New computer goodies

[Brian]

Well last night I finally got my new black aluminum case in from the good old ups guy. It's pretty nice with a plexi glass side and all the cool lighted fans ;). I'll post pics of that later. I also decided to upgrade the processor while I was at it so i'm sitting at an XP 2600 now instead of my 1600. Should be a nice speed increase. After I get the cooling all sorted i'll see what I can do as far as overclocking. Next up I need to get another hard drive. This 40gb one is definetly not cutting it anymore :)

[john]

RICER! :)

[Brian]

lol, I know, I know. I'm so ashamed of myself ;), but I hear it makes the fans faster when they have led's on them ;)

[DrJones]

lol, I know, I know. I'm so ashamed of myself ;), but I hear it makes the fans faster when they have led's on them ;)

I don't care what anyone says, doing that to your computer case is right now very un-rice like. Your definatly trying to pass it off as something 'faster'.

If you look at some of the jobs people do it's pure genious. I've seen some towers that should be put in the Smithsonian.

If you want to do some custom airbrushed graphics (like something HAI related) there is a place here in Golden that will paint a case for pretty reasonable. They do some kick ass work too.

[djet820]

I want a new case. I want the front of the tower to light up on the corners. My cousins shop had a case like that but he sold it right away. Anybody know where I can get one of those? I want to be like Brian and have lights everywhere!!!!

[Brian]

I'll post pics of mine when I get home. It lights up in the front as well. I ordered mine online and got great service from the place. It was right at 46.00 shipped including a 400W power supply and 3 led case fans so it was a pretty good deal for the quality of the case.

[djet820]

oooo ahhhhh where did you get it?

or is it a forbidden secret?

[Brian]

I'll look in my e-mail when I get home for the name of the place. THey actually shipped it out the same day I ordered and got me a tracking number within a couple hours. I was really impressed especially considering I ordered the weekend before christmas and they still got it to me by christmas eve.

[ryanman]

I just got a new case also but it's all black. Looks nice and it's pretty BIG. I want some neon lights though.

[djet820]

I'll look in my e-mail when I get home for the name of the place. THey actually shipped it out the same day I ordered and got me a tracking number within a couple hours. I was really impressed especially considering I ordered the weekend before christmas and they still got it to me by christmas eve.

sweet. I hope they don't only sell full towers...I only want a half one. (or mid-tower...aww whatever they're called)

[Mario]

I gotta new computer goodie too. Lite-On DVD+-RW 4x for $70 minus a $25 gift card. How fucking cool is that? :)

[exciv2000]

Cool man.

I'm having a dilema with computers myself right now. I got a ATI AIW 9000 for my birthday and stuck it in my PIII 1Ghz machine... it plays TV fine, but doesn't record. The whole intention was to make a tivo killer. Come to find out, I didn't have enough CPU power to run the recording function. So I stuck it in my 2100+ machine, and it played and recorded fine. While I like being able to watch TV on this machine, the whole point was PVR duty.

So my options as I see them:
1) Sell the dual PII 333mhz Mobo, procs, and RAM that currently has freeBSD on it and get a P4 2.8 HT Proc in either a Shuttle small formfactor mini-ATX case or buy a mobo and put it in an Antec Overture Desktop Case. My PIII 1Ghz machine would then become the freeBSD server.
2) Make the 2100+ machine with giga-byte Mobo a WinXP based server so to speak, offering tivo killing capabilities along with Media storage and networking, and using the PIII 1Ghz machine as my main desktop for the time being along with my laptop. This would cost me the least amount of money, if any at all until I got the bug to upgrade it at a later time (which wouldn't take long I'm sure) The giga-byte board is special in that it can take up to a 3000+ (probably a 3200+ with bios upgrade) Athlon XP CPU, has USB 2.0, firewire, Serial and parallel ATA raid onboard, Regular serial and parallel ATA and a few other niceties that my other PCs lack.
3) hmm, not sure yet.

Any Ideas on which option I should choose? Mike, can you get me any spectacular deals on any of the possible equipment purchases listed above?

[exciv2000]

I gotta new computer goodie too. Lite-On DVD+-RW 4x for $70 minus a $25 gift card. How fucking cool is that? :)

Not as cool as my Plextor 708 8x DVD +/- R/RW burner I got for free for my birthday, but close ;)

[Mario]

Scott - I'd buy some cheapo board for your 'Tivo Killer'... get like a KT266 or KT333 board (don't spend more than $50 on it), and use the 2100+ with that. Buy a 2500+ for about $80, and put that in your GIGABYTE board and call it a good day. Everyone is happy for about $130. ;)

Well, I think a Barton 2500+ (running at 3200+ right now ;)) and an Abit board tops that. :D

[DrJones]

From what i've seen most the TiVO replacements are ram dependant, and don't require too much CPU power (can probably get the specs on what a real tivo has). If you want a cheaper solution I know there are some USB based tv capture devices with hardware that will do the encoding. Pretty good solution I think.

[exciv2000]

and an Abit board tops that. :D

ugh on the abit board. Had one, hated it, then it just died out of the blue one day. Replaced it with a Tyan board and never had any more problems. Ugh on Soyo boards too, had one, hated it, and replaced it with my Gigabyte board. I'm the type of person who won't buy the same thing twice if it sucks the first time 99 times out of 100. That's just my experience with it tho.

[Mario]

Musta had a lemon.. no board just dies like that. The Abit is a great O/Cing and stable board - much more overclocking features than my 7VRXP. I'd personally recommend the board, but no problems here yet.

[exciv2000]

From what i've seen most the TiVO replacements are ram dependant, and don't require too much CPU power (can probably get the specs on what a real tivo has). If you want a cheaper solution I know there are some USB based tv capture devices with hardware that will do the encoding. Pretty good solution I think.

Okay, why would I want to go out and get USB tv capture device when I just got a card that does all that plus remote with bigger bandwidth on AGP for free? But you did bring up an interesting point, I did only have 256 MB of Ram in the PIII 1Ghz machine, I have 640 MB in the 2100+ machine. However, it wasn't the RAM that was getting hit hard, it was the CPU. While watching TV, the 1Ghz machine would be at 85ish% CPU util. most of the time. While watching TV on the 2100+, CPU util. was at usually <15%.

[exciv2000]

Musta had a lemon.. no board just dies like that. The Abit is a great O/Cing and stable board - much more overclocking features than my 7VRXP. I'd personally recommend the board, but no problems here yet.

Asus on the other hand, while I haven't tried, would definitely try. They too are great O/Cing boards from everything that I read. I looked at them when I got the gigabyte and it just didn't have the options I wanted at the time.

[DrJones]

Okay, why would I want to go out and get USB tv capture device when I just got a card that does all that plus remote with bigger bandwidth on AGP for free? But you did bring up an interesting point, I did only have 256 MB of Ram in the PIII 1Ghz machine, I have 640 MB in the 2100+ machine. However, it wasn't the RAM that was getting hit hard, it was the CPU. While watching TV, the 1Ghz machine would be at 85ish% CPU util. most of the time. While watching TV on the 2100+, CPU util. was at usually <15%.


Didn't know your card was doing that, not all of them do. If you move anything into hardware it really takes a lot off your cpu. With a good hardware setup a 400 mhz cpu would be fine. I guess some can only encode or decode, so your CPU has to do one of the two, which would still need a fairly beefy cpu. Intel P4 with HT would be perfect for it though.

[DrJones]

Asus on the other hand, while I haven't tried, would definitely try. They too are great O/Cing boards from everything that I read. I looked at them when I got the gigabyte and it just didn't have the options I wanted at the time.


I'm not sure why some boards are so picky with people. I love Epox, everyone I've had works. I hate MSI, never had a decent one.

[exciv2000]

Didn't know your card was doing that, not all of them do. If you move anything into hardware it really takes a lot off your cpu. With a good hardware setup a 400 mhz cpu would be fine. I guess some can only encode or decode, so your CPU has to do one of the two, which would still need a fairly beefy cpu. Intel P4 with HT would be perfect for it though.

Sorry, I guess ATI AIW 9000 isn't as self-explanatory to everyone else as it may be to me. All-In-Wonder. It does tivo-like timeshifing, plus many, many other features. A story a couple of months ago in MaximumPC said nothing less than a P4 2.4 I think for timeshifting duties, but I thought that was overdoing it by quite a bit.

[exciv2000]

Well Here's my listing so far for possible computer upgrades:

Cases
Shuttle XPC
AMD
SN45G $255

Intel
SB61G2 $280
SB75G2 $360



Motherboards
P4
865G $99-115
875P D875PBZ $140
Asus P4C800 Deluxe 875P $170
Asus P4P800-VM 865G $105
Gigabyte GA8IG1000 PRO $110 865G
Gigabyte GA-8KNXP $200 875P

AMD
Nforce2 Ultra 400
Asus A7N8X Deluxe $110
Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro 2 $110

RAM
Mushkin Dual Channel DDR 400Mhz $114 512MB
Corsair
Crucial
Micron

CPU
AMD 3000+ $199
Intel P4 2.8 HT $206

[DrJones]

As much as I hate to admit it, I think the 2.8 p4 is a better buy. They can OC like mad, plus have better memory bandwidth and HT can add to performance. Especially for what you are doing. The sse2 instructions could also help with encoding/decoding.

Every system I have ever built or recomended to anyone has been AMD, but intels look really good right now....

[exciv2000]

yeah but I don't overclock.

[forum]

there's one of your first mistakes, personally I would go with the p4 as well. currently the amd couldn't hold a candle to them

[exciv2000]

how is not overclocking a mistake? It's anything but a mistake. My shit needs to be stable, the only time I ever turn the things off is if I go on vacation or something.

[john]

You're running a 2.5 core at 3.2? Are you using (ice)water cooling?

Scott - I'd buy some cheapo board for your 'Tivo Killer'... get like a KT266 or KT333 board (don't spend more than $50 on it), and use the 2100+ with that. Buy a 2500+ for about $80, and put that in your GIGABYTE board and call it a good day. Everyone is happy for about $130. ;)

Well, I think a Barton 2500+ (running at 3200+ right now ;)) and an Abit board tops that. :D

[forum]

You're running a 2.5 core at 3.2? Are you using (ice)water cooling?
yes he is(well it's a 1.8 at about 2.2 technically), same reason I'm running my 3.0 at 3.7. As for stability I don't see overclocking affecting that much, as long as you don't push it too much it doesn't become a problem. At least it never did with my abit mobo with an amd processor, and it hasn't been with my gigabyte board and p4.

[Bedlam]

Hrmm..I have had my 3.0 at 3.62 for almost a month now, air cooled...the new intel shizza is just badass. :)

-Bedlam

[exciv2000]

Gawd dammit, I can't figure this out: Suppose you have an Athlon 3000+ and it can run at either 166Mhz bus speed(13x multiplier) or 200Mhz bus speed (10.5x multiplier). Obviously 200Mhz should be better, right? Which means you would want PC3200(400Mhz) ram instead of PC2700(333Mhz) ram.

The question is Can you use PC2700 RAM(333Mhz) on a 200Mhz system bus?

[DrJones]

Gawd dammit, I can't figure this out: Suppose you have an Athlon 3000+ and it can run at either 166Mhz bus speed(13x multiplier) or 200Mhz bus speed (10.5x multiplier). Obviously 200Mhz should be better, right? Which means you would want PC3200(400Mhz) ram instead of PC2700(333Mhz) ram.

The question is Can you use PC2700 RAM(333Mhz) on a 200Mhz system bus?

True you would want the higher fsb. It controlls the memory bandwidth, which is very important. It's why a lot of people would actually lower the multiplier on their athlons, so they could raise the fsb. They were getting better performance then the people who just tried to boost everything to the max to get the highest CPU clock speed.

You could run 333Mhz ram on a 200Mhz system, but it would be overclocking your ram. It might not run that fast if you have agressive timings, or if the ram isn't the best quality. Some motherboards also offer you the option (more popular with intels) of scaling down the memory frequency. Normally it runs 1 to 1 with the fsb, but some boards let you run it with a 5/4 or 4/3 multiplier, meaning that your cpu would be 200 Mhz, but the memory would be 160 Mhz (for 5/4). Usually the only reason people would want to do that though, is because they hit the celing for their ram, and their cpu can take a little more.

Memory bandwidth is very important. I would get the PC 3200 so you can run it at 200 (at least) with agressive timings. Ram quality matters a lot too. Get a good, well known brand. Don't try and save a few bucks, you won't be nearly as happy.

[Mario]

Gawd dammit, I can't figure this out: Suppose you have an Athlon 3000+ and it can run at either 166Mhz bus speed(13x multiplier) or 200Mhz bus speed (10.5x multiplier). Obviously 200Mhz should be better, right? Which means you would want PC3200(400Mhz) ram instead of PC2700(333Mhz) ram.

The question is Can you use PC2700 RAM(333Mhz) on a 200Mhz system bus?

Simple answer: yes. I am running PC2700 right now. Timings are relaxed though. I have not tried to push the chip past 200MHz FSB yet.

[djet820]

I just bought my new case...and tis' the one I was talking about

i'll post pics later, I like it.

[cherrybombcivic]

so....pics of the new case brian?

[02AccordV6]

sounds cool. congrats