What should I get?

[2bzy4ne1]

I am going to rebuild a lot of my computer at the end of the month and I was wondering what I should get. I know which board & case I want but don't know about the rest. Here are 2 questions.

1. Should I get an Athlon XP 2100+ (palomino) or an Athlon XP 1800+ (throughbred)?

2. Should I get an abit siluro gf4 ti4200 with corsair xms 256mb pc2700 ram or an ATI Radeon 8500LE with Kingston 512mb pc2700 ram? I can't get gf4 and 512 since it will be too much for me.

[ToM_E]

#2 ABIT Geforce 4 n 256mb RAM

[JAZ]

If you can get that xp1800+ thoroughbred and overclocking is an option you want to consider then its a really great chip (Im after one of those myself but they aint in the UK as of yet), I've seen people hitting 2.2ghz with that chip and top cooling and even on air with a decent heatsink/fan you can expect around 2.0ghz from it if you have a nice stepping code.
If this isnt something you want to do then just get the faster chip but try to get the t-bred version over the palamino core if its possible.
256mb and the G4ti should be more than enough (I use this card/ram myself).

[Shadow Lady]

Originally posted by 2bzy4ne1
I am going to rebuild a lot of my computer at the end of the month and I was wondering what I should get. I know which board & case I want but don't know about the rest. Here are 2 questions.

1. Should I get an Athlon XP 2100+ (palomino) or an Athlon XP 1800+ (throughbred)?

2. Should I get an abit siluro gf4 ti4200 with corsair xms 256mb pc2700 ram or an ATI Radeon 8500LE with Kingston 512mb pc2700 ram? I can't get gf4 and 512 since it will be too much for me.

1> get a t-bred for better overclocking ^^
2> the GF4Ti4200 + 256mb ram combo is a great option ^^
and maybe u could get 384mb instead for better

[average_guy]

looks like everyone is favoring the geforce combo, i suggestion the radeon 8500 + 512 DDR, you really need more RAM if you are using windows xp.

[Sampah]

My suggestion is to take thourghberd processor however don't try to overclocked it, Try to buy Geforce4 ti since product from nvidia is more known well than ATI also nvidia driver is more up to date.

[average_guy]

dude, you really need the extra 256MB of DDR RAM if you are going to do any intensive gaming. I was playing doom3 and i get 10~20 fps and its using 800MB of swarp file off my hdd. THATS BIG!

i might as well tell you my rig spec:
althon xp 1800+
256 MB DDR 2700
10 X 2 GB HDD
Geforce 4 MX 440 64MB DDR w/tv out

i be getting more RAM once the price drops

[Sampah]

If you're using Windows XP even 256 DDR not enough, you have to make it 512.

[JAZ]

According to average guy you need 512mb of ram for some leaked illegal game that hasnt even been finalised yet

Windows XP runs more than adaquite on 256mb of ram and a G4ti is a better card than the 8500 so get the G4ti and 256mb and if in the future when Doom3 is released and you feel the need to play it (and it actually needs 512mb of ram) you still have the option to buy some more ram then.

[hoyoyo80]

abit siluro gf4ti4200 basically like gf4ti4400...quite powerful

[average_guy]

Originally posted by JAZ
According to average guy you need 512mb of ram for some leaked illegal game that hasnt even been finalised yet

Windows XP runs more than adaquite on 256mb of ram and a G4ti is a better card than the 8500 so get the G4ti and 256mb and if in the future when Doom3 is released and you feel the need to play it (and it actually needs 512mb of ram) you still have the option to buy some more ram then.

Its not just doom3, i was playing warcraft3 and it lags when i set to 12 player custom big map. I believe more RAM is more important than better gfx card.

[Kane]

Depends on the card you have.
256 is more than enough most of the time.

[hoyoyo80]

i think most strategy game need more ram when the game become crowded,doom3 already out average?

[Hanamichi]

Doom3 is still in development. He was talking about the leaked alpha version.
2bzy4ne1,
1. I'd get he 1800+(especially if it has a good stepping code) and o/c it a little, or get the 2100+ if youre not going to o/c.
2. I'd get the GF combo if your motherboard has 3 DIMM slots, or get more cash and get the GF4Ti AND 512MB if it has 2DIMM slots. I know I sound ridiculous but that's a tough option there, as a Radeon8500 may not satisfy your needs soon and you may have upgrading problems later on if you've got a 256MB stick in one of your 2DIMMs(if yours has only2).

[average_guy]

is it just my windows xp or anyone else's xp eats up 128MB of RAM on startup?

[Kane]

This is my current RAM usage. I have a good number of apps running in the background as you can see, but explorer isn't really using up that much. Most of it is extra apps like AudioHQ, Trayit, Rivatuner and the like just all adding up.

[james.miller]

most 1800 t/bred's dont seem to overclock as well as the good old 1600+ agioa y's, some of them actually do pretty bad. They also run hotter.

so, id suggest a 1600+ instead, which is cheaper, and better, than either the 1800 or the 2100. (as far as the probability of a high o/c goes)

Id also go for either the 8500, or an ALBATRON ti4200 turbo. They currently have the fastest ram of any gf4 ti (3.3ns) and some are doing very well indeed.
A friend of mine at another forums has got his albatron ti4200 to 330mhz / 725mhz core / ram - much higher than the abit (or any other current 4200) will get.

[2bzy4ne1]

I think that I will get the 1800+ with the gf4 and 256mb ram. I will overclock it to the max w/ good air cooling when I can get my hands on the athlon 64 whenever it comes out. My current specs runs smooth with 256 and I didn't notice a big performance difference yet with a computer with 512mb ram since my sister's computer does. I'll get 512 when I decide to go into extreme gaming. All I plan on doing with this new computer is school work and playing Warcraft III and Unreal Tournament 2003.

Now on the talk of buying, besides pricewatch, where can I find a t-bred b 1800+? All I find are t-bred a...

[Demigod]

Warcraft III's memory requirements aren't really that high but UT 2003 takes up a heap of memory. On a small 1-on-1 level it takes up 128 MB. If you're going for 256 MB and intend to play that game then you had better cut back on any background apps and run a bare-boned system.

[Sampah]

I play Neverwinternights and I notice the game needs a high performance Harddisk to run the games smoothly, I notice a lag and the indicator of HDD keeps lighting, at first I thought I don't have enough RAM so I add another 256 MB RAM becam 512 MB of RAM(it's SDRAM) however the problem keeps exsist, so I try my friends HDD which supports ATA100 and Neverwinternights runs smoothly, since my HDD only support ATA 66, It's kinda slow when the CPU trying to load the texture from HDD to the RAM.