Best mobo/ cpu

[Fraggster]

ok this summer i plan on buying a new computer specifically the motherboard and cpu. i want some thing good but not real expensive o and it has to be overclockable. i was leaning more toward amd b/c of there overclockableness (is that even a word?) what do u think??   :compute: or

[opiesilver]

Here is what I think.  At the speeds of processors these days it's really not a good idea to do a lot of overclocking.  A 5% gain at 2 ghz results in only 100mhz gain.  That's really not even noticable with real world performance scores.  Sure it's fun just to see if you can do it, but long term you are just setting your self up for problems.  It's not worth the time or risk.  Over clocking as a means to get a free proc upgade died about the time of 1ghz cpu's.

[Fraggster]

right now i can only afford mebbe a 1.5 or so unlesss i find a killer deal on something bigger.

[Fraggster]

o and at this point and time in my life i really have nothing better to do

[opiesilver]

Your choice.........

[Fraggster]

Originally posted by opiesilver
Your choice.........

im 15 its not like i can do a whole lot right now. thats why i have been to any recent lan parties

[Wolverine of Ambush!]

I agree with Opiesilver.. Overclocking now isn't near as beneficial as it once was.

What is your budget?  You can get an AMD XP 2100+ for around $60-$70 now...pretty inexpensive...a motherboard for around $100...and ram for around $80...  that is around $250...  it all depends on what you want to save money on...

Personally, I think a GREAT motherboard makes a difference, and good performance ram, as well.  I am a committed ASUS motherboard lover.. so I would suggest them.

[yoda_mon]

I agree with the Opie and Wolvie.  There is just not any point in overclocking with any of the modern CPU's.  Take what you would have to spend on extra cooling and spend it on the proc.

As for the best motherboard I would say the Asus A7N8X Deluxe is about the best thing on the market.  Go to Tom's hardware and read the reviews.  This is the motherboard that they use as the standard for their benchmarking.

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-d/overview.htm

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20021111/index.html

[Boomslang]

You guys need to talk to an overclocker. I got 1000 point higher in 3dmark 2001.Thats not worth it? the highest 3dmark is 25200 from an overclocker. The new games comming out this fall a 4600 and the 9500 will not be playable at defalt settings. ( if the game is turned to high). If you want to see run 3dmark 2003 watch the high quality at 1 or 2 fps.
By overclocking in UT 2003 I lost no FPS going from 1280 x 1024 highest  to 1600 x 1200 highest. makes me happy.:lol

[Morpheus]

Thoughts on overclocking:

You need to ask yourself several questions to determine if you want to overclock or not.

1) Why are you overclocking?  If it’s for fun, great, educate yourself (I would suggest several days worth of hours reading on the internet), set some goals (very important to feel like you’ve accomplished what you wanted by overclocking), evaluate the risks, and go for it.
If it’s to get more performance, by the time you buy a better heatsink, and better ram, extra case fans, and a better power supply, you could have bought a faster CPU and motherboard, and not have to deal with potential stability issues, voided warranties, or dead components.  Overclocking is not the budget way to better performance, in this day it is fairly expensive to overclock properly and safely.
2) How do you use your PC?  Overclocking increases the chance of stability issues…can you afford that? (I upgraded my ATI 7200 graphics card to a GeForce 4 TI4200 earlier this year.  It blew my power supply, I had to replace the power supply immediately for business purposes.  Locally and it cost me 3 times more than it would have over the Internet.)
3) Can you afford to fry your CPU or other components?  Yes, most component these days can take a little overclocking, especially if you buy higher end components, but it still impacts the life span of each of the components in your PC.

I’ll let you in on a secret.  I think this is the best way to get performance on a tight budget.  With technology there is a curve that represents buyers.  It starts out with what they call “Early adopters”, they pay a high price for the technology, then after a few months, the technology hits “mainstream” buyers, they pay significantly less, and lastly the technology becomes obsolete.  The best place to buy the technology is at the beginning of the “mainstream” segment.  This gives you the benefits of the almost latest technology along with the longest possible period of usefulness.

That is how I purchase my technology.  Then as it gets about ½ way through the “mainstream” time period, I sell that technology, and upgrade.  How that works out it practical terms is that less than 2 years ago I put together my first up to date computer.  It had a 1ghz athlon cpu that I purchased for I think $110.  That CPU lasted about 8 months when I sold it in a computer I built for a friend.  I sold the cpu for $60 and purchased a 1.33 ghz athlon for $70.  That lasted another 6 months when I had another friend who needed me to build them a computer, I sold the 1.33 for the same price I purchase a 1.4 ghz XP 1600 +.  That lasted 4 months, and I sold it for $75, and purchased a 1.8 gzh XP 2200+ for $95.  I have done the same with other components in my PC.

You can also sell the items on e-bay if you don’t have someone wanting to buy a computer from you.  They bottom line is I pay significantly less for my technology, and provide a service to people who don’t need or want the cutting edge technology.  By the way, I don’t charge much for putting the computers together and supporting them for 6 months, the benefit I get is from the upgrades I get.  I could “sell” my components for less money since they are used, and charge $150 for my services, it would net about the same.  I usually charge the median of what I can find the component on the internet for, which is usually very reasonable.

[Morpheus]

As for the best mb/cpu

I would probably go with the ASUS A7N8X deluxe, it's got it all, and for $125 it's not too expensive.

Then get 2 sticks of 256mb cas 2 DDR.  The CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, Low Latency (Twin Pack) 512MB(2 x 256MB) 2x(32MX64) PC-2700LL With Heat Spreaders for $134 is good, also the OCZ Dual Channel Optimized DDR PC-3200 High Performance. The Ultimate High End Memory 256MBX2 Model# OCZ400512ELDCK for $135

Then buy the CPU with the rest as Wolvy said, you can get a XP 2200+ for $75

You may also want to look at your video card since even with a very fast CPU, if you video card is too old it won't help much.

[Fraggster]

i think im going to bitch slap my dad( plz excuse the lingo) i found a dual p3 xeon mobo on ebay for on ly 30$w/ 600 mghg procs!! with 2 days left. he said to make a list of what i needed-  case, hdd, memory and vid card- any way i had a bad as gaming comp for only 175 dollars!! it would run ut2k3, and any other games
i think im going to scream. this piece of shiot im on does eeven run as fast as its supposed to (the whole mobo is borked

here it is

[ZWarrior]

Nica, but the games aren't SMP aware.  Thus you will be stuck with the game running on one proc.  A P3-600.  Yes, it's a Xeon, but the games don't depend on the L2 cache like the average desktop applications.
  You will see a minor boost from the fact that the OS can run on the other proc, but overall you are still running on a P3-600.  Not a reasonable upgrade.

Look at something that is a little more current, and still reasonable.  a quick search of EBay showed a few P4 processors and mobos that were under $100.

[Fraggster]

k

[ZWarrior]

My overall suggestion?

Since you are only 15, I assume that your parents will be bankrolling most of the cost.  Research out what technology is the most cost effective, and still good enough to play the games on.
 Then present your parents with your research, and show them where you are saving the money over new tech.


You may be surprised at how pleased they are with your mad research skillz and buy something even better!

If they don't?  Ask Zeet for the money.  He's good for it!

[Wolverine of Ambush!]

Just to add a little note on DDR ram and mobos, and AMD CPU Fsb...

Of what I have learned with my upgrade to the Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard, if you are going to purchase DDR ram, the best thing to purchase is the PC2700 and NOT the PC3200. There are studies that show if you have an AMD XP chip that supports 333mhz fsb, when you introduce a motherboard that supports 400fsb with PC3200 DDR ram(runs at 400mhz), you don't get the boost you would expect with the faster ram.:;(:

The best scenario would be to get a 333fsb AMD XP cpu (XP Barton core cpu's or XP 2600+ and above), purchase a motherboard that supports 333mhz or above, and then purchase PC2700 ram (runs at 333mhz)... then you have no bottleneck.

Of what I have seen that plan has shown the best benchmarks for the hardware involved.

If you choose to get the Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard... I would suggest getting the ""The CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, Low Latency (Twin Pack) 512MB(2 x 256MB) 2x(32MX64) PC-2700LL With Heat Spreaders for $134 is good"" which Morpheus had suggest earlier. This DDR ram is actually tested on this motherboard, as a pair, before sent out. I LOVE THAT!  Works too!  Rock N Roll!  :hotbouns:

Just my opinion.....

Hope it helps.

[Wolverine of Ambush!]

GREAT POINT Zwarrior!  

Do the research and show your parents all the work you did to investigate and learn about what you are going to buy. They may also see that as,  you 'seeing the value of what is being purchased' and that you will take care of their investment.

[Morpheus]

Yup gotta do the research!  I spent at least 6 months before putting together my first modern PC.  Hours and hours of pouring through reviews and how to's.

A couple of usefull sites for reviews and info are:
Tom's Hardware
Anandtech
Extreme Tech

For prices:
Pricewatch
Pricegrabber

For really good deals:
http://www.slickdeals.net
http://www.digitaldeals.net
http://www.techbargains.com

Where I end up buying a lot of my hardware:
http://www.newegg.com

At this point in time, you can put together a very good machine for less than $600.  If you want to bounce ideas off of people, post them in this forum.  Opinions abound!

Good luck and let us know if you need help or have questions.

[Morpheus]

A note on the DDR 2700 vs 3200...the key is for the RAM to run Syncronously.  
If your cpu runs at 333 fsb than you need your ram to run at 333 or 2700 speeds.  You can still have 3200 and just run it at 2700 speeds, that enables you to upgrade to a 400 mhz fsb cpu later when they are priced reasonably.  

Similarly if you have a 266 fsb cpu, than you want to run your ram at 266 or 2100 speeds.

Once again, the key is to run cpu and memory syncronously, so that you aren't "dropping" cycles.

[Fraggster]

no i have 315 dollars from when i sold my stuff and got out of R/C car racing. He tells me that my pos 250 megahertz compy is good enough B.S. he went out and bought a new dell (barf) with a 1.9 ghtz proc and a 64meb vid card just to use for surfing the net and sending email. wtf is with that. i dout that the proc will ever see above 50% duty. and that vid card is just wasting away, he doesnt believe in games.  my friends 450 p3 will run ut2k3 at almost 15 frames a second!! my 500 celeron has trouble running the sims. and my dad thinks its a good computer!! the dam thing crashes every month or so and has to be reformatted. i cant wait till i can move out...............................FREEDOM!!!!!!

Originally posted by ZWarrior
My overall suggestion?

Since you are only 15, I assume that your parents will be bankrolling most of the cost.  Research out what technology is the most cost effective, and still good enough to play the games on.
 Then present your parents with your research, and show them where you are saving the money over new tech.


You may be surprised at how pleased they are with your mad research skillz and buy something even better!

If they don't?  Ask Zeet for the money.  He's good for it!

[Morpheus]

Ok now you've given me a challenge, upgrade fraggy for  $315.  Ok 1st what do you have that can be re-used?

Give the old man a break, it's his money, if he wants to surf the web with a 64mb card and a 1.9 ghz cpu more power to him.

[Fraggster]

dvd rom, sound card, round ide cables keyboard, mouse, 10/100 lan card, o and dont worry about a monitor i got a different one than what im using. i basically want the system itselffor less than 315.:rolling preferibly AMD, im sick of intel:x

[Edited on 5-29-2003 by Fraggster]

[Fraggster]

o and my watercooling system i can make fit on something newer too but thats not a real factor in anything

[ZWarrior]

Just remember, Freedom never comes without a price.  I learned real fast.  I moved out at 18, and suddenly had to pay rent, utilities, insurance, etc.  Had no idea what the parents paid for me already.

The main objective for you should be finding the documentation to prove that the current PC won't work, and that you can get a decent system for a reasonable price.

We "old farts" tend to become more reasonable when given the facts, and time to consider it.  Don't push him to hard, he may decide to not even listen at all.

Might even ask him if he is open to considering the decision if you can provide the data needed.  But get him a beer first.

Always prep the field before attacking the field.

[Fraggster]

hey u guys are pretty cool for  "old farts".
but my dad doesnt drink beer anymore, he should start again tho,mabee he'd be in a better mood all ways:D but i see where ur coming form i know its going to cost more when i move out but right now i feel as if i should ask before breathing and then ask again before i exhale

*Time to prep the field*:evil

speaking of which, were can i get the min. requirement for bf 1942, ut, and other games such as those?