On Sunday 24 November 2002 18:47, John R Pierce wrote: > > my shopping list for a reasonably priced high quality P4 right now is, with > prices from my local cloneshop (not the cheapest place, but good > service)... > > $213 Intel Retail P4-2.4"B" (these have the 533MHz bus)
2.53B should be very little more expensive. Last time I checked the first big price step was still between 2.5A/2.53B and 2.6A/2.66B. The other point here is that P4s don't seem to benefit much (if at all) from 533MHz FSB except with 533 MHz RDRAM. Even at 400 MHz, DDR throttles the CPU/memory bus to the point where the CPU/chipset clock rate is unimportant. Consider spending a bit more on a Zalman Flower Cu/Al S478 heatsink & variable speed fan. Even with the fan turned down to minimum, at which speed it is truly inaudible, it's at least as effective as the "retail box" HSF. > $133 Asus P4PE/L (i845pe chip, integrated ethernet and audio) > $158 Samsung 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM > $163 Asus V8420 GF4 Ti 4200, 128MB Personally I _love_ the Matrox G400/G450/G550 video card. Cheaper, unsurpassed 2D display, drivers superbly stable. But then I'm not a games freak. > $113 Seagate Baracuda ATA IV 80GB disk (super quiet, very fast) > $48 Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM I could easily do without the DVD drive. > $83 Teac CDW540E 40/12/48 cd-rw burner Seems a bit expensive. There's little point in going for superfast write/rewrite performance; either you can't get media much faster than 24xW / 8xRW, or you can't justify the price premium. > $8 Mitsumi floppy If I can boot from a CD, I don't need a floppy drive any more. Spend the money on a couple of round IDE cables instead. (Neater, less air flow obstruction) > $78 Enlight mid-tower IMHO money spent on the case is money well spent. On my previous experience with Enlight cases, if you buy one you should also buy a box of sticking plasters. I always seemed to end up with shredded fingers whenever I worked inside them. There are cheaper, nastier cases with even sharper edges, but I don't reccomend them, either. These days I use Coolermaster ATC200 (comes fitted with 4 quiet 8 cm fans) and Enermax 350W PSU (dual fan; thermally controlled inlet, manual variable speed exhaust). I don't know the current US price but the case & PSU come to around £180 retail here (so probably $180ish?). For that you get an all-metal case with superb build quality, excellent cooling with barely audible fan roar and really smart styling. It's a normal-size mini-tower case but will accomodate _at least_ 6 3.5" drives without touching the 3 5.25" bays. A good case will survive a few PC generations. > $23 Microsoft Intellimouse Optical OEM > $9 Mitsumi generic 104 keyboard I _hate_ membrane keyboards & would not pay even 9 cents for any of them... If you can, get a genuine late -1980s IBM PS/2 keyboard from a scrapyard / car boot sale rather than buy a new one. It will be more reliable as well as much more comfortable to use. I think Cherry still make a proper mechanical switch keyboard with a decent action, but it's _very_ expensive (well over £50). Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
