Hey all, Uncle Sam is giving me back my money, I am ready for an upgrade!

[RADAR1797]

Howdy all,

I am expecting to get a $300 check in August from Uncle Sam (ok I won't rant about how it should never have been taken from me in the first place...different forum). I am looking to get my first Athlon. What I want is an Athlon4, motherboard and 256 MB of DDR RAM. So talk to me about the best combo. I have about 6 to 8 weeks before I order, so continuous updates are appreciated.

-RADAR

[Dputiger]

If all you've got is $300, I doubt you'll get both for that. Hopefully RAM prices will be headed up in two months--and I'd expect to see Athlon 4's showing up at around the $200 price point--they are now not scheduled for introduction until Sep/Oct.

[RADAR1797]

Good point, luckily I make enough to suppliment it, but under $500 is ideal.

-RADAR

[jad1097]

Hopefully RAM prices will be headed up in two months

SAY WHAT?! I hope they will NOT go up!

[Peter M]

Well, now that ECS has entered the DDR board market, the high price fun for the major brands is over.

Prices here in Germany: ECS K7AMA (ALi chipset, SDRAM or DDR) $100, similar thing from ASUS $200.

Since ECS also have a VIA chipset offering K7VTA3 for little more, an an SiS 735 board in the pipeline too, that'll bring Athlon DDR boards down to SDRAM board level. And then your $300 will buy you a RAM/board/processor combo if you aim low on the processors shelf.

regards, Peter

[RADAR1797]

Hey Peter, Thanks!

Let me pose this question, would I be better to go with an AMD 760 chipset or are the offerings from VIA, SIS and ALI good enough? I know Tom's Hardware leans towards the the AMD 760 and the SIS chipsets. Thanks!

-RADAR

[techoverclockedNOW]

Well this is what I have upgrade to

Well I find since I have done a lot of upgrading to my pc it runs games totally good.

PC specs (pc entertainment system)
Black driectron.com desktop case
400 watt power supply unit
2 80mm intake fans
1 3fan intake drive bay cooler
1 video card slot cooler
Abit socket 370 motherboard
1 GHZ Pentium III o/c to 1.08 GHZ (80 mhz increase)
1 yahmaha doubly digital sourround sound card with 75 watt sourround sound setup
1 drive bay FM radio with remote
1 black Toshiba 12x dvd drive

512 mb pc 133mhz ram

AGP 4x ATI Radeon 32mb DDR all in wonder running at 166mhz/ o/c to 180 mhz core and memory and removed the default heatsink and fan and installed a super socket 7 heat sink and fan

Zip CD usd cd burner,Ethernet DSL modem, 56k internal modem, 3 gamepads, 1 optical mouse, 1 microsoft internet keyboard

and Running windows 98se

[RADAR1797]

Cool system, but not much of an improvement from what I have now. I am currently running:

Celeron 533 @ 900 MHz
Abit VT6X4
256 MB PC 166 RAM @ 150 MHz
Abit Siluro Geforce2 MX
etc...

I have been drooling over the Athlons for a while and I am really looking forward to getting an Athlon4 and maybe cranking it up to 1.5+ GHz.

-RADAR

[RADAR1797]

Ok continuing the search. Right now I am looking at either the ASUS A7M266 or the EPOX EP-8K7A+. From what I have read, the AXIA core is one of the best out there. I would really appreciate comments on the MB selections and any other superior CPU core selections.

-RADAR

[Sigmark]

Hey I just bought new MOB and DDR ram here is what I got and where I got it from:

ECS K7AMA MOB $76.00 ($88.25 w/ shipping) http://www.acompinc.com/cgi-bin/pmor...ODE=MBECSK7AMA

256 MB PC2100 DDR 266MHz Ram $56.00 http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi...gi2Ty0GlCWl3Sj

AMD 1.4Ghz 266 FBS OEM $175.00 http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi...gi2Ty0GlCWl3Sj

I have not put this system together yet so I can't guaruntee that it will work. I know this goes over your $300 budget so maybe you'll want to go with 1.2GHz 266 fsb for $104 http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi...gi2Ty0GlCWl3Sj

Just make sure you get a good heatsink/fan combo. Because Athlons Run very HOT!!!

[RADAR1797]

Well I have done some more searching and appearantly Abit has just released the KG7. AMD 761 chipset with RAID and 1 MHz interval FSB adjustments. Now what I want to know is will the Athlon 4 work on this MB? I heard rumor it would not work on certain chipsets. Any info would be appreciated.

-RADAR

[Terminal23]

Hey Dputiger?Why in the heck do you want ram prices to go up?

[Dputiger]

Really simple reason:

The RAM-manufacturers are getting slaughtered.

Micron posted a 300 million dollar loss this quarter. Prices are so low, no one can make any money.

I'd rather see RAM prices go up than see corporations driven under--long run, that will just raise prices more.

[AuraEdge]

I think $.75-1.00 /MB was a comfortable price for quality stuff.

Now its just rediculous how low prices are.
WHen I first got into comps, it was about $1.50/MB, and it hit almost $2.00/MB one summer
Now its about $.20/MB. Do you think they were making 90% profit when it was $2.00/MB? Thier all gunna get blasted away by bankruptcy, until only a few remain, which willthen have complete control of the market (ala Microsoft/Intel), and can raise prices as they please.

..Or I could be completely wrong.

I dont think prices are going up anytime soon thought. Not until 2002. Just a notion I got.


Slightly OT but do you have the specifics on the Tax refund thing? I read a brief about it but I wasnt sure. I read they were basing it off year 2000's income or something? A small formula for how much the IRS owes me would be nice. such as (x% * 2000 income) or something to that effect.




[This message has been edited by AuraEdge (edited 07-17-2001).]

[paul233]

256mb of ram costs two to three dollars to make. Ram is totally driven by supply, demand, and hidden collusion, much like gasoline is. Don't worry about the ram makers DP.