I need help w/ parts selection.

[CaptainMooseInc]

Alright guys, I've got a Brand New Retail Boxed AMD Sempron 2500+.

I bought the chip planning to build my g/f a new computer with the ASUS A7N8X-VM400 board (I think that's the name, I've been up forever and a day and quite can't rememer). Onboard Sound, LAN, and Video. She doesn't need the high tech extras like a 5.1 surround sound card or GeForce 50,000,000FX video card.

Here's my thing though, my school is giving me the difference of my bursar account again and I'm getting $1100.

I don't wanna use it all on a computer, but I'm thinking of making a little bit better system for her *coughs*me-for-DCing-but-making-it-look-like-its-for-her*coughs*.

Anywayz, can anyone list the following for me and prices (retail, not OEM):

An nForce chipset board (I hate VIA, so anything but VIA)
An AMD Processor

I don't think I'm ready to take her to the 64-bit level just yet. She's a big fan of Diablo, The Sims 1&2, AOL, AIM, all that stupid crap. Maybe a good Opteron board?

I'm gonna investigate it too, but I wanna see what people suggest.

HELP ME MAKE A GREAT SYSTEM GUYS!

-Jeff

P.S. I'm looking into making a Dual CPU system. Maybe you could suggest a low end Dual Opteron or Xeon setup?

[IronBits]

google is your friend, as is pricewatch ;)
newegg is a good place to go looking for online shopping...
Search for reviews, there are tons of them and many have recommendations.
Sounds like your gonna be building a good box! :)

[CaptainMooseInc]

Yeah, I've been running around Google, Froogle, Pricewatch and Newegg (yuck). I can find Opteron boards and Xeon boards and whatnot, the only thing problem for me is finding out what others are using and might suggest for me. I don't wanna buy an off-brand dual chip board and stick everything together just to find out I'm having problems afterwards!

I've bought AOpen AMD boards before and they just BLOW.

That's why I use ASUS -only- now, but I also hear that MSI and Tyan boards rank up there w/ ASUS in quality...

ASUS's lack of selection in dual chip AMD boards disappoints me greatly, even Froogle only finds just a few dual boards which are AMD64 and Opteron only. I wish someone had a Dual XP/Sempron board on the market...but I can't see any traces of it.

Notice...I'm doing -everything- I can to avoid going Intel...
I hate them almost as much as I do newegg...

-Jeff

[Thor]

There aren't any Dual boards for the XP/Sempron chips because they are not built for Dual use....

You will find only dual boards for MP/Opteron cpus...

Tyan boards shuld be fine... as far as I know, they built the majority of the MP dual boards.

Greets thor

P.S. there is supposed to be a methop to "mod" a XP chip into a MP chip, but I'm not shure how good it works...


Greets thor

[IronBits]

Dual opteron action eh?
http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&as_qdr=all&q=+%22dual+opteron%22+review&btnG=Search

There are tons of reviews to read...

But, stay away from these http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1735287,00.asp
:rotfl:

[GHOST]

what will a dual system do for you? is it worth the $$$ ?

new athlon dual needs athlon mp, $$$

you can watch ebay for used systems.

i bought a asus vm board not realizing it was micro. suppossed to support athlon xp. well it ran my barton 2500- it just ran it at 1100mhz.

my asus via a7v8x ran best when i had a little pharm running df

[CaptainMooseInc]

What will a dual system do for me?...

Boost my ego :)

I've not built a dually yet, and I'm really interested in doing so. I want to run into problems that I haven't encountered in building a one processor system. Kinda seems weird, but I like running into problems and then fixing them.

-Jeff

[GHOST]

http://www.2cpu.com/

http://forums.2cpu.com/

http://www.2cpu.com/daedalus/article_archive.php

these look good

[CaptainMooseInc]

thanks!

[CaptainMooseInc]

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

I was digging around those sites and popped over to Pricewatch.com...

My pocket is going to be deep for this computer...but not deep enough to build any sort of Dual CPU system unless I wanna go Dual Duron or Celeron (and I don't).

Oh well, I guess one very powerful chip will have to do...now I just gotta see what I wanna build better than a Sempron 2500+ system...

-Jeff

[Bok]

Tigerdirect had a pretty good deal recently on a asus mobo + A64 3400+ for $299.

Might pick one up myself in the new year.

Bok

edit.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1087917&Sku=MBM-A8VD-3400

[CaptainMooseInc]

Ok, now I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be investing my cash load into a low-end AMD64 chip combo from Tigerdirect. Now I have another question to ask...

Do I have to load WinXP 64-bit edition onto this system (or a Linux-based 64-bit compatible OS, suggestions please) to take full advantage of the processing power of the chip? Will I encounter any errors running 32-bit applications on this system if Windows based (my g/f likes Diablo, The Sims 1 & 2, etc and I don't want them to not work on the new system).

I'm really kinda afraid of program portability to a 64 bit structure. If I can install 32bit WinXP Pro on this system and still use 100% of the chips actual capabilities to crunch, I'll be happy as a lark.

Otherwise, I'll give my g/f the Sempron 2800 system I have and this will be my new toy. :thumbs:

Thanks for helping out someone who's probably becoming just a tad bit annoying with all these questions. I'd rather get help from people with experience than go read some technical manual or review from some Google search.

-Jeff

[IronBits]

amd64 works just fine under windowsXP.
64bit OS is not required.
64bit drivers are very scarce...

[CaptainMooseInc]

thanks!