Updating family computer. How does this look?

[Anime-niac]

My parents finally decided to update the family computer into the GHz range, which
means an almost entirely new computer. We will be using the hard drives, cd-rom,
& the external devices from our old computer. The main use of the computer is for
internet access, word processing, recording LPs and burning them to cd, and some
occassional gameplay by me. I tend to run two years behind the current gaming
trend, so I'm not overly concerned with cutting edge at the moment.

Here is the list of what we plan on getting right now:

Cooler Master Praetorian (PAC-T01) Aluminum Case

Enermax Whisper EG465P-VE(FC) 460W PS

Abit AN7 MB

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 400FSB

Kingston DDR 3200 Non-ECC 1GB (2 512MB sticks)

Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

ASUS Radeon 9600XT

Item we plan on getting later:

DVD+/-RW (probably the Pioneer A-06)

LCD Monitor (Either a Samsung or NEC model)

We're buying everything from a local dealer, so there's a limit to what we can get
without having to order and then wait for it. For those interested, the company
is Monarch Computer Systems (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/).
--
Anime-niac

"You've heard of the Pon-tiac? Well I'm the Anime-niac!"

To contact me either:
1) post a message with "Attn: Anime-niac"
2) or e-mail me at ronnie at ronnie dot freewebspace dot com (you know the drill)

 

[Frank Fussenegger]

Your choice of a case would be my favorite. I have a similar Cooler
Master case. You might want to consider a fan controller depending on
how sensitive you are to the noise. I run the front and rear fans at
about 25% power except while gamming. I leave the top fan off (it is
the noisiest) except when under a full load. I use a Matrix Orbital
LCD display/fan controller, but there are many other options for fan
control.

 

[Dave C.]

My parents finally decided to update the family computer into the GHz range, which
means an almost entirely new computer. We will be using the hard drives, cd-rom,
& the external devices from our old computer. The main use of the computer is for
internet access, word processing, recording LPs and burning them to cd, and some
occassional gameplay by me. I tend to run two years behind the current gaming
trend, so I'm not overly concerned with cutting edge at the moment.

Here is the list of what we plan on getting right now:

Cooler Master Praetorian (PAC-T01) Aluminum Case

Enermax Whisper EG465P-VE(FC) 460W PS

Abit AN7 MB

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 400FSB

Kingston DDR 3200 Non-ECC 1GB (2 512MB sticks)

Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

ASUS Radeon 9600XT

Item we plan on getting later:

DVD+/-RW (probably the Pioneer A-06)

LCD Monitor (Either a Samsung or NEC model)

We're buying everything from a local dealer, so there's a limit to what we can get
without having to order and then wait for it. For those interested, the company
is Monarch Computer Systems (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/).

Looks awesome. In fact, it's overkill for what you want to use it for.
Nothing wrong with that. I'd suggest throwing a *cheap* CDR/W drive
into the mix to replace the CD-Rom drive. That way, you'll put less wear
and tear on the DVD burner for burning audio CDs. Oh, go for the NEC LCD
monitor, such as LCD1760V if they still sell that. The display quality is
better than the Samsung LCDs, though the Samsungs are not bad. Also, watch
the response time of the LCD monitor. If you go with the LCD1760V, you'll
be fine. Anything else you might not like much for gaming. -Dave

 

[S.Heenan]

My parents finally decided to update the family computer into the GHz
range, which means an almost entirely new computer. We will be using
the hard drives, cd-rom, & the external devices from our old
computer. The main use of the computer is for internet access, word
processing, recording LPs and burning them to cd, and some
occassional gameplay by me. I tend to run two years behind the
current gaming trend, so I'm not overly concerned with cutting edge
at the moment.

Here is the list of what we plan on getting right now:

Cooler Master Praetorian (PAC-T01) Aluminum Case

Antec True Power 430W-480W PSU

Abit NF7/NF7-S MB

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 400FSB

Kingston DDR 3200 Non-ECC 512MB

Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

ASUS Radeon 9600XT

Item we plan on getting later:

DVD+/-RW (probably the Pioneer A-06)

LCD Monitor (Either a Samsung or NEC model)

See changes above.

Run the 2500+ at 11x200MHz. The tasks you list do not require a gigabyte of
RAM. Antec makes the better power supply for the same money. Nice case.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

Here is the list of what we plan on getting right now:

Cooler Master Praetorian (PAC-T01) Aluminum Case

Enermax Whisper EG465P-VE(FC) 460W PS

Don't want to cause a war here, but review after review rated Antec power
supplies better.

Abit AN7 MB

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 400FSB

Kingston DDR 3200 Non-ECC 1GB (2 512MB sticks)

Ever looked at Corsair memory?

Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

ASUS Radeon 9600XT

Item we plan on getting later:

DVD+/-RW (probably the Pioneer A-06)

I hear that 16x and dual layer drives will be available by summer...

LCD Monitor (Either a Samsung or NEC model)

If you're into gaming, get a CRT monitor. Particularly with FPS games, the
delay time in the refresh could be the difference between dying and living.

We're buying everything from a local dealer, so there's a limit to what we
can get
without having to order and then wait for it. For those interested, the
company is Monarch Computer Systems (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/).

While I support your support for a local company, check their prices against
the ones listed at www.newegg.com and www.zipzoomfly.com. Unless, they're
building the system for you. Then, you don't have much choice, do you?

--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:44pm up 29 days 2:30, 3 users, load average: 0.31, 0.65, 0.66

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Anime-niac]

This board doesn't have enough usb ports to support all six of our external
devices, and four of them refuse to run through a hub (which I find very odd).
That's why we choose the AN7.

See changes above.

Run the 2500+ at 11x200MHz. The tasks you list do not require a gigabyte of
RAM. Antec makes the better power supply for the same money. Nice case.

My parents don't want to overclock, so the cpu has tol be the 3200+. What's wrong
with 1GB of memory? My parents have 600+ LPs that they want converted to cd and
to date I've only managed to do five of them. The biggest problem I've run into
is lack of memory for major undo options (like when I mess up the de-hiss/click
process), and we have 512MB in our current system. As for the power supply, I'll
do some more checking, but the Antec 430W is $8 more and 30W less than the Enermax
I listed, plus the Enermax has 8 molex connectors. I haven't seen anything about
how many the Antec has.
--
Anime-niac

"You've heard of the Pon-tiac? Well I'm the Anime-niac!"

To contact me either:
1) post a message with "Attn: Anime-niac"
2) or e-mail me at ronnie at ronnie dot freewebspace dot com (you know the drill)

 

[Anime-niac]

Looks awesome. In fact, it's overkill for what you want to use it for.
Nothing wrong with that. I'd suggest throwing a *cheap* CDR/W drive
into the mix to replace the CD-Rom drive. That way, you'll put less wear
and tear on the DVD burner for burning audio CDs. Oh, go for the NEC LCD
monitor, such as LCD1760V if they still sell that. The display quality is
better than the Samsung LCDs, though the Samsungs are not bad. Also, watch
the response time of the LCD monitor. If you go with the LCD1760V, you'll
be fine. Anything else you might not like much for gaming. -Dave

One of our external devices is a Plextor 48/24/48 CD-RW drive.

--
Anime-niac

"You've heard of the Pon-tiac? Well I'm the Anime-niac!"

To contact me either:
1) post a message with "Attn: Anime-niac"
2) or e-mail me at ronnie at ronnie dot freewebspace dot com (you know the drill)

 

[Anime-niac]

Don't want to cause a war here, but review after review rated Antec power
supplies better.


Ever looked at Corsair memory?

Haven't been able to find any reviews of Corsair vs. Kingston. I've used Kingston
before so I know the brand. Plus there's a big price difference, and we have a
limited budget.

I hear that 16x and dual layer drives will be available by summer...

That's probably when we'll be getting one as it stands now.

If you're into gaming, get a CRT monitor. Particularly with FPS games, the
delay time in the refresh could be the difference between dying and living.

From everything I've read about the graphics card we're getting, it supports dual
monitors, so our 15" CRT can stay hooked up (for my games) and we can add an LCD
(at a later date) for general use.

While I support your support for a local company, check their prices against
the ones listed at www.newegg.com and www.zipzoomfly.com. Unless, they're
building the system for you. Then, you don't have much choice, do you?

It's more a case of being able to pick up the items directly from the company
versus having them shipped. For the items I checked, the prices were fairly close
to Monarch's. Plus if there is a problem with something, we don't have to ship it
back to the company, we can return it directly to the store.
--
Anime-niac

"You've heard of the Pon-tiac? Well I'm the Anime-niac!"

To contact me either:
1) post a message with "Attn: Anime-niac"
2) or e-mail me at ronnie at ronnie dot freewebspace dot com (you know the drill)

 

[Anime-niac]

This board doesn't have enough usb ports to support all six of our external
devices, and four of them refuse to run through a hub (which I find very odd).
That's why we choose the AN7.

I take that back. I downloaded a copy of the manual and the NF7-S does have six
usb ports, four of them are by internal headers. Any particular reason you
suggest the NF7-S over the AN7?

My parents don't want to overclock, so the cpu has tol be the 3200+. What's wrong
with 1GB of memory? My parents have 600+ LPs that they want converted to cd and
to date I've only managed to do five of them. The biggest problem I've run into
is lack of memory for major undo options (like when I mess up the de-hiss/click
process), and we have 512MB in our current system. As for the power supply, I'll
do some more checking, but the Antec 430W is $8 more and 30W less than the Enermax
I listed, plus the Enermax has 8 molex connectors. I haven't seen anything about
how many the Antec has.

I managed to find some pics that showed the Antec True430 and its connectors along
with several reviews (what a difference using the right search terms can make).
I'll have to discuss this with my parents, but we may go with Antec instead of
Enermax.
--
Anime-niac

"You've heard of the Pon-tiac? Well I'm the Anime-niac!"

To contact me either:
1) post a message with "Attn: Anime-niac"
2) or e-mail me at ronnie at ronnie dot freewebspace dot com (you know the drill)

 

[S.Heenan]

I take that back. I downloaded a copy of the manual and the NF7-S
does have six usb ports, four of them are by internal headers. Any
particular reason you suggest the NF7-S over the AN7?

I'm more familiar with the NF7-S Rev2 which I now consider a mature board,
free of bugs. Since you plan on an Audigy2 sound card, the NF7 may fit the
bill. The Asus A7N8X Deluxe Rev2 is another great board.

Read the thread titled, "AN7 is good or bad /nf7-s ?" January, 4th, 2004 in
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit

"BigBadger" is due to receive the AN7 and will very likely provide feedback
on his findings later this week.

I managed to find some pics that showed the Antec True430 and its
connectors along with several reviews (what a difference using the
right search terms can make). I'll have to discuss this with my
parents, but we may go with Antec instead of Enermax.

The Antec True Power series is simply a better power supply. Enermax has
weaker 12V rails which can be a problem when a great number of drives are
used.

 

[jeffc]

Ever looked at Corsair memory?

Based on what I've read, Kingston is good stuff - as good as Corsair.
Mushkin might be as good or better.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

Based on what I've read, Kingston is good stuff - as good as Corsair.
Mushkin might be as good or better.

I believe, but I'm not positive, that Kingston is a rebrand of someone
else's memory.

I've heard good things about Mushkin. I doubt they're better than Corsair,
but that's all subjective mostly.

--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
10:03pm up 30 days 6:49, 3 users, load average: 0.10, 0.13, 0.09

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[callsignviper]

My parents finally decided to update the family computer into the GHz range, which
means an almost entirely new computer. We will be using the hard drives, cd-rom,
& the external devices from our old computer. The main use of the computer is for
internet access, word processing, recording LPs and burning them to cd, and some
occassional gameplay by me. I tend to run two years behind the current gaming
trend, so I'm not overly concerned with cutting edge at the moment.

Here is the list of what we plan on getting right now:

Cooler Master Praetorian (PAC-T01) Aluminum Case

Enermax Whisper EG465P-VE(FC) 460W PS

This is actually a 430 Watt P/S. That's what the manual I have for mine
says. IMO this is a good power supply and comparable Antec labeled P/Ss are
just as good.

Abit AN7 MB

Abit NF7-S or Asus A7N8X Deluxe (Rev 2 for both)

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 400FSB

XP 2500+ Overclocked to 3200+ (nothing wrong with overclocking the 2500 and
it will save significant bucks). My 3200+....err 2500+ is rock solid at
11x200 FSB.

Kingston DDR 3200 Non-ECC 1GB (2 512MB sticks)

Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

No need for any sound card with either of the above motherboards as they
have excellent onboard sound chips.

ASUS Radeon 9600XT

Nice card but shop around as you can find the ATI Radeon 9800 non-Pro for
about the same price.

Item we plan on getting later:

DVD+/-RW (probably the Pioneer A-06)

The Pioneer A-07 (8x write speed for DVD+R AND DVD-R media) will be
available this month or next. If you can wait until about March/April you
can probably find an excellent deal on this drive.

LCD Monitor (Either a Samsung or NEC model)

We're buying everything from a local dealer, so there's a limit to what we can get
without having to order and then wait for it. For those interested, the company
is Monarch Computer Systems (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/).

Good ratings at www.resellerratings.com plus they're local. Seems like a
good choice.


--
callsignviper


The truth is out there. You just have to look in the right places and ask
the right questions.

 

[news.demon.co.uk]

I think its a very powerful PC for *normal* use but you say that you are
going to use the old HDD! This would concern me and if you need 1G memory
for this LP conversion stuff you will need a good HDD to read and write from
also. I would recommend a IBM 180GXP or somthing around that mark.

JaMMeR

 

[jeffc]

I've heard good things about Mushkin. I doubt they're better than Corsair,
but that's all subjective mostly.

I don't think it's subjective. It's virtually impossible to test how long
memory will last, but in tests I've read regarding overclocking, Mushkin
comes out on top. With regard to passing memory tests at stated specs, all
the top brands are equal, and perfect.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

I don't think it's subjective. It's virtually impossible to test how long
memory will last, but in tests I've read regarding overclocking, Mushkin
comes out on top. With regard to passing memory tests at stated specs,
all the top brands are equal, and perfect.

You get X number of people that swear by Mushking, X number of people that
swear by Corsair, X number of people that swear by Crucial... Every brand
has tolerances and some sticks OC better than others. Therefore,
experiences vary.

I trust reviews very little anymore since I bought my MB based on glowing
review after glowing review. Then it surfaced that the thing wouldn't OC
well because of a manual CPU overvolt bug. It's been fixed, but not without
crippling the amount of voltage you can give the CPU. That limited the OC
potential of the board. Everyone found it difficult to digest that these
so-called reviews could have overclocked the board without getting the very
same reboot issue that every consumer did that tried to OC it. Something
stunk.

--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:27pm up 31 days 2:13, 3 users, load average: 0.44, 0.36, 0.26

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Anime-niac]

I think its a very powerful PC for *normal* use but you say that you are
going to use the old HDD! This would concern me and if you need 1G memory
for this LP conversion stuff you will need a good HDD to read and write from
also. I would recommend a IBM 180GXP or somthing around that mark.

JaMMeR

<snip>

The two HDD's are a Maxtor 30GB 7200rpm 8M cache (6E030L0) and a Maxtor 40GB
7200rpm 8M cache (6L040J2). We'll probably get another HD (somewhere in the 150GB
range) in April or May. As for the system being powerful, we're looking at using
the computer for about five years before we do another serious upgrade like this.
We got our current system in '98 and it's just now reaching the point where it no
longer meets our needs.
--
Anime-niac

"You've heard of the Pon-tiac? Well I'm the Anime-niac!"

To contact me either:
1) post a message with "Attn: Anime-niac"
2) or e-mail me at ronnie at ronnie dot freewebspace dot com (you know the drill)

 

[jeffc]

I trust reviews very little anymore since I bought my MB based on glowing
review after glowing review.

Well like I said before - you got 2 choices
a) read reviews and find review sites or magazines you think you can trust
by spending the time verifying their claims
b) go get an advanced degree in computer and electrical engineering, and
spend your time and your money testing all these things yourself