AMD 64 advice

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skene
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:06 am
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AMD 64 advice

Post by skene » Fri Aug 13, 2004 12:11 pm

Hi guys, I've been puttering around in the shadows for a while now, but thought it was time to speak up since I need advice on a new computer.

Being a starving college student my goal is to get a mother board, cpu, ram, and video card for ~$750. This is what I'm looking at so far:

CPU: AMD 64 3000 $172 at newegg, a bit cheaper elsewhere
The 3000 seems to be the best bang for the buck I can find out there right now.

Motherboard: EPoX EP-8KDA3J nForce3-250Gb $99
I'm not set on this, but it's a good price for the nForce3-250gb chipset.

videocard:
GAINWARD GeForce FX5900
$203
I run linux so I pretty much need an nvidia card. Although I may hold off for another month or so and see what prices are like since they just announced the 6600.

ram: 1gb ddr3200 of something for ~$200-220 ....not sure what kind though.
micron for ~$200
Corsair value select ~$212
This is my main question. The Cool'n'Quiet page on here says that the epox board can only run CnQ with one dimm. Is that the case? If so, would it be better to get one 1Gb stick or find a different board and get two 512 sticks? I don't really know too much about ram performance since my current setup is from the stone age and using 133 SDram (1Gig though)

Case: Recycling old one $0
It's custom painted (by me) to look like a block of marble, so it's sticking around. Pretty good airflow with a couple 80mm panaflo fans in it

Powersupply: Recycling old one $0
400watts with a 120mm papst fan in it, so it's quiet and has good flow.

I'm not sure what the best approche to CPU cooling is either. For starters I'll probably use the stock HS and put a panaflo on it. If that's too loud/inefficient I'll most likely resurect my old watercooling setup (home made block, car oil radiator, pump and piping all for under $50) and see where that goes.

So let me know what advice you all have on my setup.

GlassMan
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2004 4:55 am

Post by GlassMan » Mon Aug 16, 2004 12:23 pm

You can use 1 512m or 1G) stick since if its a one channel board socket 754, there will be no performance hit. If it's a 939 you will need 2 sticks to take advantage of dual channel for a marginal bench mark increase

The nice thing about the A64 is it runs fast on any compatible memory. Check Epox's compatability list and get the cheapest that meets your needs.

If you don't need the 250 gb multi raid and firewall suport you can save a few bucks. The 1000 hyper transport is not real world faster the the plain nf3 250's 800 HT. My chaintech VNF250 ($82) will run at 1000 at 4x 250 or 5x 200. (no cool and quiet). If you don't need the gb features, compare price with the 250's that have support for what you need. $99 for a gb sounds like a good price though.

I maybe wrong but if your running linux its seems to me that you don't need a video card that's very powerful, so any Nvidea card will do ya. I don't think the 6600 will cause much of a drop in anythig under the 5900 line

skene
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:06 am
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Post by skene » Wed Aug 18, 2004 12:08 pm

Thanks for the tips. I ended up going with 1gb of corsair 3200 value ram. I've had some bad luck in the past with generic ram, so I thought I'd get a name brand this time.

I looked at the Chaintech board (found one for $75 too) but I like the idea of cool and quiet running automaticaly in the background rather then having to change settings myself to underclock.

As for the video card, you're pretty much right. I plan on doing some gaming but nothing too heavy, so I'm going to just skip it, save some money and stick with my old card for now anyways.

I should be getting the system tomorrow so hopefully it'll run well.

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