Brian Frank

Good one.

It runs anywhere from like $1.40-1.80 for the regular cheap stuff. If I had a deathwish, I'd also point out that it's also pretty cheap to live around here too...apts can be had for under $500/mo..., and houses can start fairly cheap too.

Not sure if this will float your boat or not, but I've been pretty happy with my Creative Inspire 4400 4.1 setup. They're not too expensive (like $60), and sound fine. I've used 'em with everything from the Audigy, nForce Soundstorm, AC97, and a few others. They sound good. Yeah, you can do better, but you'll also have to pay more. I have heard alot of people speak highly of some of Logitech's speakers though, but haven't really done much to really check them out. I personally don't care for Altec Lansing...they just don't sound right to me.

Well the 5900 is pretty good...but it's also pretty expensive as far as video cards go (at least for the gamer...don't get me started on the high-end workstation ones)

With XP, right click on the taskbar and hit Properties. At the bottom of the box that pops up, you'll have the option to customize the icons that display on the taskbar.

I'd be careful about what RAM you pair with the nForce 2 boards. I've had a real hell trying to get a couple different boards (Epox 8RDA, MSI K7N2 Delta L) working, and they both had issues with 3-4 different brands I used (Samsung, Kingston, Buffalo). I've been reading that the MSI is pretty picky about memory. The KT600 is more of a value chipset that's best run at stock speeds from what I've been reading. I doubt you're gonna see anymore real work put into chipsets for the Socket A Athlons anymore. I don't know about their NF7, but Abit's full ATX board, the NV7-133R, was one stable board, and regarded as about the best NF1 board. After having so much trouble with 2 other NF2 boards, I gave up and went for a cheap i865P chipset board and bought a P4 to go with it (sold my 1.6A a month earlier ;( )

Take some time doing it. In doing this, split-loom tubing and zip-ties are your friends. I've used the split-loom tubing to make some decent looking rounded IDE cables. Personally, I take the system apart and leave just the mobo and cards in, but you may want to take this opportunity to clean them off too before proceeding. I'll work with a few ideas starting with the PSU and the leads from it. Eliminating those leads that you don't need to power stuff helps get cabling you don't need out of your way. I fold them up first and use a zip tie to keep them that way, but I don't tuck them in until later. You can also route some small wires, like the front panel wires between the motherboard and the motherboard tray. Some cases have better trays than others, but I tuck extra wiring behind the tray if I'm able to. Keep in mind that good airflow is important, so pay attention to where you tuck the wires. I'll have to take pics, but this new box I just put together has been my best job yet. I'm getting anal about it almost.

You also need to remember that the Ti4600's are run alot closer to their max speeds than the Ti4200's, and the reason people get such a good deal out of them when they go and OC them.

I've tried the zoom, but w/o success. Different drivers...not yet. I haven't kept as keen of an eye on the drivers since the 21.xx, but I'm looking for something that's pretty strong all around in performance.

I'm using Free Popup Killer.

Looks like I'm in the P4 race again. I'm sure the nForce 2 boards are nice, but they're so f'in picky with RAM, I've not gotten one to work...and have tried several different brands to boot. Returned the nF2 and got the MSI 856P Neo. Cheap and basic, but should be much less of a headache with the RAM....just need to sell some crap lying around and get a P4 to go with it.

"I thought that AMD's numbering was based on performance relative to the original Athlons?" That's correct, specifically the Thunderbird socket A variety.

ROFLMAO

Get prime 95 and run the tourture test. If that runs for 24 hours without an error or stop, you can toss the CPU outta the mix of being a troublemaker.

It seems that in many cases, Apple comes up with something, but until the PC side gets ahold of it, it doesn't really take off. A great example is the iMac. You notice how fast beige went out of style after those hit? For the 64-bit thing, I thought it extremely convienent for Apple to leave out the Opteron, and also claim they had the first 64-bit CPU (didn't Sun have a SPARC 64-bit chip?). AMD is wise to have a chip that isn't soley 64-bit like the Itanic. Unlike the Pentium 16 to 32-bit issues, this looks to be much less of a hassle going to 64-bit. Intel did have a 32/64-bit chip, Yamhill, but seemed to have killed that project a while back, and I haven't heard if they've revived it yet. In the past, Via has been a big problem for people, but they've actually got decent chipsets. The problem is people are still leary of them because of past chipsets and because they haven't jumped aboard the dual-channel memory bandwagon (yet). I've been using an AMD chip in my main rig since 2000, and often with a Via chipset. I've not had problems, and that's often due to just being careful with the heatsink installation. You have to admit: user error is an issue. Granted, AMD has had some fairly delicate cores in the past, but I'm still using the older Athlon/Duron's and haven't killed one yet. I do think that AMD is more of the value performance line, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Let's face it, the Celeron isn't much of a deal anymore. They're so crippled that your better off going with a slower P4 than going with a Celeron. The Athlon and the Pentium 4 are completely different in design, which is why we are seing the faster P4's available.

Let's illustrate: time=money. What would you rather spend on a motherboard? I prefer to spend money and get something that's good rather than haggle with the hardware. Matsonic/PCChips/Amptron...also, throw ECS and FIC in their two...bad companies dude ...and Epox. You get what you pay for, and these aren't companies that don't have the highest quality control or something. They're a headache to work with. You want something that's not gonna break the bank, look at something from MSI or Gigabyte.

I don't think the stock AMD coolers are as good as the stock Intel coolers. Having said that, you can buy a decent socket A cooler for $20 or so and get better cooling. With Intel, the stock cooling is quite remarkable, and unless you want to do something like go to refrigeration, your safe.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=115 I didn't look up the differences between the boards were, but better safe than sorry. Link is to the 6163VA BIOS's. You want at least BIOS 3.3 for the Win2k issue.

No wonder that was hard to find. It was on a different MSI website. You want at least the 2.6 BIOS.

I can only find the MS-6163FC...and that's just a BIOS update. I can't find any other info on the board. Might help if you could list out your system specs and exactly what part of the setup process the system freezes at.

Intel makes their Extreme Graphics seem like something killer, but basically they're promising a Ferrari and giving you a Yugo. Something fairly cheap that doesn't suck is the ATi Radeon 8500/9000 Pro (9k is rebadged 8500). You can find these well under $100, like $70-80, on-line. No DX9, but otherwise, these are great cards, especially for the money.

Like an animated GIF? Yeah, but you'll need a program. There were some free trial GIF animator proggies I tried out, but you have to purchase them if you want to use them permanently.

The AMD stock cooler isn't that great. Having said that, I've been running an AMD setup in my main box for several years now. I've tried the P4, and while, yes, it overclocks extremely well, the performance isn't as good. If you want the fastest, yes, Intel wins. However AMD has the price/performance crown on slower CPU's (the 3200+ is a bit overpriced). The P4 has longer pipelines, IIRC, which does allow the better overclocking (and scaling), but this is at the cost of how much work it does per clock cycle. Ultimately, tho, AMD has done work on the Athlon line to make it less flaming hot. That THG video a while back may have been true then, but now that's been worked on to have something like that not happen again. In any case: IT'S A FRICKIN COMPUTER. As long as it's working right, I really don't care what's under the hood.

Great. Haven't posted here as much. Eventually, I'll post my rigs again. Gonna do some changes within the next few weeks, so I'll hang loos til then. Watercooling is one of the plans.

Bump. P4D is still up for grabs.