(yet more PC hardware details below... feel free to skip this if isn't your thing...)
> > $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. my store wants $50 more for the 2.53B over the 2.4B. The A versions are pretty much history. seemed a bit more than 133Mhz is worth (~5% faster), to me anyways. OTOH, $50 is about 5% of the total system price, so thats a judgement call. > 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. I'm pretty sure the newer i845PE chipset runs the 533Mhz FSB with the DDR at 266/533 ? I'd sure think that would scale nicely over a 200/400 memory bus. Yes, the PC1066 RDRAM stuff is running the memory at 533/1066, however, its a narrower bus, so that offsets the speed boost. the DDR ram is 64 bits wide, same as the CPU, while the RDRAM is 32bit and has to double-cycle to supply one CPU cycle. > 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. OTOH, I've never had any problem with any CPU with the retail Intel heatsinks. Their retail CPUs have a better warranty than the OEM ones (where the warranty if any is between you and the reseller). > > $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. NVIDIA has owned the 3D sector now for quite some time. Their OpenGL implementation is excellent, quite usable for scientific and CAD graphics in addition to gaming. The 2D performance of NVIDIA cards is quite good anyways, and they do a very nice job on video playback and stuff like that. > > $113 Seagate Baracuda ATA IV 80GB disk (super quiet, very fast) > > $48 Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM > > I could easily do without the DVD drive. I've been having fun ripping rock video trailers off of various DVD movies I own and turning them into MPEGs for my own amusement. Mostly as an experiment... more seriously, however, I've been seeing more and more things that formerly required multiple CDs showing up on DVDrom. Certainly, having 4GB+ on a single disk beats 5 660MB CDs that you have to flip through for a mapping database or something. Also, I do enough CD -> CD things that I find having two drives is very convenient, I'd use the dvd as the primary reader, and mostly use the CD-R as a burner. > > $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. those are very fast CD readers too... I dunno CD-RW, never had much use for them, but the bulk TDK blanks I get at Costco seem to burn 100% AOK at 40X, and you can make a 700MB data backup in just a couple of minutes. > > $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) I get these for last ditch hardware diagnostics if nothing else. I hate having to dink around with building a bootable CD of something like GHOST, or MEMTEST32. > > $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. The recent Enlight cases I've seen have had all inside edges nicely dressed, and they are a bit better at airflow than the Inwin cases I've used extensively in the past. > 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. The ATC201c-SX shows 4 5.25", 2 floppies, plus 4x3.5" internal, and the 4x80mm fans, but no PSU for $143 at my local store. A Antec or Entex 350W PSU will add $50 or $60. Those are very nice cases, for sure, but the price premium is quite steep around here anyways. My 'here' is near Silicon Valley, btw. I'm 20 minutes away on the coast, the clone-store I'm referencing here is a quick jaunt over the hill to the Valley. > A good case will survive a few PC generations. depends on how often you upgrade, I suppose. I hate to throw out perfectly working motherboards. I have two ATX generation cases, both still operational. When I get a new system, I'll probably decommission an old AT case P133 thats my firewall/internet server and use the p3-450 as its replacment, so that case will live on. my p3-800 becomes my kids system, and I'll get a new case for a system quite similar to what I outlined here. Its actually been fairly rare that I've replaced a motherboard in a working system. I left out another peripheral I'd probably get, a $50 or so IEEE1394 card for my DV camcorder :) _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
