[maximus]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

You might also want to see if you can get an ATI Radeon 9000/9600/9700 for a good price, now that the 9800s are out... I prefer a better GPU myself, since I game a lot.

--janak

Now that Radeon 9800 XT is out on the market ... I am assuming there will be further price drop on the Radeon 9600 pro and FX 5600 ultra ...

Sometimes it is really amazing to see people who are willing to pay $500 for a top of the line VGA card, and replace it every 6 months.

I have this friend back in singapore, he purchased an asus FX 5900 ultra about 2 months ago, for $500+, and now he is already looking at the XGI's dual processors VGA card ... he heh. Good for me, I guess I can negotiate his 'older' FX5900 ultra for somewhere around $300. Maybe $200, depending on his mood :mrgreen:

[maximus]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

You might also want to see if you can get an ATI Radeon 9000/9600/9700 for a good price, now that the 9800s are out... I prefer a better GPU myself, since I game a lot.

--janak

Now that Radeon 9800 XT is out on the market ... I am assuming there will be further price drop on the Radeon 9600 pro and FX 5600 ultra ...

Sometimes it is really amazing to see people who are willing to pay $500 for a top of the line VGA card, and replace it every 6 months.

I have this friend back in singapore, he purchased an asus FX 5900 ultra about 2 months ago, for $500+, and now he is already looking at the XGI's dual processors VGA card ... he heh. Good for me, I guess I can negotiate his 'older' FX5900 ultra for somewhere around $300. Maybe $200, depending on his mood :mrgreen:

[TopDog]

Originally Posted by Honda_Civic_Si

how is the upgradeability on one of them bareboners?

Well, changeing motherboard will be difficult as they are espesially fitted, but changeing CPU is no prob as long as it uses the same socket.

You have two RAM-slots, so you can get max 2GB of RAM.

There is one free PCI and one free AGP-port, so you can upgrade with a better graphic-card for example.

You can remove the floppydisk and use it for a second harddrive if you want, other than that you are pretty much stuck.

There is a lot of USB2 and firewire-ports. I'm planning on buying a Maxtor firewire disk.

[David Prahl]

Looks like I clicked the "stop watching this thread" link accidentaly! Sorry I've been absent from discussion, I figured it had fizzled out.

Thanks for the tips, everyone! I have a friend who swears by AMD, and your comments re-affirmed his ideas. Maybe an AMD 2400+ or so will be what I end up getting.

[David Prahl]

Is it true that Socket A mobos only go up to 400 Mhz on the FSB? Is it fair to compare a P4 2.4 @ 800Mhz to an AMD 2400+ @ 400Mhz?

[maximus]

Originally Posted by David Prahl

Is it true that Socket A mobos only go up to 400 Mhz on the FSB? Is it fair to compare a P4 2.4 @ 800Mhz to an AMD 2400+ @ 400Mhz?

Not fair. That's why a P4 2.4 on intel 875 chipset with DDR400 RAMs is significantly faster than an athlon 2400+ on nforce2 with DDR400.

My own experience shown that a P4 2.4 on intel 875 is still faster than an athlon 2700+ on nforce2. I used to be an AMD addict, but lately I switched back to Intel.

See some reviews here:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/200...4_3200-17.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/200...mparison_table

Also take note on these quotes:

In our extensive benchmark tests, the P4 is always in the lead - we talked about this in our last article High-Flying: AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Squares Off Against Intel P4 3 GHz. To be fair, it must be said that AMD offers a good performance/ price ratio with its Athlon processors, but it still cannot quite keep up with the Intel CPUs.

The benchmark tests, on the other hand, leave no room for doubt: XP 2800+ would have been a more realistic label for the processor currently labelled by AMD as XP 3200+, which wouldn't have been a problem for anyone, if AMD still wants to go toe-to-toe with Intel's P4. But the 3200 label is much too aggressive - especially since Intel will be introducing an increased FSB clock for its lower-clocked P4 CPUs.

If you want it cheap, go with AMD, no question about it.
But if you want best performance, and can spare some more cash ($100 more), go with P4 (FSB800, H/T) with intel 875 chipset, and DDR400s

[David Prahl]

Thanks, Maximus!

Another question - what's the scoop on dual-channel RAM? Can only certain mobos accomodate it?

[maximus]

Dual channel RAM involved putting 2 (or the multiple of 2) similar DDR modules on your motherboard. They are required to be of the same speed, and the same size. Having DDR modules with same latency wll also help, that's why you see some RAM manufacturer sells 'matching' DDRs .. which are usually 'crazily' priced.

Basically they can be accessed at the same time, thus doubling the data rate. Consider it like putting 2 Harddrive on RAID 0.

So far, only motherboards with Intel 875 chipset can take the advantage of both the dual channel RAMs and DDR400s.

Putting two DDR modules on AMD chipset will not produce the same effect, because athlons will not be able to utilize the added bandwidth.

Hope this helps...