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Qs about motherboard/components for homebuild AMD system
Hi. I'm planning on building a PC and was looking for some
help/suggestions on some of the components to use. While I have done a fair amount of installation/removal of components on PCs, I have never actually built one from scratch. I have read a lot recently to get more familiar with building systems, components, cases, motherboards, etc. Still, there is plenty of confusion :-). I intend to have the system be dual bootable, Linux (some recent version of Red Hat) and Windows (probably either XP Pro or 2000 Pro). I already have two hard drives (Western Digital 120 GB and 100 GB), and plan to have each hard drive dedicated to one of the OS's. The main uses of the system will be software development (e.g. Java, ..Net, Web), email, web browsing, some audio and video processing (nothing heavy duty), some gaming (nothing heavy duty), and such. I recently purchased an Antec Sonata case. I'm planning to use the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU. Next choice is the motherboard. I'm considering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and the Gigabyte GA-7N400PRO2. They are similarly priced, have similar features, and both have gotten good reviews. Both use the nVidia chipset and support 400 MHz FSB, ATA 133, SATA and AGP 8X, have onboard sound, multiple USB and Firewire ports, and five PCI slots. As to differences, the Asus seems to have gotten somewhat better reviews (that's my impression, at least), has a better chipset (MCP-T vs. MCP), dual network capability, and better sound. The Gigabyte has four IDE connectors as opposed to two for the Asus (if I'm reading the specs correctly). The Gigabyte specs also specifically mention a FDD connector, while the Asus' doesn't. Both of these boards are probably more than I need right now, but they're not much more expensive than their cheaper sister boards, plus they add some more "future proof-ness" to the system. So, my first questions are, do these boards seem like reasonable choices, and any comments that would help me decide between the two? Does it seem like a reasonable balance of cost between the major components of the system (case was around $100, CPU is around $90, these motherboards are around $120)? I'm going to have two hard drives, a CD-RW, and a DVD-ROM. Do I need a floppy drive? (I have a USB Flash/Pen/Jump/Whatever drive.) Will I need any additional IDE controllers? If I understand things correctly, those four drives will fill up the Asus' two IDE controllers. So if I get a floppy, or want to add another drive in the future (the Sonata can take nine), I'd have to get another IDE controller, correct? But not with the Gigabyte, because it has room for eight IDE drives (plus a floppy)? Also, what's the best way to set up those drives on the two (or more) IDE controllers? Is the sound on these motherboards sufficient so that I wouldn't need to get a separate sound card? How about suggestions for a video card. As mentioned, this machine won't be used for serious gaming, so I don't need a high end card. I was thinking of a good 64 MB card, perhaps with some nice features like dual head. I was thinking at most $75 or so, because that should be enough for a quite sufficient card. Sorry for the length of the note, and the seeming barrage of questions. Any help you can provide will be much appreciated! -- Milt Epstein |
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see below
"Gary L." wrote in message ... On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 18:23:33 GMT, (Milt Epstein) wrote: I intend to have the system be dual bootable, Linux (some recent version of Red Hat) and Windows (probably either XP Pro or 2000 Pro). I already have two hard drives (Western Digital 120 GB and 100 GB), and plan to have each hard drive dedicated to one of the OS's. Be sure to create at least one FAT32 partition to share data between the OSes. Linux will be much happier with FAT32 as compared to NTFS. Of course, Windows won't recognize Linux ext2 or ext3 partitions. Next choice is the motherboard. I'm considering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and the Gigabyte GA-7N400PRO2. They are similarly priced, have similar features, and both have gotten good reviews. Both use the nVidia chipset and support 400 MHz FSB, ATA 133, SATA and AGP 8X, have onboard sound, multiple USB and Firewire ports, and five PCI slots. As to differences, the Asus seems to have gotten somewhat better reviews (that's my impression, at least), has a better chipset (MCP-T vs. MCP), dual network capability, and better sound. The Gigabyte has four IDE connectors as opposed to two for the Asus (if I'm reading the specs correctly). The Gigabyte specs also specifically mention a FDD connector, while the Asus' doesn't. I'm reasonably certain that the Asus will have a floppy disk controller. speaking from 1st hand experience, and with the manual in hand, a7n8x does have fdd controller Both of these boards are probably more than I need right now, but they're not much more expensive than their cheaper sister boards, plus they add some more "future proof-ness" to the system. So, my first questions are, do these boards seem like reasonable choices, and any comments that would help me decide between the two? now on my 2nd asus board, with a breif transition for 3 weeks to an epox 8rda3+ which was total junk. Asus has a little better reputation for quality/reliability, but otherwise the two are pretty much equal. If the price was similar, I'd go for the Asus. I ended up with an FIC AU13 nForce 2 board because it was super-cheap at Fry's and it has worked perfectly from day 1. It has the MCP-T chip set and a 3Com NIC like the Asus. I'm going to have two hard drives, a CD-RW, and a DVD-ROM. Do I need a floppy drive? (I have a USB Flash/Pen/Jump/Whatever drive.) Will I need any additional IDE controllers? If I understand things correctly, those four drives will fill up the Asus' two IDE controllers. So if I get a floppy, or want to add another drive in the future (the Sonata can take nine), I'd have to get another IDE controller, correct? But not with the Gigabyte, because it has room for eight IDE drives (plus a floppy)? Also, what's the best way to set up those drives on the two (or more) IDE controllers? why dont you get SATA HDD's from day1? 120gb 7200rpm, 8mb cahce maxtor drive for around $120 Either board will handle your present needs. Future expansion will probably be in the form of USB 2 or 1394 external drives or SATA hard drives, so the extra IDE ports on the Gigabyte don't matter. Also, the Gigabyte extra IDE ports are in the form of a software RAID controller. Such a controller won't work with Linux and requires matched hard drives, so you can't use it anyway. And I'm sure the Asus has a floppy port (which is a different connector from the regular IDE connector). Best setup (IMHO): Hard drives as master and slave on primary controller, DVD as master on secondary controller, and CD-RW as slave on secondary controller. Install Windows first on the master HD; then install Linux in the slave drive. Install the Linux GRUB boot loader on the Master Boot Record on the master drive to permit you to choose the OS at boot time. Create an extra FAT32 partition on either disk for sharing data between the OSes. Is the sound on these motherboards sufficient so that I wouldn't need to get a separate sound card? The Nforce 2 sound works well for me (with the MCP-T). Nvidia has a patch file for Linux to get the sound to work using the AC97-Intel 810 driver. How about suggestions for a video card. As mentioned, this machine won't be used for serious gaming, so I don't need a high end card. I was thinking of a good 64 MB card, perhaps with some nice features like dual head. I was thinking at most $75 or so, because that should be enough for a quite sufficient card. Anything will work fine under Windows. I've found that the Nvidia Linux drivers are more up-to-date and work better than the ATI drivers. Also, you have an issue with the Nforce 2 chip set AGP "GART" driver. Nvidia includes a GART driver with the Linux video drivers and it works well. If you don't install a proper GART driver, then 2D will work fine but you won't get any 3D acceleration at all under Linux (which you may or may not care about). With anything other than Nvidia, you need to download a patch from Nvidia and recompile the Linux kernel with the patch. I'm using an Asus GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64 MB card and I'm pleased with it both with Windows and Linux. Dual head is another can of worms under Linux. I believe that the Nvidia Linux drivers support dual head, but I haven't tried them. I have used Matrox cards with dual head under Linux using the Matrox drivers, and managed to get it to work with only a few hours of fiddling. If you don't need any kind of 3D performance under either Linux or Windows, then a Matrox G550 may be your best choice, even though it has 32 MB of memory. - - Gary L. Reply to the Newsgroup for the benefit of all |
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Hash: SHA1 In article , O |V| 3 G A wrote: On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 18:23:33 GMT, (Milt Epstein) wrote: I'm going to have two hard drives, a CD-RW, and a DVD-ROM. Do I need a floppy drive? (I have a USB Flash/Pen/Jump/Whatever drive.) Will I need any additional IDE controllers? If I understand things correctly, those four drives will fill up the Asus' two IDE controllers. So if I get a floppy, or want to add another drive in the future (the Sonata can take nine), I'd have to get another IDE controller, correct? But not with the Gigabyte, because it has room for eight IDE drives (plus a floppy)? Also, what's the best way to set up those drives on the two (or more) IDE controllers? why dont you get SATA HDD's from day1? 120gb 7200rpm, 8mb cahce maxtor drive for around $120 He probably wants something that'll last longer than a couple of months. :-P (Just snagged a WD 1200JB for ~$130 today...after rebate, it'll be down to just $80. 120 GB, 7200 rpm, 8 megs of cache, and a 3-year warranty...you can't go wrong with that. The SATA drives Western Digital is selling are 10krpm drives derived from their SCSI products...they'll be a fair bit faster, but they're considerably more expensive and the largest drive available in that series is only 74 GB.) _/_ Scott Alfter (address in header doesn't receive mail) / v \ send email to (IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting! \_^_/ pkill -9 /bin/laden What is the most annoying thing on Usenet? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (Linux) iD8DBQE/cN9KVgTKos01OwkRAp/rAKDiLiPG/Lstbf5if/2j0Wunfe6x5gCfYXgP MKCPYlSUAJc0qwF+1k8w8Jo= =fbTg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
#6
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I recently purchased an Antec Sonata case. I'm planning to use the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU Good choice of case. I bought the Antec 660AMG just before the Sonata came out. Also a nice case, but I would have gone for the Sonata instead. The choice to go for the Barton is also good as they consume less power as compared to the previous versions of the Athlon. Next choice is the motherboard. I'm considering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and the Gigabyte GA-7N400PRO2. They are similarly priced, have The Asus motherboard made #3 on my own list, after the EPoX and Abit. I eventually got the Asus because the others weren't available at the time (December last year). For my own PC (the previous one was for the parents) which I built 3 months ago I got the Abit NF7-S. Basically all nForce2 boards have more or less the same features - you just have to decide which is more important. I didn't need 2 NIC's (as in the Asus), I liked the fact that the Abit had Soundstorm (absent on the Asus non-Deluxe, if I recall), and the Asus is more expensive. SATA I still consider a "non feature". This will only get interesting when SATA II arives. The Gigabyte has four IDE connectors as opposed to two for the Asus If you have a lot (more than 4) IDE devices this is handy, otherwise it matters little. You can also use SATA instead, if need be. The Gigabyte specs also specifically mention a FDD connector, while the Asus' doesn't. Of course the Asus also has a FDD connector So, my first questions are, do these boards seem like reasonable choices, and any comments that would help me decide between the two? Yes they do. Tomshardware also seems to like the Gigabyte: http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherb...721/index.html In that review you'll also find a table of features for 6 boards. Very handy. Do I need a floppy drive? Only YOU can answer that. I know that *i* only used my floppy drive a handfull of times in the last year (to make bootable floppies for my FreeSco server). I still wouldn't like to be without one, and put my old floppy drive in my new machine. Will I need any additional IDE controllers? You can put 2 devices on each IDE connector. The Asus has two of those, and the Gigabyte has four. That's 4 or 8 ATA devices! And you could also resort to using the SATA connectors (2 devices more each) for a total of 6 or 10 devices. I don't think you need more controllers. So if I get a floppy, or want to add another drive in the future, I'd have to get another IDE controller, correct? The Floppy goes on the floppy controller, not a IDE controller. But yes... if you run out you run out. But you could use SATA to add more SATA HD's if need be. But not with the Gigabyte, because it has room for eight IDE drives (plus a floppy)? Yep, 8 IDE devices, two floppy devices, and two SATA IDE devices. what's the best way to set up those drives on the two (or more) IDE controllers? Boot HD on primary master, cd- or dvd-burner on secondary master. As for the rest, try to match devices with the same transfer speeds (PIO / DMA modes) that are on the same cable as the lowest common denominator will be used. (Not that this will really matter in practice if you have all fairly recent stuff) Is the sound on these motherboards sufficient so that I wouldn't need to get a separate sound card? I'm very happy with the sound from my motherboard. Unless you have really specialist needs for input/output I think it'll be fine. How about suggestions for a video card. This is the thing I really saved on. I just bought a simple TNT2 32MB card, and it plays all my games (MOHAA, Dungeon Seige, Half-Life, ...) well. Note that I only have a 15" monitor and usually play at 800x600 (maybe 1024x768). If you check www.pricewatch.com you'll notice a Radeon 9200 64MB for $48, a GeForce 5200 128MB for $62, a GeForce 3 Ti 500 for $69 and a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64MB for $75. No idea wether these have DualHead or not. Check out Tom's VGA charts for comparative speeds of the cards: http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...218/index.html If I recall correctly, the Radeon 9100 is the same as the 8500, and the 9200 is the AGP 8x version. Or something like that. -- Bas Ruiter e-Mail: www: http://members.home.nl/lordsnow |
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Be sure you get the A7N8X deluxe, which is the only version with the mcp-t2
soundstorm chipset. Either that or get the Abit NF7-S. Also you don't mention if you will attempt overclocking. There really is no reason not to, the 2500+ should run at 10.5x200 without even raising the core voltage. rms |
#8
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you obviously know your sh*t when it come to computers.
sounds like good advice. one question : why do people go for the Asus A7N8X when the Asus A7V8XX is so much cheaper. Is there any great difference? On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 04:13:59 +0200, Bas Ruiter wrote: I recently purchased an Antec Sonata case. I'm planning to use the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU Good choice of case. I bought the Antec 660AMG just before the Sonata came out. Also a nice case, but I would have gone for the Sonata instead. The choice to go for the Barton is also good as they consume less power as compared to the previous versions of the Athlon. Next choice is the motherboard. I'm considering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and the Gigabyte GA-7N400PRO2. They are similarly priced, have The Asus motherboard made #3 on my own list, after the EPoX and Abit. I eventually got the Asus because the others weren't available at the time (December last year). For my own PC (the previous one was for the parents) which I built 3 months ago I got the Abit NF7-S. Basically all nForce2 boards have more or less the same features - you just have to decide which is more important. I didn't need 2 NIC's (as in the Asus), I liked the fact that the Abit had Soundstorm (absent on the Asus non-Deluxe, if I recall), and the Asus is more expensive. SATA I still consider a "non feature". This will only get interesting when SATA II arives. The Gigabyte has four IDE connectors as opposed to two for the Asus If you have a lot (more than 4) IDE devices this is handy, otherwise it matters little. You can also use SATA instead, if need be. The Gigabyte specs also specifically mention a FDD connector, while the Asus' doesn't. Of course the Asus also has a FDD connector So, my first questions are, do these boards seem like reasonable choices, and any comments that would help me decide between the two? Yes they do. Tomshardware also seems to like the Gigabyte: http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherb...721/index.html In that review you'll also find a table of features for 6 boards. Very handy. Do I need a floppy drive? Only YOU can answer that. I know that *i* only used my floppy drive a handfull of times in the last year (to make bootable floppies for my FreeSco server). I still wouldn't like to be without one, and put my old floppy drive in my new machine. Will I need any additional IDE controllers? You can put 2 devices on each IDE connector. The Asus has two of those, and the Gigabyte has four. That's 4 or 8 ATA devices! And you could also resort to using the SATA connectors (2 devices more each) for a total of 6 or 10 devices. I don't think you need more controllers. So if I get a floppy, or want to add another drive in the future, I'd have to get another IDE controller, correct? The Floppy goes on the floppy controller, not a IDE controller. But yes... if you run out you run out. But you could use SATA to add more SATA HD's if need be. But not with the Gigabyte, because it has room for eight IDE drives (plus a floppy)? Yep, 8 IDE devices, two floppy devices, and two SATA IDE devices. what's the best way to set up those drives on the two (or more) IDE controllers? Boot HD on primary master, cd- or dvd-burner on secondary master. As for the rest, try to match devices with the same transfer speeds (PIO / DMA modes) that are on the same cable as the lowest common denominator will be used. (Not that this will really matter in practice if you have all fairly recent stuff) Is the sound on these motherboards sufficient so that I wouldn't need to get a separate sound card? I'm very happy with the sound from my motherboard. Unless you have really specialist needs for input/output I think it'll be fine. How about suggestions for a video card. This is the thing I really saved on. I just bought a simple TNT2 32MB card, and it plays all my games (MOHAA, Dungeon Seige, Half-Life, ...) well. Note that I only have a 15" monitor and usually play at 800x600 (maybe 1024x768). If you check www.pricewatch.com you'll notice a Radeon 9200 64MB for $48, a GeForce 5200 128MB for $62, a GeForce 3 Ti 500 for $69 and a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64MB for $75. No idea wether these have DualHead or not. Check out Tom's VGA charts for comparative speeds of the cards: http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...218/index.html If I recall correctly, the Radeon 9100 is the same as the 8500, and the 9200 is the AGP 8x version. Or something like that. |
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Milt Epstein wrote:
I intend to have the system be dual bootable, Linux (some recent version of Red Hat) and Windows (probably either XP Pro or 2000 Pro). I already have two hard drives (Western Digital 120 GB and 100 GB), and plan to have each hard drive dedicated to one of the OS's. Good choice. No problems with partitioning when they're on separate HDDs. The main uses of the system will be software development (e.g. Java, .Net, Web), email, web browsing, some audio and video processing (nothing heavy duty), some gaming (nothing heavy duty), and such. What graphics card are you considering? Next choice is the motherboard. I'm considering the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and the Gigabyte GA-7N400PRO2. They are similarly priced, have similar features, and both have gotten good reviews. Both use the nVidia chipset and support 400 MHz FSB, ATA 133, SATA and AGP 8X, have onboard sound, multiple USB and Firewire ports, and five PCI slots. As to differences, the Asus seems to have gotten somewhat better reviews (that's my impression, at least), has a better chipset (MCP-T vs. MCP), dual network capability, and better sound. The Gigabyte has four IDE connectors as opposed to two for the Asus (if I'm reading the specs correctly). That's because the Gigabyte board has IDE RAID. RAID allows some interesting things to be done, and you are paying more for it. The ASUS board does not have this. The Gigabyte specs also specifically mention a FDD connector, while the Asus' doesn't. Look at the image of the board on the asus site. I see a FDD connector. Both of these boards are probably more than I need right now, but they're not much more expensive than their cheaper sister boards, plus they add some more "future proof-ness" to the system. Always a good thing. So, my first questions are, do these boards seem like reasonable choices, and any comments that would help me decide between the two? If you don't want 'em I'll trade you my GA-7VRXP board for your GA7N400Pro2 board! Yes, they seem like very good boards. Does it seem like a reasonable balance of cost between the major components of the system (case was around $100, CPU is around $90, these motherboards are around $120)? That all depends on your budget. I'm going to have two hard drives, a CD-RW, and a DVD-ROM. Do I need a floppy drive? (I have a USB Flash/Pen/Jump/Whatever drive.) It's not a bad thing to have for only $10. Will I need any additional IDE controllers? Unless you want to use RAID, then no. If all you have are 4 IDE devices, then all you need are two controllers. If I understand things correctly, those four drives will fill up the Asus' two IDE controllers. So if I get a floppy, or want to add another drive in the future (the Sonata can take nine), I'd have to get another IDE controller, correct? Wrong: the floppy goes on its own connector. But not with the Gigabyte, because it has room for eight IDE drives (plus a floppy)? You can only use these extra IDE connectors if you turn on RAID. You need to read up on what RAID is, and what RAID options the gigabyte board supports. I always meant to play around with RAID when I bought my GA-7VRXP(rev 2) board, but never got around to it, so I've never had to use the extra capabilities that having a RAID enabled board allows. I should have bought a cheaper board, and then if I ever wanted to try using a RAID configureation purchased a RAID add in PCI card. Then again, I was thinking like you, and wanted to 'future proof' the new system a bit :-) Also, what's the best way to set up those drives on the two (or more) IDE controllers? There's another thread in this news group currently discussing this, and the google archives are just full of these threads across dozens of groups. Is the sound on these motherboards sufficient so that I wouldn't need to get a separate sound card? What is 'sufficient' to you? I find these sufficient for my real time strategy based computer games and playing some music on. Then again, I'm not an audiophile at all! However, you have said that you're planning on running a dual boot windows/linux system. Linux doesn't always like onboard audio, but perhaps RedHat has worked on this a bit with RedHat9. If not, you'll need to install ALSA drivers. If you don't want to tinker, then buy a separate PCI sound card that is listed as being supported by linux (and in particular the linux distribution you're planning to use). That way you won't have to even take the chance of having to play around with anything to get the sound to work. How about suggestions for a video card. As mentioned, this machine won't be used for serious gaming, so I don't need a high end card. I was thinking of a good 64 MB card, perhaps with some nice features like dual head. That's a good thing to have: the ability to use two monitors. I find this particularly useful when programming: code in one monitor and test in the other. I'm not certain about this, but just because a card has connections for two monitors, say VGA and DVI, does not mean that it can actually support two monitors: it may only be able to use one of the connectors at a time. Make sure you get a true dual head card, and if you have any doubts, email the shop or the card maker and ask! I was thinking at most $75 or so, because that should be enough for a quite sufficient card. $75 USD I assume? Sorry for the length of the note, and the seeming barrage of questions. Any help you can provide will be much appreciated! That's what USENET is for. If someone doesn't want to read through and answer, they're under absolutely no obligation to :-) Ari -- Milt Epstein -- Are you registered as a bone marrow donor? You regenerate what you donate. You are offered the chance to donate only if you match a person on the recipient list. Visit www.marrow.org or call your local Red Cross and ask about registering to be a bone marrow donor. spam trap: replace shyah_right! with hotmail when replying |
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Gary L. wrote:
Dual head is another can of worms under Linux. I believe that the Nvidia Linux drivers support dual head, but I haven't tried them. I have used Matrox cards with dual head under Linux using the Matrox drivers, and managed to get it to work with only a few hours of fiddling. If you don't need any kind of 3D performance under either Linux or Windows, then a Matrox G550 may be your best choice, even though it has 32 MB of memory. I've gotten a dual card setup to work under linux (nvidia geforce 2 and tnt2 cards) and the tricky part was just editting the X11R6 configuration file. I even had desktop spanning, but because my monitors were of two different sizes it was pretty crap. Windows handled the two different size monitors better (it was a dual boot system, like the OP wants to build). Just another note to the OP: if you want to use dual monitors under linux, you might save yourself some grief by useing two monitors of the same size. Also, another note to the OP about video cards: if you're using a recent monitor or an LCD monitor, make sure your new graphics card has at least a digital video connector (as opposed to the standard old VGA connector). HTH, Ari - - Gary L. Reply to the Newsgroup for the benefit of all -- Are you registered as a bone marrow donor? You regenerate what you donate. You are offered the chance to donate only if you match a person on the recipient list. Visit www.marrow.org or call your local Red Cross and ask about registering to be a bone marrow donor. spam trap: replace shyah_right! with hotmail when replying |
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