Building new computer. Thoughts?

Tom Guilderson TWG3 at world.std.com
Fri Aug 20 16:25:29 EDT 1999


1.) I can' say

2.)  I have been running an AMD K-6 2 333Mhz on an Asus P5 motherboard.  It has
the 100 Mhz bus etc.  If you go with an AMD you need a super socket 7
motherboard.  I reccomend you stay away from the Apollo chipset.  It has a 1Mb
L2 cache which is great but I have heard it is very buggy.  They have had to
put out multiple patches for this chipset.  The ALi Alladin chipset (512k L2
cach3) is very stable.  I have had no problems with the AMD and am very
satidisfied with the performance under Linux and windows 9x.  For the money -
you can't beat the performance of an AMD - The cpu is fuly compatible, cheaper
and so is the motherboard.

3.) Currently using an Intel Etherexpress 10/100 - a lot more than $11.  Have
not had any problems.

4.) Video card - the number of AGP cards supported is growing rapidly - I am
running a Diamond Viper V330 AGP with 4Mb RAM.  I don't have any direct
experince with other AGP - but I bought this card last year since it weas
supported then and I got it for about $40.



On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, David Kramer wrote:
> I want to build a new computer.  Normall I would just go to a Ken Gordon
> show, but there isn't going to be one for a while.  This machine will
> run dual-boot Windows and Linux (prolly NT, but I understand it's harder
> to make that dual-boot).
> 
> I am soliciting advice in a few areas of indecision:
> 
> 1) ATX or non-ATX?  I didn't like ATX the last time I looked at them,
> but it's getting harder to find non-ATX motherboards and cases.  Do the
> on-board extra subsystems ever die?  Are they usually flexible enough to
> (dis|en)able individual subsystems, like com ports and IDE?
> 
> 2)AMD K6-3, PII or PIII?  The serial number thing really bugs me.  I
> know there's an initiative to have the kernel return arbitrary serial
> numbers when polled.  Is this in place in a kernel rev yet?  Can it be
> reliably disabled in Windows too?  Is there a big performance increase
> in the PIII?  The hardware compatibility list supports the AMD K6-3, but
> are there really no compatibility problems at all?
> 
> 3)Network card- I've been using $11 DEC Tulip cards, and have been happy
> with them.  Is there a prevailing favorite card for a little more money
> that might be better?
> 
> 4)Video card-  this one can be tricky.  I've never gone all-out on a
> video card before, but beyond the hardware compatibility list, are there
> any ones that work exceptionally well with linux and take 4MB or 8MB? 
> Are AGP cards fully supported, or are there limitations?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> 
> -- 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> DDDD   David Kramer                    david at kramer.ne.mediaone.net
> DK KD                                 http://kramer.ne.mediaone.net
> DKK D  
> DK KD  HYDROGEN: A colorless, odorless gas which,
> DDDD   given enough time, turns into people.
> -
> Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with
> "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" on the first line of the
> message body to discuss-request at blu.org (Subject line is ignored).
--
ELF
-
Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with
"subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" on the first line of the
message body to discuss-request at blu.org (Subject line is ignored).



More information about the Discuss mailing list