another "Please suggest hardware for budget build" thread

[puntoMX]

Holy sh...

Look at the Doom 3 Benchmarks...

Any way, that would be a 6000US$ system and not a 600US$ .

[E-66]

That video card costs more than my whole proposed upgrade!

Another question. I have taken everyone's suggestions into account so far, and I'm not blowing them off, but I have an idea for an even more economical temporary upgrade, but you'll have to let me know if it'll work or not.

Will PC-2100 DDR1 RAM work on a motherboard spec'd for PC-3200? If it will, I was thinking that I could get a socket-754 motherboard and CPU for a combined cost of ~$120 if I went AMD (jcarle, you'd have to tell me what the Intel equivalent would be) and pop it right in my current case. I have a decent Antec power supply now, so as long as the motherboard accepted a 20-pin connector I think I'd be ok. These appear to be my choices as far as AMD goes:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....78%2C734%3A7577

What do you think?

[jcarle]

DDR1 is not compatible with DDR2, but slower DDR will work in faster DDR motherboards (in 99% of cases).

Thing is, if you want to keep your DDR then you're better off with AMD, which puntoMX could advise you best. I don't recommend modern Intel motherboards with anything less then DDR2.

Edited November 30, 2006 by jcarle

[puntoMX]

Aaargg, My ISP his DNS server is f+cked up again...

Okay, S754, there we go:

- ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2; Has PCI-E and works with the nVidia 6100 chipset, S754

- AMD Sempron64 2800+, 1.6GHz and 256kB cache, S754

- Stock cooling, comes with the CPU

It use the 20 pin ATX but also the 4 pin 12volt for the CPU.

Later I will take a look at the link, can´t do it now .

[E-66]

That's what I'm saying though, jcarle - don't the 'modern' boards use the newer ATX12V power supplies with the 24 pin power connectors? (in addition to whatever else it is that distinguishes them from regular ATX power supplies).

I'd never skimp on a power supply, so I'd definitely need a new/different one if I got the most modern of motherboards. I just figured if I got a board that'd work with my current RAM and power supply I could cut the costs a bit more.

Thanks Punto, I'll look up some info on that mobo, it's not listed on the 'egg.

Edited November 30, 2006 by E-66

[jcarle]

24 pin atx connectors on motherboard will function with 20 pin power supplies, 6 pin atx12v connectors will work with 4 pin atx12v power supplies. Some power supplies have a 20+4 connector which means it will fit on both a 20 pin motherboard as well as a 24 pin motherboard. The only way that it won't work is that a 24 pin power supply will not work on a 20 pin motherboard and a 6 pin atx12v power supply will not work on a 4 pin atx12v motherboard...

You might have to read that paragraph over a couple of times, but if you don't understand what i mean, let me know and I'll explain a bit better.

[puntoMX]

E-66, this is what I found for you:

ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 Socket 754 NVIDIA GeForce 6100-410 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail

Pros:

- 3-Fase power converter for CPU

- Not expensive

- No bad capacitors

- 1 PCI-E 16x slot

- Overclockable, a 1.6GHz CPU will get up to 2.5GHz

- 2 PATA (IDE) Ports

Cons:

- Harder to get at this moment

GIGABYTE GA-K8N51GMF-RH Socket 754 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail

Pros:

- Firewire

- Not expensive

- No bad capacitors

- 1 PCI-E 16x slot

- 2 PATA (IDE) Ports

Cons:

- Just 2-Fase power converter for CPU, 3 would have been better

- Not much overclockable, but a 1.6GHz CPU will get to 2.0GHz

Personally I would go for the ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2 if you can find another store that still has them. If not the GIGABYTE GA-K8N51GMF-RH is the best choice at this moment. Don’t expect to overclock much with your PC2100 RAM but most get from 133(266)MHz to 150 (300)MHz or so. Best thing you could do is take a CPU with a high(er) multiplier like the 3400+ (2.0GHz). You could keep 19.50US$ in your pocket if you think a 2800+ (1.6GHz) would do fine for you.

EDIT: Or you could do this:

+ ASRock ALiveNF6G-DVI Socket AM2 NVIDIA NF6100-430 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

+ A-DATA 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model ADQVE1908K - Retail

+ AMD Sempron 64 2800+ Manila 1.6GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model SDA2800IAA2CN - OEM

Edited November 30, 2006 by puntoMX

[E-66]

24 pin atx connectors on motherboards will function with 20 pin power supplies....

a 24 pin power supply will not work on a 20 pin motherboard.

You might have to read that paragraph over a couple of times, but if you don't understand what i mean, let me know and I'll explain a bit better.

Yep, I did read it a few times, and I am confused, because what you said seems to be the opposite of what I read here:

http://www.xoxide.com/buy-computer-power-s...y_Compatibility

That says a 24 pin connector can be 'adapted down' to use on a 20 pin socket, but that you shouldn't use a 20 pin connector on a 24 pin mobo socket. I don't have a 24 pin power supply connector so the 24-to-20 thing is a moot point. My Antec power supply has a 20 pin connector and the square 4 pin 12v aux connector that I guess gets used for powering the CPU socket directly, so I'm good there, but according to that link above I should only use it with a matching 20 pin mobo power socket. Not saying that that article is right and you're wrong, but that's the website I used for reference when I was searching for power supply info earlier. I'll gladly look at any other sites that say otherwise.

Punto, I'll look over your hardware recommendations later, just getting ready to hit the sack. One thing though - if I do go AMD socket 754, I think I'll skip the Sempron and just opt for the Athlon 64 unless you have a reason I shouldn't. It's $60 on Newegg, I think the Semprons are $40-45.

One more question about the benchmarks used for comparing CPUs. It's not included in the choices on that Tom's Hardware page I linked to several posts ago, but what about something like formatting a 300-500 GB HDD??? How much of a difference would there be when comparing that dual-core Intel Conroe CPU that seems to come out on top of most of the benchmarks, and a more 'average' CPU from AMD or Intel?

Edited November 30, 2006 by E-66

[jcarle]

This is a 20+4 pin connector:

This is a 24 pin connector:

Both are a total of 24 pins BUT the 20+4 can have the extra 4 removed to fit a 20 pin motherboard.

There are 20 to 24 pin adapters available, but I don't recommend those:

Here you can see how you can plug a 20 pin connector in a 24 pin motherboard:

The last method is the way I recommend since the last 4 connectors are used for extra power in powerful systems. At which point you'd just buy a proper 24 pin power supply.

Edited November 30, 2006 by jcarle

[Zxian]

One more question about the benchmarks used for comparing CPUs. It's not included in the choices on that Tom's Hardware page I linked to several posts ago, but what about something like formatting a 300-500 GB HDD??? How much of a difference would there be when comparing that dual-core Intel Conroe CPU that seems to come out on top of most of the benchmarks, and a more 'average' CPU from AMD or Intel?

To save you some worry about the missing 4 pins when using a 20-pin PSU on a 24-pin motherboard - take a look at the specifications of power supplies. They're providing only a limited set of voltages (-12, -5, GND, +3.3, +5, +12). Which physical cable out of the 20 or 24 that go from PSU to motherboard is most of the time a moot point. The 4 extra wires are each carrying a 3.3V, 5V, and 12V line, as well as one ground wire. If you're really at the point where you're straining the power lines from your PSU, then you need to upgrade it (at this point, you'd probably have dual video cards, and a quad-core CPU ). As jcarle showed, you can plug a 20-pin PSU into a 24-pin motherboard without too much trouble.

Formatting a hard drive has very little to do with CPU at all, which is why it's not benchmarked. I'm sure that the difference in formatting speed would be negligible across various modern processors, and is most likely dependant on the speed of the drive itself.

[E-66]

Jcarle, I was aware of what the connectors looked like, my concern was if it was ok to combine the different socket types together. I follow what you've said.... I think maybe that article was correct but it just didn't tell the whole story. They're saying you shouldn't plug a 20 into a 24, but they just leave it like that w/o an explanation. You're saying it's ok. I think what that article might be implying is that if you have a high powered system as Zxian mentioned above with a dual core CPU and a power hungry graphics card, etc, THEN you shouldn't use a 20 into a 24 because you most likely don't have a strong enough PSU.

But if you have a much more modest system, power requirement-wise, then plugging a 20 into a 24 really wouldn't be any different than plugging into a matching 20 and there's no concern whatsoever, so I don't have to be worried if the motherboard I eventually get happens to have a 24 pin socket.

Does all that sound correct?

Which physical cable out of the 20 or 24 that go from PSU to motherboard is most of the time a moot point. The 4 extra wires are each carrying a 3.3V, 5V, and 12V line, as well as one ground wire.

I'm glad you mentioned that, I think you answered my next question before I asked it. I wanted to know if the '+4' portion of a 20+4 connector was the same as the 4 pin connector that goes to the CPU power socket. Apparently not, as that CPU connector has two 12v & two grounds (at least according to my PSU manual), whereas the +4 connector has a 3.3V, 5V, and 12V line as you stated above. Correct? Edited November 30, 2006 by E-66

[jcarle]

All correct.

[E-66]

Ok, thanks once again. The facts being what they are, I think I'll scrap the socket 754 idea. Since I'm able to use my current power supply with a 24 pin socket motherboard, the only extra outlay on my part will be having to buy DDR2 RAM.

Back to the think tank...

[puntoMX]

Punto, I'll look over your hardware recommendations later, just getting ready to hit the sack. One thing though - if I do go AMD socket 754, I think I'll skip the Sempron and just opt for the Athlon 64 unless you have a reason I shouldn't. It's $60 on Newegg, I think the Semprons are $40-45.

If you are talking about the OEM CPU here, the AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 2.0GHz 512KB L2 Cache Socket 754 Processor - OEM, then I can tell you why your better of with a Sempron:

The AMD Athlon 64 for 60 US$ doesn’t have a cooler, this is why the CPU is called a OEM CPU. Only Boxed CPUs come (normally) with a stock cooler. Differences between Athlon and Sempron are; half the cache (512kB vs. 256kB) and no C´n´C (Cool and Quiet) function (Google on that to find some more info on that, but in my eyes it’s useless). The cache doesn’t make such a difference in normal computer use.

If you want the extra cache any way then take a look at this CPU:

- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX - Retail $61.99

In combination with one of these:

- Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail $66.99 ($56.99 after $10.00 Mail-In Rebate)

- ASUS A8N-VM CSM Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail $74.99

[E-66]

Thanks punto, but if I do go AMD it'll definitely be an AM2 board now that I know I can still use my current PSU.

Edited November 30, 2006 by E-66