Need advice on athlon system setup

[RobUK]

I've been shoppin around now for a few month trying to decide what to get and this is what i have come up with.

AMD Athlon 266fsb 1.2G
ASUS A7V133 mobo
h/f up to 1.4g (ball bearing)
256mb SDRAM PC133
New ATX Case with 300w PSU and case fan

now i have been told by one company this setup may be unstable and another has said it will be fine.
Is there a chance of heat problems, un stable in winME etc.......

The company who said it would be unstable said a standard ATX case has the PSU in the wrong place and this causes heat problem. Accordiing to them the PSU is over the CPU/h/f combo and so the air flow is bad? Is there any truth in this. They also said i should probably consider P3 for stability in games as the athlon is too fast and many patches are needed to play UT and quake etc...

Is the AMD Athlon an unstable CPU? Should i go P3 or P4???

Your advice is much needed as i don't know what to get because one company says one thing and another says the other.

Thanx RobUK

[Imperion1]

The company that told you that AMD is unstable and too fast is FOS.

The setup you have is fine. What HS/fan are you getting. You will want to be sure that you get a good quality one.
Checkout www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com) and browse through his HS comparison.

And the PSU is usually above the cpu, including on the Intels.

The only bad PSU design is the one that does not have enough vents in the PSU case. This causes inadequate air flow. So be sure to check out what the case on the PSU looks like. Also amd's website has a place to check out amd certified PSUs.

WinME is unstable on its own, best bet is to find 98SE if you're into gaming. If its more business and stability you want then go for Win2k, it cost more than 98SE though.

Does the company that claims AMD is unstable sell Intel cpus? P4s cost a heck of alot more than AMD T-birds.
The only thing that makes AMD unstable is if you overclock the CPU more than it can handle.
For example: A T-bird 1G(AXIA) can easily be overclock to a 1.4G. But at 1.5G you may start having problems.

Any other questions, just need to keep asking.

Hey, just curios, but what graphics card are you gonna get? Also, do you currently know what the rest of your system specs will be?

[Brangwen]

I echo Imperion's sentiments. Glad you dropped into SysOpt for unbiased opinions. I don't know why a company would state that you should

...probably consider P3 for stability in games as the athlon is too fast and many patches are needed to play UT and quake etc...

Unless as suggested they're pushing Intel products. Hmm.

Good luck! I hope you get as much enjoyment from your system as I from my T-Bird rig.

Brangwen http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif



[This message has been edited by Brangwen (edited 06-16-2001).]

[Darknyt]

I agree with Sir Imperium...The setup you have is fine. I just got my 1st AMD cpu last week, unfortunately I damaged part of the die when installing the h/f. HANDLE THE H/F INSTALL WITH CARE, OR YOU WILL BE PEEVED LIKE ME, CPU DAMAGED, AND A FEW HUNDRED DOLLARS SHORT!!!! Make sure your fan fits the board that you have. Also, check out Anandtech.com for reviews of the AMD vs. Intel....AMD clearly beats the daylights in the price/performance ratings. You'd be throwing your money away on a P4, so dont bother wasting money on it.

[Imperion1]

Heh heh, I finally got a sir added to my name.

[elroy]

I would stay away from the place that gave you this advice. Maybe they have Pentium chips they need to move or boards that use Penitum chips. Or maybe they thought they could sell you a "special" case/PSU. Saying that this setup is bad is BS !!! And they probably know it too.

[RobUK]

The full system will look like this:

AMD Athlon 1.2g 266fsb
Asus A7V133 Mobo
256MB Pc133 SDRAM
40Gb Seagate Barracuda III ATA100 Hard disk 7,200 rpm 2mb cache
Voodoo 3 3000 with TV-out AGP
Creative 128 Sound card PCI
External Diamond SupraExpress 56e pro modem
44X UDMA33 CD-ROM
Mitsumi CD-Writer
ATX Case with 300w psu
And the biggest h/f i can find for the cpu

I already have all the equipment listed with the exception to the CPU, Motherboard, RAM, 300w psu and the h/f.

I'm gonna get a new graphics card when i can afford it. My case has etra fans in it already and i made a Voodoo collers aswell so the air flow should be ok.

Thanx all, great advice.

btw, can anyone see any possible problems with the setup i will have??

RobUK


[This message has been edited by RobUK (edited 06-18-2001).]

[RobUK]

One more thing, I know the ASUS A7V133 motherboard will take over a 1gig cpu but i have also been looking at the A-Bit KT7A Mobo with Raid and UDMA100.
Does the A-bit support CPU's over 1.2g at 266 FSB??

Which board would you guys go for out og these two ??

Thanx - RobUK

[This message has been edited by RobUK (edited 06-18-2001).]

[daveleau]

While I have really liked Abit int he past, it was taken off the AMD recommended list because of problems. I would highly recommend the Asus. If you want to consider another mobo, the only one I'd look at would be an MSI, but Asus would be the best choice. The Abit BIOS updates do not contain a 266fsb update, but it does seem to fix some of the compatibility issues.

Dave

[jad1097]

I wonder what happened to my reply!? Maybe someone did not like me saying pee3? Or my comments about that store selling cheap cases with the PSU hanging down in front of the CPU on most boards including the pee3 ones because the sockets/slots are virtually in the same place on most boards. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif


And it was also put back on that list, the Abit that is. It is my understanibg the one removed was the KT7 and the KT7A was never on it. What I had said about the BIOS update before was that in the future abit is likely to have an update for those chips. I would think the current BIOS is good enough to handle anything up to 1.6GHz @133x12. Abit has already released a update to resolve a problem with the 1.33GHz chips being recognized wrong (ZT BIOS), “Fixes the issue Athlon 1.3G(100) wrongfully recognized as 104x12.5” http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm And they have also released a fix for the 266fsb “Changes CPU FSB from 133MHz to 133.33MHz for specific Athlon processors.” (WZ BIOS).

I have been extremely happy with my KT7A.


If you really want to be satisfied then you have to find a board that has no VIA Southbrige because they all have the same problems. AFAIK there are not any out.




[This message has been edited by jad1097 (edited 06-19-2001).]

[RobUK]

What exactly are the problems with the VIA south bridge?? Especially on the Asus A7V133 as this is what i am gonna buy.

Thanx - RobUK

[jad1097]

http://www.viahardware.com/686bfaq.shtm

[Brangwen]

RobUK:

I think the 686B "bug" has been rectified. I use an Iwill KK266 board (Rev 1.3 I think)(with VIA chipset / Southbridge) for my AMD 1.33 GHz(266 FSB) TBird without a problem. I've never had a problem with the "data corruption" or "I/O" issues regardless of the version of VIA 4-in-1 drivers I've used. In addition, I use Win98se and have moved lots of data (in increments exceeding 100MB at a time...) and burned CDs with nary a problem. So, armed with my experiences, good luck and enjoy whatever you end up buying for your system. Oh, <u>and</u> I use a Sound Blaster Live Value card. Just make certain you have adequate cooling as Athlons, seems to me, tend to run hot... some hotter than others. Luck of the draw, perhaps.

Brangwen http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[jad1097]

I have never had any problems with the bug either other than slow transfer speeds in W2K which was a driver issue. Way too many people have though.

[krusty the klown]

Some useful hardware purchase UK linkage 4U

General stuff - fairly limited selection, but cheepy cheep
http://www.cclcomputers.co.uk

Overclockers stuff & free delivery:
http://www.cclcomputers.co.uk

More overclockers stuff:
http://www.theoverclockingstore.co.uk