Well i'm in the process of buying tires, i managed to get the tires for $137/tire instead of $199/tire so i figure since i'm saving all this money i can buy something else (i dunno how i figure i have extra money but anyways).

I've got a killer celeron 400 which...well works fine, but i've wanted to upgrade the processor which means upgrading the motherboard, which means upgrading the memory, which means a new case would be a good idea since mine is partially missing, which also means the idea of a decent power supply is smart.

Currently running:
celeron 400mhz
288mb pc100
80gb hd
60gb hd
16x dvd-rom
48x24x48 cdrw
decent sound card (can't remember what)
hercules 32mb vard w/tv out (does the job)

what i'm lookin at replacing:

Case - ANTEC SONATA QUIET CHASSIS ATX 3X5.25 6X3.5 PIANO BLACK 380W TRUEPOWER $151.13
Heat Sink of some sort - i know jack about them~$19.88 to $30ish
- Processor-AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ 512K 333FSB SOCKET A BARTON RETAIL BOX 3YR MFR WAR $127.29
- Motherboard-SOLTEK 75FRN2-L NFORCE2 SOCKETA DUAL DDR AGP8X 5PCI ATA133 SOUND LAN $98.77
- Memory OCZ DUAL CHANNEL OPTIMIZED 2X256MB DDR PC3200 CAS2 W/ COPPER HEAT ER $209.01

TOTAL: $631.07


Any large mistakes or things you guys would do differently? I'm try'n to be fairly cost effective and would like to stick with amd over a pentium processor. There will generally be no overclocking of the new system, as i don't time/money to mess with that sutff currenlty.

[ June 25, 2004, 12:16 AM: Message edited by: Hardcore Rock Superstar ]

i've always been told celeron processors are half the power of what they should produce [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img] I stick to the AMD chips, so smart choice with the AMD 2500+ chip :D . [img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img] just my two cents.

And DO NOT buy a compaq. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Celrons run way slower then a p4 so if you can upgrade to AMD 2800 or higher. ALso you said you have a 400 MHZ celron and it's killer? You must be joking.

But so far system looks good!

I you wanna play any new games expect to spend over $200 for a good video card. I just bought a new entry level PC thinking I could play new games on it. Wrong. I just $300 on a Radeon 9800 Pro, but it's gonna be sweeeeet. Are you sure that chip supports dual channel memory? If it doesn't you might as well save a few bucks and go with a single 512Mb

Good choices. I would stick away from a celeron unless you are strickly using the machine for word proccessing and internet browsing. Any other application such as gaming the CPU's lack the cache and Instruction set of the P4 and Athlon XP's.

hah, yeah i was kidding about the celeron being killer. The pc was originally bought for our business back in 95, it had 32mb ram, win 95 i think and a 4gb hard drive i believe.

Yeah, that board supports duan channel memory. Why do you say go with the 2800 over the 2500? I only ask cause i'm try'n to be cost effective and thats another $60.

And no i don't plan to do any real gaming...i've never really had the option in the past, no online gaming, it'd be nice to be able throw a game in here n there but i can always buy a video card when i grow another money tree.

Just cause the 2500+ is almost instinct. that was the first CPU with the barton core as well. Still will work very well. Still reliable. 2800+ just gives you a bit more speed but if you are on a tighter budget the 2500+ will work great for what you are using it for.

http://www.canadiancaraudio.com/ubb/...c;f=2;t=005642

go for that MB it's about the best amd board IMO
the onboard sound is top notch

I just bought myself a shuttle sn45G and it uses the Nforce400 chipset, I'm very happy with it it


I got my mom a shuttle sn41g with a barton 2600 and 512mb ram, it has onboard geforce4 video and it plays call of duty just fine (mind you I set the shared memeory at 128mb)


the sonota is a very nice case ...... it was on my short list for cases before I decided to go the Small form factor rought.

thats the motherboard i originally had picked out about a year back....but in the thought of try'n to lower the price the soltek came out. The soltek has a deluxe version of the board i'm lookin at thats pretty well identical to the asus. Or this board is a direct comparison to the non-deluxe asus.

Hah i remember reading all the debates about that onboard sound vs various soundcards.

Only reason i didn't really go for it is i don't have much use for RAID or sata drives - sure they'd be neat and all, but not necessary

try and get away from filling your memory slots with 256mb sticks, spend the extra bit and get a 512mb

and yeah, you're totally gonna want a video card.

oh, and thats a PIMP case btw

no, THESE are pimp cases.

http://209.52.147.146/images/10154-l.jpg http://209.52.147.146/images/10153-l.jpg

ooooh ahanix *drooooooool*......... the d.vine 4 was also on my short list, it is pretty pricey though

the mobo prefers or works better when filling both memory slots hense 2x256. I doubt for what i'm doing i'll require 1024, so thats why i've chosen that.

That is an intense case...but remember budget, think budget.

It is better for the Nforce chipset to utilize the dual channel memory bandwidth.

In Motherboards i perfer Abit, but the equivelent would be 30-40 more..

it doesn't matter to the MB if you run in dual bandwith mode or not , but if you never plan to use more than 512 megs I'd run 2 256mb sticks like you plan to take advantage of the dual bandwith mode

a barton 2500 with 512mb should do you quite fine for surfing and such ........ especially if the celeron 400 you got now gets you by

I think I'd shoot for a 64mb vid card though if you plan to do some gaming, but that can be upgraded later if you want

my laptop plays any games I want and it's a 1 gig machine with a 64mb radeon 7500 and 512mb of ram

as for budget cases, that sonota is about as nice as you're gonna get, awsome bang for the buck IMO

that soltek MB is ok too, nothing wrong with it

[ June 25, 2004, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: dodgeram ]

thanks thats basically what i wanted to hear - i know everyone has their preferences with mobo's one brand vs another.

One thing i will ask if for one of you to recommend a heatsink? or whether i can get by with the stock heatsink that comes with the cpu?

too bad i don't know anyone in the pc store world to hook me up doh!

[ June 25, 2004, 05:29 PM: Message edited by: Hardcore Rock Superstar ]

I'm not really up on heatsinks ....I'm a computer building newbie myself, built my 1st 2 this spring

the shuttle cases I bought came with heat sinks, but when I was researching a full size machine the Zalman flower heatsinks seemed to be popular


although I do believe as long as you are not overclocking the thing the stock heatsink will do

[ June 25, 2004, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: dodgeram ]

If you are looking for heatsinks and cooling fans for systems and you dont want to just use the stock ones try out Thermalright( http://www.thermalright.com/ ). These are for doing some nice overclocking but you could still keep a system cool even if ya dont overclock.

Keep the Antec case as they are rigid and the power supplies are rock solid. LiLan is also nice with their aluminum cases

Video card dont go anything less than a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro if you play games if not a good Gforce will work.

Forget the DVD player unit and wait about a month for LG's Dual Layer DVD+R. It will record on the DVD9's so you can get a full movie on 1 dvd.

Also if your going P4 make sure its a hyperthreading cpu as it DOES make a difference also 800 MHz bus is a must. If you go Athlon make sure its a newer chip.

Soundcard go with SoundBlasters Audigy you wont regret it

dodgeram I love those shuttle cases. I have 2 myself

I would recommend the stock one that comes with the retail..

you can get a Globalwin - Vantec or any of them but usually they have more noise as they are a high speed fan.

My dad has his own shop if u want somethin I can give u his email address lol

And soltec's are good MB's Im runnin an MSI board with my AMD 1.7 and I use the heat sync that it came with it works good [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]

[ June 26, 2004, 10:16 PM: Message edited by: 131.7 dB Z24 ]

Hey Rockney where abouts in Belleville

tell me your dads shop is in alberta....and then yes give me his email, or website if he has.

give me the email anyways

You've pm n sorry hez in ontario.

Barton 2500 chip is easily overclockable ... without breaking it. And you don't need a CPU heatsink because retail chips come with heatsinks, the "STOCK" Barton heatsinks are decent (copper bottom for SURE, possibly all copper).

Buy DDR400 RAM, costs the same or less than DDR333.