Mobos & CPUs - Seeking Honest Advice

[grabbingsand]

(X-Posted under CPUs as well -- forgive the sense of deja-vu)

This is my first PC build in years, and I'm seeking some honest advice. Four months of research still has me wondering about the best course of action.

I have no brand loyalty. I had an AMD K6 back in the day and I'm running a Pentium 3 now. I've stretched the capabilities of this 600mhz chip as far as they will go and it is time to upgrade. What I want is performance, not flash. It's possible that I'll be OCing, but unlikely. I want to be able to enjoy my 3D MMOs and FPSs with rates above 5fps. If I can delay obsolescence for the next year or so, then great. My existing graphics card will be transplanted to the new box (marked with * in the builds), but I am not opposed to replacing it in about 6 months. Also, we have a budget here. I'd like to keep the total cost of the proc, mobo, memory and HD below or around $500.

So here are the possible new builds that I'm considering:

Build 1:
- AMD Athlon 64 2800+
- ABIT "KV8" K8T800 Mobo
- Kingston 512MB DDR PC-3200
- GeForce FX 5200 256MB*
- Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA

Build 2:
- AMD Athlon XP 2800+
- ABIT "AN7" nForce2 Ultra 400
- Kingston 512MB DDR PC-3200
- GeForce FX 5200 256MB*
- Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA

Build 3:
- Pentium 4/ 2.8E GHz 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2
- ASUS "P4S800D" SiS655FX
- Kingston 512MB DDR PC-3200
- GeForce FX 5200 256MB*
- Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA

Again, I have no brand loyalty here. If anyone has good or ill to say about the memory choice, speak out. Also, if anyone thinks that the oft-bemoaned pain of installing XP on a single SATA drive makes an Ultra ATA or IDE a better choice, say so. If you need clarification from me about anything, ask away.

I'm doing this build as part of an article I'm writing for an online magazine, so I want to make sure that my DIY recommendations are beneficial not only to myself, but also my readers.

Help me, Anandtech Forumites.... you're my only hope.

 

[Vette73]

Since you memtioned gaming I would go for a Athlon64 system. Here is what I would do with a $500 budget



1. Board: Chaintech VNF3-250 Has SATA, sound, ethernet and uses the New nForce3 250 chipset so the AGP/PCI is locked and can allow you to overclock the cpu $99 shipped at newegg.com

2. CPU: Athlon64 3000+ retail Comes with heatsink and 3 year warrenty $223

3. Ram: 512mg PC3200 Mushkin retail $90 newegg.com (other brands a little cheaper or more $$)

4. HardDrive: Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA $74


total = $486 for a very fast system. Now you video card will be the thing that will hold you back. So plan on upgrading that as it will be the bottleneck in your system after this upgrade.

 

[grabbingsand]

Cool. I was looking at that mobo as well ...

So you'd go with the 3000+ over the 2800+? Some articles say that the performance difference isn't enough to justify the price difference between the two.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: grabbingsand
Cool. I was looking at that mobo as well ...

So you'd go with the 3000+ over the 2800+? Some articles say that the performance difference isn't enough to justify the price difference between the two.

Maybe you are thinking abiut a 3000+ and 3200+ as they run at the same Mhz but jutys have different L2 cache. There is a good enough performance diff. between the 2800 and 3000, and the price diff. is very little.
I have a Athlon64 3000+ in my system

 

[PC Freak]

What's the difference in the Chaintech VNF3-250 and the Chaintech VNF3-150

 

[jamori]

Originally posted by: PC_Freak
What's the difference in the Chaintech VNF3-250 and the Chaintech VNF3-150

The most important difference between the vnf3-250 and the vnf3-150 is the use of a different chipset: the nvidia nforce3-250 and nforce3-150 respectively (i'm actually just assuming this from the model name, as chaintech's website doesnt even list a vnf3-150..)

anyway, the nforce3-250 is quite a bit better than the nf3-150 in terms of overall performance, and the nf3-250 actually implements a working agp/pci lock, which will allow you to overclock your processor without needing to worry about running pci and agp devices (including sata hard drives, in most cases) out of spec. Some devices are more picky than others, but from personal experience, you can only increase the "fsb" about 10% with a sata drive before it corrupts your harddrive and you have to reformat.

a question to others, as i've heard this idea thrown around .. will running your sata drive too far out of spec cause physical damage to the drive, or will it just corrupt your data?

 

[grabbingsand]

Excellent advice.

Here's what I'm looking at so far:
http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishHistoryReview.asp?position=HISTORY&submit=VIEW&ID=752816

Anyone else have anything to say?

 

[jamori]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
1. Board: Chaintech VNF3-250 Has SATA, sound, ethernet and uses the New nForce3 250 chipset so the AGP/PCI is locked and can allow you to overclock the cpu $99 shipped at newegg.com

2. CPU: Athlon64 3000+ retail Comes with heatsink and 3 year warrenty $223

3. Ram: 512mg PC3200 Mushkin retail $90 newegg.com (other brands a little cheaper or more $$)

4. HardDrive: Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA $74


total = $486 for a very fast system. Now you video card will be the thing that will hold you back. So plan on upgrading that as it will be the bottleneck in your system after this upgrade.

I agree on all points, but do have one suggestion. If you can spare the extra $36 (putting you at $522), you can get the WD 160GB sata drive .. doubling your storage space for just $36 more.

another note, don't bother buying matched sticks of ram, as the socket754 athlon64's dont support dual-channel ram, so you're better off just getting a single stick of 512 so that it'tal be easier to upgrade ram in the future.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: jamori

Originally posted by: PC_Freak
What's the difference in the Chaintech VNF3-250 and the Chaintech VNF3-150

The most important difference between the vnf3-250 and the vnf3-150 is the use of a different chipset: the nvidia nforce3-250 and nforce3-150 respectively (i'm actually just assuming this from the model name, as chaintech's website doesnt even list a vnf3-150..)

anyway, the nforce3-250 is quite a bit better than the nf3-150 in terms of overall performance, and the nf3-250 actually implements a working agp/pci lock, which will allow you to overclock your processor without needing to worry about running pci and agp devices (including sata hard drives, in most cases) out of spec. Some devices are more picky than others, but from personal experience, you can only increase the "fsb" about 10% with a sata drive before it corrupts your harddrive and you have to reformat.

a question to others, as i've heard this idea thrown around .. will running your sata drive too far out of spec cause physical damage to the drive, or will it just corrupt your data?

It should not damage the Hard drive but may damge the data on it. I have my FSB at 212Mhz right now and the SATA is ok. But my board does not have a AGP/PCI lock like the nForce3 250 does so I don't want to push it and take that chance.

The nForce3 250 also adds TRUE SATA ports, which is nice so they are not on the PCI bus.

 

[djm68]

Originally posted by: jamori

Originally posted by: PC_Freak
What's the difference in the Chaintech VNF3-250 and the Chaintech VNF3-150

The most important difference between the vnf3-250 and the vnf3-150 is the use of a different chipset: the nvidia nforce3-250 and nforce3-150 respectively (i'm actually just assuming this from the model name, as chaintech's website doesnt even list a vnf3-150..)

anyway, the nforce3-250 is quite a bit better than the nf3-150 in terms of overall performance, and the nf3-250 actually implements a working agp/pci lock, which will allow you to overclock your processor without needing to worry about running pci and agp devices

Before concluding that the nf3-250 chipset is quite a bit better, performance wise, than the nf3-150, you should take a look at this article:

Check this out

The Aopen AK89 Max, based on nf3-150, is either just as fast, faster, or in a few cases only marginally slower than both nf3-250 and via k8t800 based boards. Also worthy of note is that the AK89 Max has a working PCI/AGP lock which allowed the testers to easily reach 250 fsb with an a64 3200+.

I am seriosuly considering the AK89 Max as I am tired of waiting for the nf3-250 boards, and the boards that have come out so far are pretty clearly rev 0.9 boards, which do not implement the nf3-250 very well. Perhaps that will change when/if the MSI k8n neo ever comes out...

The full review of the AK89 Max can be found here AK89 Max review

Cheers,
DDJM

 

[essasin]

For the most part there is not a big differece between all the the various chipsets. But the 250 boards seem to have more options such as gigabyte lan, firewire, and such. I myself have been looking at the aopen becuase of its locking pci and agp slot (im not totally sure about agp). But from a lot of reading it seems that the most proven overall baord right now is the msi neo ifsr, you could simply see this from all the reviews and ratings over at newegg, and you dotn have to stare at the computer all day like i did.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: djm68

Originally posted by: jamori

Originally posted by: PC_Freak
What's the difference in the Chaintech VNF3-250 and the Chaintech VNF3-150

The most important difference between the vnf3-250 and the vnf3-150 is the use of a different chipset: the nvidia nforce3-250 and nforce3-150 respectively (i'm actually just assuming this from the model name, as chaintech's website doesnt even list a vnf3-150..)

anyway, the nforce3-250 is quite a bit better than the nf3-150 in terms of overall performance, and the nf3-250 actually implements a working agp/pci lock, which will allow you to overclock your processor without needing to worry about running pci and agp devices

Before concluding that the nf3-250 chipset is quite a bit better, performance wise, than the nf3-150, you should take a look at this article:

Check this out

The Aopen AK89 Max, based on nf3-150, is either just as fast, faster, or in a few cases only marginally slower than both nf3-250 and via k8t800 based boards. Also worthy of note is that the AK89 Max has a working PCI/AGP lock which allowed the testers to easily reach 250 fsb with an a64 3200+.

I am seriosuly considering the AK89 Max as I am tired of waiting for the nf3-250 boards, and the boards that have come out so far are pretty clearly rev 0.9 boards, which do not implement the nf3-250 very well. Perhaps that will change when/if the MSI k8n neo ever comes out...

The full review of the AK89 Max can be found here AK89 Max review

Cheers,
DDJM

The tangible benefits of nF3 250Gb are mostly

1) the gigabit NIC has finally made it off the dinky PCI bus and out onto the huge Hypertransport bus, for throughput that peaks higher than a 64-bit 100MHz PCI-X server NIC. Of course, the typical home user has probably got about as much use for this as they do for a car that goes 180 miles per hour...

2) integrated firewall and some other little network trinkets

3) native SATA support

4) "any-drive" RAID, allowing RAIDing of any combo of PATA and SATA drives provided that these are attached to controllers that are controlled by the southbridge (we're seeing plenty of PCI-based tack-on controllers still, unfortunately :|)

 

[Shortass]

How do the ASRock K8S8X, Chaintech VNF3-250, and the Aopen AK89 Max boards compare?