the epox 8rda for other semi-budget boards.

and if you dig through cyber deals i beleive there are threads for both panaflo L1a's and H1a's for less than 5 bux apeice, i would consider an H1a for an sk7 for hsf and L1as for case fans