Should I trade or not???

[$1500-P4 gamer]

OK heres the situation. My girlfreind wants a pc after x-mas. Shes buying it so whatever she wants is ok by me. Anyhow after running through price/performance and etc. we came across one bridge to cross. She doesnt want any noise. Like my P4 silent as the night before xmas. Well with a XP2000+ thats not likly. So I told her it will make some noise (refered her to my moms xp1600+ system). I got this:( . LOL So I said you like P4 huh? I got this :D Then I said "well you buy the mobo, cpu and ram and I'll swap ya". She likes that idea. Anyhow my Asus P4T-e was $175.00, the P4 1.5 willy s478 was $135, and pc800 rdrma 256mb was $80.00 Now her list is xp2000+ or 2100 with a nforce2 (not sure which one yet) and 2 sticks of 256mb pc2100 or 2700 ddr. Should I trade? I think the xp will kick my currnet systems **** but she wants quiet. Would you trade or not tha is the question. And please no intel vs. amd flames, I like both. Im looking to hear from you other folks especially who own both systems and those who dont too. ;) Convince me, Im uncertain. the thing I'm looking for is 333mhz support (new amd's) and a cheaper upgrade path. Her, hehe, she wont upgrade so thats no concern for her. THanks all.:t

[DocEvi1]

I would look into silent cooling : Water Cooling or a Zalman...have a deeks through this forum for silent cooling & check out www.quietpc.com

Stefan

[BipolarBill]

A Thermalright SLK-800 with a 2900RPM fan is not noisy. Punch an 80mm hole in the case side over the CPU area and put a grill (or filter) and unpowered fan in it to keep the dust down. All you then need is the standard 2-fan PSU for exhaust. It will run cool and quiet. Let her hear it and decide for herself which she wants.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

"Let her hear it and decide for herself which she wants."

That may be best. That way nothing comes back on me, if ya know what I mean. Anyhow, guess best bet would be to run them side by side for her. Thanks BP and DocEvi1.
:t

By the way is the nforce2 worth the extra $?

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer
By the way is the nforce2 worth the extra $? Compared to a KT333A? No. Compared to a KT400, yes. The nForce is as close to a motherboard with real discrete components as you can get.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

So which one would you get? Im kinda lost here. HELP. I know I want 333mhz fsb support for newer cpu's. Firewire would be nice seeeing how my digi camcorder has that and it would way help with moving high 8's to digital. Seriel isnt even a option. USB 2.0 would be good too as I have several usb 2 compat devices, like my printer and zip drive. Any suggestions as to what fits in this catagory??? With the best price/ performance and still a reliable mobo.:D Thanks BP, Im def. in need of advice on high end AMD mobos as you can tell. There are just sooo many. Best lowend mobo is the ecs k7s5a I know that. But I want to support these newer cpu's too for the future.:t

[genesound]

Just check the current values of the stuff to determine if it's an equitable trade.

There are quiet cooling soulutions for AMD like BB said.

I'm very satisfied with my Asus nForce2. I have usb2 and 1394 stuff so it's features come in handy. I'm using scsi hd though.

I unlocked a Palomino (xp1800 newegg special) and put in there running at 1790Mhz and it's smokin my xp2100 in the nforce1 (no oc) board. It's runnin Kingston pc2700 ram @ 171MHz, 5,2,2,2. It does the shorter seti wus in 2:33, where the xp2100 is doing them in 3:06!

I'll put a 333 chip and better memory in there when prices come down and my economic situation is better :t

[BipolarBill]

My point is that a board like the MSI KT3 Ultra2 is 90% as good as the nForce2 for 50% of the cost and can handle the 166MHz XPs. The KT400 boards look bad in reviews.

If you're dead set on spending the big bux, get an EPoX or Asus nForce2 board.

[genesound]

Agreed, that's good for the money. I'm not a big fan of 4-in-1 though...:D

[rangeral]

Supposedly a 400 bus wasn't a big diff against a 333 with aggressive timings which benched better than the 400, if you can stomach the money you paid out on yours think of it as getting a faster system for the same price you spent and as others mentioned get a quieter hs/f.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

No, Im not dead set on spending lots o $. Thats why I'm looking at amd. More performance less $. So does the MSI KT3 Ultra2 have usb 2.0 and firewire onboard? I got my dad a msi K7T turbo2 LE (limited edition) and its a really nice mobo. Very nice looking too all red and has diagnostic leds on back. I like MSI. They are good. But Via does worry me. Had past bad experiences withem. Will have to see if I can find a review of that mobo BP. Specially one that compares to the nforce2 chipset. See thats why I ask you folks this stuff. I wouldnt have had a clue about this. Thanks for all the info, and if you have anything more to add or other mobo sugestions PLEASE let me know. This is a after x-mas purchase but I like to do research before buying so nows the time to get this all sorted. Cant thank you all enuff, you are a huge help. Wether I trade or not it'll still be here at my house so its all good.;)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by rangeral
Supposedly a 400 bus wasn't a big diff against a 333 with aggressive timings which benched better than the 400, if you can stomach the money you paid out on yours think of it as getting a faster system for the same price you spent and as others mentioned get a quieter hs/f.

True. that p4 wastn cheap at all. But I did get it when the Asusp4t-e just came out over a year ago. So that would explain the high costs. Kinda trying to get the best for the $ this time.:D

[BipolarBill]

The Ultra2 dosn't have Firewire, but it does have 6 USB 2.0 ports. I built a system with it for my brother in NY and it worked well right off. I'm running this system on an Ultra-ARU and haven't had any 4in1 issues yet. The Ultra2 is a refined verison of the ARU.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

MSI Motherboard for AMD Processors Model KT3 Ultra2-BR(6380E-060BT) With RAID, Bluetooth Function and USB 2.0 Retail

$126.00



ABIT NF7-S ,nForce2 SPP chipset Support AMD Socket A with 200/266/333 FSB ,8X AGP,SATA 150 ATX motherboard Retail

$148.00

Hmmm only $22.00 difference there. Anyhow, think there would be any probs. with my 8500 on a nvidia chipset. that kinda has me worried too.:(

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer
Anyhow, think there would be any probs. with my 8500 on a nvidia chipset. that kinda has me worried too.:( Get real! You think that nVidia would sabotage ATi video?

I can see the headlines now:

"nVidia takes aim on ATi with new chipset and blows it's own foot clean off!"

Do you really need RAID? The plain-jane Ultra2 costs $82. Sure - no LAN, Firewire or RAID, but who cares? Promise "Lite" RAID stinks, nobody uses Firewire and a NIC costs $10. What are you gonna do with all of those PCI slots? :p

[genesound]

Can't help ya on the 8500 thing.

My issue with 4-in-1 is they can be a pain when upgrading. New installs can be tricky with driver installation order, too, but once it's running it should be good. If I was gonna use a via, I'd lurk around here for those kinda issues. Obviously they work, there's lotsa people using them quite happily ;)

I use firewire. :p I have a 120gig hooked up to the laptop. It's nice to be able to plug it in elsewhere, too.

[rangeral]

Hey Bill where in ny does your brother live just out of curiosity?

Talk about colored boards was looking at this intel D845PEBT2 for a $140 thats all black sort of looks cool with serial ata raid, usb2, lan, ddr333 support etc. plus hyperthreading support. I'm into amd but it does look nice not that I have the money for it but has me thinking.

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by rangeral
Hey Bill where in ny does your brother live just out of curiosity?He's in Southold out in Suffolk County - waaay out. They hunt with their bare hands out there. :p

Talk about colored boards was looking at this intel D845PEBT2 for a $140 thats all black sort of looks cool with serial ata raid, usb2, lan, ddr333 support etc. plus hyperthreading support. I'm into amd but it does look nice not that I have the money for it but has me thinking. You mean the Granite Bay/Blue Mountain?

http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/20021209/intel_845gepe-18.html

[rangeral]

You gotta have some money to live out there with there high property taxes etc., highly paid police force and all.

Yes that would be the granite bay.

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by rangeral
You gotta have some money to live out there with there high property taxes etc., highly paid police force and all.Well, I guess that he'd better start planning to move! It's somewhat expensive on the north fork, but nowhere near as bad as "The Hamptons" on the south fork. Some people actually still work and farm out there. My brother is a carpenter - someone has to build those summer "cottages". :rolleyes:

http://www.bbonline.com/ma/hamptonterrace/pix1.jpg

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
Get real! You think that nVidia would sabotage ATi video?

I can see the headlines now:

"nVidia takes aim on ATi with new chipset and blows it's own foot clean off!"

Do you really need RAID? The plain-jane Ultra2 costs $82. Sure - no LAN, Firewire or RAID, but who cares? Promise "Lite" RAID stinks, nobody uses Firewire and a NIC costs $10. What are you gonna do with all of those PCI slots? :p

Yeah, I guess it would be self defeating to not run the 8500 wouldnt it. Wasnt sure though, I know my ati tv wonder and the G3 dont play well at all. I though it was ati's fault at first. It kept telling me no video overlay support on video. It only half worked half the time. But when I changed to the 8500 it worked fine right away. Now with Nvidia's newest drivers and the Tv wonders beta drivers it does work. So dont know who was to blaim there but it was one or the other for sure.

Raid- is a scam. Not even looking at it, for that price I would just go scsi with the 5 year warrentys and fast performance.

USB 2.0 Im flexible on but it would be nice.

Firewire is a must. My $900 sony handycam uses high 8's. I would like to edit those on the pc. Moving that over the seriel would take forever. Plus I want to make my own video cd's etc. of xmas, beutifull PA scenery (mountains with snow etc.) and stuff. Heck moving the mem stick photos over seriel is SLOOOW. Since the cam has a firewire port and came with the needed cord I would like to use it. Those cards are $40.00 plus so it would be nice to be built in. Other than that I have no use for firewire. But I know of no other way to do the transfers in a acceptable amount of time.

As for LAN. I already have a nic. Its a Linksys 10/100 and works great. If it would have built in lan though I would give Linksys to my bro. So thats not really a concern. heck I think I have two laying here in static bags not even used...;)

So that makes it $82.00 plus $40 for firewire. Making it $122.00. Hmm still only saving $20.00 So far Ive got it down to the msi kt3 ultra 2 or the nforce2 chipset mobo's. Getting closer to picking, thanks for the info thus far guys. Narowed down to 2 out of 100 mobo's is pretty dang good.;)

told her about quiet solutions you guys mentioned. Water cooling is out, she dont like the idea of water around a pc. Cant blaim her. Zalman coolers she just gave a funny look at. The quieter HSF units are the best for her I think. But then again she's still pulling for the P4. will ahve to wait till I have both here for her to decide I think. She's one of those women that cant make up her dang mind. I want this, but then again I dont like that. yadda yadda. Makes you want to just pull your hair out, I tell ya. Bout ready to just say "take the P4 and leave it be" hehe.

[BipolarBill]

Get the nForce2.

[sm8000]

I agree. nForce2 all the way. If you don't like it, trade back and get her some silent cooling for Valentine's Day.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Thanks BP, for sticking through my annoying questions.:D Guess now all thats left to do is decide which brand of nforce2 or are they all about the same??? Any reviews of the dif. nforce2 mobo's out yet? :t

[sm8000]

There's a review of six nForce2 boards at Anandtech.com and three boards at Tom's Hardware

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by sm8000
There's a review of six nForce2 boards at Anandtech.com and three boards at Tom's Hardware
WoW, thanks sm8000! Thats just what I was looking for. Gonna jump on over to anandtech right now.;) :t

[BipolarBill]

Get the ugly green EPoX.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
Get the ugly green EPoX.
Are you being serious or just joking???:confused:

[BipolarBill]

I'm as serious as a heart attack.

[rangeral]

Epox is the best o/c board out there unless somebody else took the throne.

Long Island has got some money ****, they bring in coaches from boston pay them thousands to coach ice hockey for a few days, we have a couple of russians from siberia get sent up to boston to coach, great skaters to watch. Heck they don't farm anymore they skate, lol.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

"I'm as serious as a heart attack."

Dang that is serious! Had one at 17 from heat stroke and a combination of alchohol poisening. NOT FUN at all.


Yep asus got #2 and Epox #1 at anandtech. One thing the asus has though is dual nic but they are only $10.00 cards anyhow. LOL. Both have 6-usb 2.0 ports Thats becoming commen too. Plain IDE, I like that, not paying for raid or seriel as I dont want it anyhow. SCSI kicks all their arses. Asus has virtually non existant tech support. I agree, I have experienced this first hand. Both have two firewire ports on the header. The asus weighs in at $140.00 not sure on the epox yet. Ooops, found epox $120.00. Looks like I came to a descision.

The Epox 8RDA+ is #1. The rest arrent far behind though. The worst being the MSI and leadtech. One thing troubles oclockers though. Epox has given NO word on a locked pci yet. Asus claims both pci and agp are locked. But I have heard false claims from asus before. Like with my asus p4t-e that they still make false claims on their website with. "Adjustable pci/mem dividers". BULL shet. Cant adjust the pci dividers anywhere on that mobo. I've looked everywhere and other sites commented on this false claim too. I emailed 10 times now, no reply of course. I think epox being #1 oclocker would if not now in the future include a locked pci bus. So with all that **** from asus, going epox regardless. Thanks BP. I know what Im building now.;)

-On the cpu, how big of a dif. from a 1600+ to a 2100+ in real life. Especially mpeg2 encoding and games. Worth 50% more cash???

Thanks all, I know now which AMD mobo rules the roost.

PS. the only multi adjustable cpu on the nforce 2 is the B models of XP. current A's cannot and will not adjust without physical changes. Me, just running at stock is good enuff.:t

[deadkenny]

First of all, take the trade, for sure. I would also reinforce the overall trend toward the nForce2. The P4T-E is a nice board, but, depending on the specific controller, you're probably limited to 100MHz FSB, so you're not going to get to 3GHz. However, your GF might want an upgrade to a 2.4A (Northwood) eventually.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

You mean the clock gen. hehe no I checked that. Ran the #'s on it. It goes to 150mhz stable. This is the good one. Will run B model nrothy rock solid. Also runs pc 1200 rdram!!! Its actually the best P4T-e made to date. Shes getting a good mobo.;)

[omega31]

Did you read the Epox 8RDA+ review that Crucibelle posted a link to a few days ago? Here it is again:
http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review=465

I was planning on getting an nforce2 motherboard, but as you know, I got tired of waiting and "settled" for the K7S5A. I might still go nforce2, though, but not this year. Next month? Who knows! ;)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

About the same review as anandtech has.

"Strangely, there's mention of the 3COM LAN (one that is only available in Dualnet mode). As we only have on RJ45 port, it may be reserved for a more feature-rich version of the 8RDA+."

Not really. It means that the chip is their and they decided to keep the price down by not useing it. Asus is the only one who used the 3com chip so far out of all 6 brands makeing the nforce2 mobos. Its in the bios cause A) the chip is their, just not doing anything B) they have the same dang bios. Anyhow just wanted to throw that up their.
:D :t

[rangeral]

The 2100 is a good kick up loaded a game on a 2100 on an epox 8kha I think its called and compared to my 1800 it installed alot faster caught me off guard expected to wait awhile for it.

[Rugor]

Gamer, I would have to say go for the trade.

My roomie is running an ATI card on an Nforce 1 mobo and it has zero compatibility problems. Nvidia chipsets are to AMD products what Intel chipsets are to Intel products. After seeing what Nvidia can do I never want to buy a Via chipset board ever again.

Plus the onboard components are very good.

I see I'm already late LOL. As to chips, if you're going to upgrade just make sure you're getting a T-bred and run with it. The 2400+ is real nice but a bit pricy.

[Giblet Plus!]

"Epox 8RDA+ I have a couple copies of emails sent to me from Epox technical support saying that the board 1) doesn't have a PCI lock and 2) has a maximum PCI divisor of /5. So that's the big secret." -www.overclockers.com

I usually would say get the Epox, but in this case, the Asus is better. The Asus board locks the pci frequency at 33 for you, which lets you run your fsb really high without side effects. :)

[genesound]

Yes, the Asus has the AGP/PCI lock, and it's adjustable in 1MHz steps!

Settings available are AUTO, 50, 66,... all inclusive 1MHz steps to... 87, then 90, 93, 95, 97 and 100. You can fine tune the OC on it. :t

[Giblet Plus!]

A friend of mine just bought one. I can't wait to tweak it for him. He got an xp2400 too, all from my advice! :)

[deadkenny]

Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer
You mean the clock gen. hehe no I checked that. Ran the #'s on it. It goes to 150mhz stable. This is the good one. Will run B model nrothy rock solid. Also runs pc 1200 rdram!!! Its actually the best P4T-e made to date. Shes getting a good mobo.;)

Yes, quite right, the clock gen. Well, since you've already tested it, and it performs so well, maybe there's another alternative. How about you buy a new mobo and build a 'new' system for your GF using the new board and the rest of your components. Then build a 'new' system for yourself, using your current board. I mean a new P4 system obviously. You could get a 'B' Northwood and PC1066 RDRAM (I'm assuming your current memory is PC800, and won't OC - if it does OC then you don't need new RAM for your system, so you could get your GF a DDR P4 board).

[$1500-P4 gamer]

The ram I have now is NEC and tops out at 960mhz.:( 120fsb is all it goes to rightnow. Better mem like pc1066 and I can get over 2gig out of this 1.5 gig chip. Not bad at all. Im all for the XP she's not really. I like the performance per dollar of it Really.:D

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by Giblet Plus!
"Epox 8RDA+ I have a couple copies of emails sent to me from Epox technical support saying that the board 1) doesn't have a PCI lock and 2) has a maximum PCI divisor of /5. So that's the big secret." -www.overclockers.com

I usually would say get the Epox, but in this case, the Asus is better. The Asus board locks the pci frequency at 33 for you, which lets you run your fsb really high without side effects. :)

Anandtech never got a final word on that. And the other review I read said the same. Thanks for that info. Atleast they answered sombody. Thats one thing in asus's favour. But can anyone validate this for sure. Anyone have the asus nforce2 mobo. If so PLEASE let me know. I got burned by asus before with false claims. Just run your mobo at like 102fsb or whatever (small oclock) and see if sandre reports the pci as oclocked or not. Thanks.:t

[genesound]

Originally posted by genesound
Yes, the Asus has the AGP/PCI lock, and it's adjustable in 1MHz steps!

Settings available are AUTO, 50, 66,... all inclusive 1MHz steps to... 87, then 90, 93, 95, 97 and 100. You can fine tune the OC on it. :t

HELLO! is this mic on? test 1, 2 :p

BTW, I got those numbers outa my bios screen :D

Don't have Sandra, suppose I otta dl it...)-|

[deadkenny]

Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer
The ram I have now is NEC and tops out at 960mhz.:( 120fsb is all it goes to rightnow. Better mem like pc1066 and I can get over 2gig out of this 1.5 gig chip. Not bad at all. Im all for the XP she's not really. I like the performance per dollar of it Really.:D

Right, but I guess I'm asking, why not two P4 systems? If that board OC's so well, then a P4 system could also offer an attractive performance / dollar ratio.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Oh it oclocks great. But Im still one mobo cpu and mem short of another system. So while Im at it might aswell save $ I figure. Can get rid of the 1.5gig to a freind thats been eyeing it up. Add a couple $ and get a better P4. Just not into building another P4 from the ground up to go with it.:)

[genesound]

I DLd Sandra, where do I find the PCI info you want?

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Should be under mainboard info.:)

[genesound]

Hmmm... I've been all through Mianboard Info and AGP, PCI, Cardbus Info and find no mention of AGP/PCI OCd. I'm runnin 143MHz fsb, which it verifies. :)

BTW, I have the bios set to auto for agp/pci :cool:

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Cool! So it says 66mhz for agp and 33 for pci then. At bottem it will say in red pci and agp not at stock speed. reduce for stability blahblah. So if it says 33/66 and nothing else its at stock. Thats great news. Hmm looks like the tide is shifting to asus. Maybe the learned their lesson on the pci/agp settings since the p4t-e. Its only stock at 133 and 100mhz and nowhere in between like they claimed. Alot of poeple were very mad including myself.:D

[genesound]

Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer
...-On the cpu, how big of a dif. from a 1600+ to a 2100+ in real life. Especially mpeg2 encoding and games. Worth 50% more cash???

Thanks all, I know now which AMD mobo rules the roost.

PS. the only multi adjustable cpu on the nforce 2 is the B models of XP. current A's cannot and will not adjust without physical changes. Me, just running at stock is good enuff.:t

Unlocking a Palomino XP is pretty easy, gamer. There's a tutorial here. (http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20011112/index.html) Also look at the video linked at the end of the article. I don't know, maybe you've seen this already. I did one, took three tries and several hours, but it works great. It's just paint, applied ever so delicately and accurately. If you goof you just clean it off and start over. Denatured alcohol (not isopropyl, it has oil in it) and Q-tips remove the conductive paint. The trick is getting the superglue right the first time. My ocd XP1800 is KA on my stocker xp2100. For your video stuff, you'll want all you can get. :t