SGnTN Casey Fleser / Some Geek in TN

CPU
Any Pentium 4 with 800 MHz is a fine bet, as is any Athlon XP w/333 or higher FSB (cpu approved). The Intel machine will cost $100-$150 more (with identical memory) and perform better or worse than the Athlon system, depending on application … Althon performs better at a given rating for many games and floating point ops, but Intel performs better at extremely bandwidth intensive, and SSE2 optimized applications (media encoding, lightwave, etc). Both are so similar in both ability and value that it is now primarily a personal choice … not a technical recommendation. (approved)

MEMORY
That memory is high performance, and high quality … and I personally have never had problems with Crucial, Corsair, or Kingston memory, nor with the mwave no branded memory (but I have had trouble with non-branded memory elsewhere … so by itself, this memory would get an approved … except for 2 things …

1 – this memory was known to not work properly with the Intel 865 PE chipset at it’s correct memory timings, when it was first released (even though it works perfectly with the 875 higher end chipset, and EVERY other chipset used (this info is from http://www.anandtech.com‘s Intel 865 chipset review. I really shouldn’t matter though, because they lowered it’s timings and it works well (which gives it equal performance to normal memory (cas 2.5, etc) and compatibility and match chances if you latter move it to a different computer.

2 – the Intel 865 chipset is DUAL CHANNEL, so you really should invest in 2 memory sticks to achieve performance … highest performance is acheived by having at least 4 total “sides” or memory (2 dual sided or 4 single sided sticks) … a single dual sided (or 2 single sided) only gets 50% of the available bandwidth. Please note, that all memory installed should be identically matched, else the lowest timings is EACH area is chosen … so installing CAS 2, 3,6,3,3 or some such memory, with a CAS 2.5, 3,7,2,2 stick, would yield approximately CAS 2.5, 3,7,3,3 performance …

(recommend purchase 2 identical 512 MB sticks – if going with intel 865 chipset)

CASE
No information.

POWER SUPPLY
Antec has worked well for me in the past … although I have had good luck with non-branded power supplies as well (my friend Chris has had much bad luck). (approved)

CDRW
Is it a DVD reader? If not, I highly recommend the LG (or any brand) CDRW/DVD reader (only $15-$20 more). (recommend add DVD reading capabilities)

HD
No information about current seagates, but any current 7200 or faster drive … will work very similarly … 120 GB has proven to me to be enough for a great Windows XP drive, software, data, and lots of room for FreeBSD and Linux too. (approved)

Video Card
The only great choices these days are ATI Radeon 9500 or higher cards, and NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 and higher video cards (Radeon 9200 and GeforceFX 5200 are good for normal machines, just not killer machines). (approved)

Monitor
No information, but any current generation 17-19″ LCD seems like a good monitor to me. (approved)

Kbd/Mouse
I love this series of logitech, although I have not tried the cordless version … it is what I want to try on my next system (spproved) … please tell me if you run into any problem with the cordless …

OS
Windows is finally getting decent … besides a few hard to administer areas, this OS is the only way to go in the windows world … 98, Me, NT 4, and 2000 all have significant shortcommings compared to XP (different problems each, and depending on your needs) – XP actualy works almost all the time – Like BeOS, and Linux, and FreeBSD (and Window 98 SE for the period of time when I had settled on well supported hardare only).

OVERCLOCKING …
I really just don’t understand this anymore … the days of the celeron 300A are gone (man I loved that chip) … There just is no type of overclocking possible anymore that does not decrease system stability. The CPU is multiplier locked, so you have to overclock your bus … which affects the memory, CPU, video card, chipset, and everything … which means MAJOR performance gains are possible (percentage wise) … but so is the compound increase in crashes, and heat generation. I just really see no reason to crash even once extra per week, to get a 5-10% performance boost … but that’s just me I guess. I personally wish they would make products MORE STABLY as a priority together with FASTER … because we are getting fast enough for now … but compatibility and crashes still happen a lot.

BTW, if you are NOT overclocking, the 2.4C and 2.6C seem to be the sweet spots right now (with the 2.6C well worth the $40 if you have it). If you are overclocking, than the 2.4 is likely the better choice.

CHIPSET
If you are getting any chipset except the Intel 865 PE, than I would like to know why? I may have missed something, but as far as I can tell, for real performance the only choice on an intel platform is Dual Channel memory (because the CPU bus already has twice the bandwith that can be achieved with 1 channel of memory).

AMD NOTES
If you do however look at AMD options, realize that, although the nforce2 ultra is the performance crown … it’s advantage over the VIA KT400A and KT600 is so small as to be irrelevant (1-5%), and using Dual channel memory on an athlon does not help unless you use integrated grahpics … so the nforce2 with integrated graphics is the best CHEAP solution … but the nforce2 and kt600 are really equals in the entusiast market … and the via is often much cheaper, and often has firewire installed.

FINAL NOTE ON SOUND
all integrated sound solutions are fine, except their crappy D/A converters and ciruitry … so using SPDIF out on a motherboard is HIGHLY recommended if you have that option … especially on Nforce2 motherboards which have professional quality sound processing ability, but still use crappy circuits …