Computer geekery

[plonq]

Here is my current shopping list (subject to tweaking here and there prior to purchase).


Sorry guys, no Mac for me this time around.  I'm open to ideas and suggestions if you've had good/bad experience with any of these, or think I'm setting off in the wrong direction.

Motherboard:
ASUS -- (A8V-E-DELUXE) (VIA K8T890) AMD SOCKET 939 / 8 CHANNEL AUDIO / DUAL CAHNNEL MEMORY / 10-1000MBPS GIGA LAN / 8X USB 2.0 / SATA / RAID 0,1 / IEEE 1394 / (3 PCI / 2 PCI-EX1 / 1 PCI-EX16 / 4 DDR 400 / MAX 4.0GB MEMORY)
CPU
AMD --  ATHLON 64 (3200+) SOCKET 939 (64 BIT) (RETAIL W/ COOLER) (3 YEARS MFG WARRANTY)
Memory
2 x Generic --  PC-3200 DDR (400MHZ) 512MB W/O ECC
Video
Sapphire --  (RADEON X800 PRO-VIVO) (RETAIL) 256MB DDR / PCI-Ex16 / TV-OUT / VIDEO-IN / DVI
Hard Drive
Seagate --  (BARRACUDA SERIAL ATA V) 200GB (8MB) / 7200 RPM (SATA) (5 YEARS MFG WARRANTY)

The two components I'm wavering on the most are the CPU (I'd save $60 going with the 3000+) and the video card (because there's a question of availability).  I'd love to go with an X850, but I'm not eager to part with big dollars when I'm pretty sure an X800 will meet my needs for a few years.

Comments

[kfops.livejournal.com]

I've always had a really positive experience using ASUS motherboards, they're my first choice in building machines... and often times I'll wait to get an ASUS instead of buying other brands.

As far as the CPU goes, do you think you'd miss that 200Mhz? With $60 you could buy yourself a lot of bread, eat that and then as you're falling asleep everything would seem a lot faster! Sometimes it's just as easy to buy the slower chip, save the money and then at some later point when prices have fallen just do a big chip-swap for something with way more than 3200.

Personally, I'm sort've a Kingston RAM guy, but obviously a lot of folks don't want to shell out for that, which is understandable.

Looks like a pretty good shopping list to me, either way!

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I've gone ABIT for my last two motherboards and they've never steered me wrong in either case. Unfortunately none of the local suppliers are offering up much from ABIT these days. Ah well - nobody ever got fired for buying ASUS. Failing that I'm somewhat partial to Gygabite for some reason, and not even entirely put off by MSI lately.

Whatever became of Soyo? They seem to have fallen off the radar lately.

[kfops.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard good things about ABIT, too.

I just got a bit of a grump-o on for at one point I did an upgrade and my wholesaler was having trouble getting the ASUS board that I wanted. He recommended another brand... can't remember off the top of my head what it was now (and it's probably best not to mention anyways, lest the name sticks), but it was a rather well-known name.

No end of problems!

Once bitten, twice shy, I guess.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Do the letters ECS come to mind?

[gedrean.livejournal.com]

*cackles* You got bitten too!

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Indirectly. I've been called upon more than once to help out friends whose ECS motherboards self-destructed on them in fairly short order. I don't know what their current fare is like, but their earlier boards were trash.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

I'd never had any problems with ASUS either...
except..
My K8N-E's onboard NIC seems to be dieing ;_; I just bought the thing in January -.-
Sure, warranty would be nice if a trip up to the US wouldn't be more expensive than getting a new motherboard here :P

I think Soyo went out of business

[plonq.livejournal.com]

I had toyed with the Nvidia chipset motherboards, but unless things have changed, the Via ones have typically been more stable - albiet a percent or two slower.