Best Chipset for AMD?

[Antithesis]

Hello all...

Is the NForce2 chipset still considered a high quality/performing chipset
for an AthlonXP system? Does anybody have any suggestions on others?
Price is not necessarily a concern at this point in time. I just know it's
time to upgrade considering I'm still running my AMD K6-2 450MHz... it
still does what I want / need it to do, but I'd say I've gotten my use out
of it. Time for a new one.

Along with the chipset suggestions, what about a decent video card?
Something in the GeForceFX series? The video card would be prohibited by
cost since I don't play many games. I'm sure I'd play a game or two, but I
am not a hardcore gamer.

Thanks in advance,
Jesse
http://www.ourstrangeworld.com
Currently serving links to 783 websites and 802 news stories that are
strange, humorous, weird, absurd, odd, useless and sometimes just plain
moronic.

 

[Alan W. Blackmon]

If your computer does what you want and need I will give you this input
about faster. Newer ones will do some things faster, but some will still be
the same. For me I have gone from a PIII 500 to a AMD 1600+ XP and then to
a AMD 2100+ XP. my net surfing is no faster. My checkbook program is not
any faster. My photo editing is faster. My word processing is no faster,
but it does load up somewhat faster. Once loaded it acts just the same.

So if you want to, go for it. I have found one difference though. The
noise of the fans to cool off a faster system is getting on my nerves. I
sit four feet from a tower computer and the fan just drives me crazy some
days. So I have disconnected the case fan and left the side open which has
low wife approval factor. She likes things clean and put away and this does
not qualify as either. The noise from the CPU fan is still pretty high
though.

Anyway, I have recently built a computer for other uses using the PIII slot
1 processor with a passive cooling system and boy, I am tempted to build
another for my office due to it's extremely low noise.

I am not a gamer either, and that is what is driving the speed increases on
computers. CAD and graphics programs likes faster systems and video
editing, all of which I don't do.

Anyway none of this may even affect you, but I just couldn't resist giving
you some of my input. Gotta admit though, I love building computers and I
seem to just find suddenly I have a faster one at the end of the day every
few years. I am not feeling that need this year though.

Alan in Boise

 

[Carbon]

Hello all...

Is the NForce2 chipset still considered a high quality/performing
chipset for an AthlonXP system? Does anybody have any suggestions on
others? Price is not necessarily a concern at this point in time. I
just know it's time to upgrade considering I'm still running my AMD K6-2
450MHz... it still does what I want / need it to do, but I'd say I've
gotten my use out of it. Time for a new one.

I've built a couple of systems using the nforce2/400 ultra chipset and
have had zero problems with them under XP. However, if you use linux the
networking drivers are binary only, so you'll need to download a module
from the nvidia website. It's something of a pain, but it works well
enough.

You want the nforce2/400 ultra chipset - if you use 2x256 pc3200 you get
blazing fast dual channel memory access. Such boards can be had at newegg
for about $70 and up. I believe the XP2500 Barton retail CPU (comes with
fan and 3 year warranty) is going for $80. Good quality 256 mb pc3200 ram
can be had for about $40 each. I also used WD's 8mb cache ATA drive and
found it to be very fast. And Radeon 9200 video, a burner, an In-win s500
case a good quality 300w power supply (very important).

I know how you feel about sticking with older equipment that does the job.
But these nforce machines are so smokin' fast it's getting harder to
resist. The machines I built were about $600 each, pretty good considering
I used only quality, name-brand stuff. That's not much money for that kind
of speed. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you build one.

Check out http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/budget.html - this same
setup is ArsTechnica's current recommended budget box.