Bought me a new computer...

[daddy_4_eyes]

Asus A7V333 motherboard (perty good one)
Athlon AMD 2.1Ghz
256 DDR RAM
80Gb HDD
Radeon 9000Pro 64Mb Gfx card (was gonna go wif 128Mb, but mate said its not worth it
48x Burner
17' Monitor

$1118

I get home, put the thing together, and the friggin motherboard is bodgy. Now i gotta wait till tomorrow to exchange my motherboard, in the meantime there's a sweet ass computer sitting in my room and I can't use it


Edit: Forgot to include Gfx card in total price

 

[Winmar]

That must be annoying!

Hey what's the difference between Athlon and Pentium? Just different company? Which is better?

 

[Fraser]

I'm no expert, but i would say Athlon is faster, and Pentium is more reliable. A lot of true nerds love Athlon XPs.

I prefer Pentium 4, it does the job. I've never had a problem since i've had it since the last 8 months.

 

[Desredandwhite]

well.. the Pentium is made by Intel, and the Athlon is made by AMD.

In general, the Athlon is cheaper and faster than a PIV at the same clockspeed, however, the PIV will run a little cooler, and probably needs a little less coaxing to get working right.

Enthusiasts like the Athlon for its bang-for-buck factor.

 

[Goldenblue]

Asus are crap boards.

In my business, we have put together comps for people and when they decided to buy an Asus board, most times they had to go back.

My best bet is to stay clear of them.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

Originally posted by Goldenblue
Asus are crap boards.

It was either that or a Gigabyte. And I'm definately not buying a Gigabyte motherboard (the Asus one came with good wraps).

 

[Korn]

so what brand of motherboards are good?

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

I finally got it working, and my computer rules! Worth every cent.

 

[Basic]

Abit and Asus make good boards I guess they are a little budget and of course with anything budget there's going to be problems (that's if you consider $200+ budget) I hear Intel makes a sweet one for the new(er) 3.06Ghz P4 but I wouldn't have a clue about their other boards.

 

[mattyc2422]

Originally posted by Fraser
I'm no expert, but i would say Athlon is faster, and Pentium is more reliable. A lot of true nerds love Athlon XPs.

I prefer Pentium 4, it does the job. I've never had a problem since i've had it since the last 8 months.

Would you prefer a Celeron 2ghz or a Pentium4 2ghz? What are the advantages?

I know Celeron is probably more efficient for thigns such are application use, while the Pentium would be better for advanced gaming etc. Just curious of your view.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

I wouldn't buy a Celeron full stop. Pentiums are good and very reliable, but they are quite expensive. Thats why i like Athlons, they are still very good but cheaper than Pentiums.
Though if I had a choice without a budget to worry about, I'd go with Pentium, then Athlon then a very very distant 3rd Celeron.

 

[mattyc2422]

Any reason why you wouldn't consider a Celeron?
My cousin and I were havign a look around Harvey Norman today and he was cosidering a Celeron.

I've never really thought a great deal about Celerons, but I haven't had much experiance using them.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

They are just a lot crapper in performance and reliability. My dad has a celeron 333Mhz and its absolutely sh*thouse as compared to my friends Pentium 300Mhz.

 

[jim boy]

Yeah the celeron is definitely a slower chip, for example I think it has smaller level 1 and level 2 cache. So it takes longer to deliver data to the processor to process data. But a celeron is good enough if all you're doing is some word processing and browsing the web.

 

[TheMase]

I have a 1.7 gig Celeron and have had no problems running games whatsoever. So I dont see any problems with them..

Anyway, my motherboard is a ECS Eliteboard, and in my experience they are very reliable boards.

 

[mattyc2422]

Cheers guys. My cousin has my old, old, IBM that is suprisingly still working (just) so he needs to get a new system.

 

[Mr Q]

Originally posted by mattyc2422
Would you prefer a Celeron 2ghz or a Pentium4 2ghz? What are the advantages?

I know Celeron is probably more efficient for thigns such are application use, while the Pentium would be better for advanced gaming etc. Just curious of your view.

Actually if anything it would be the reverse. The Celeron was originally developed as the home PC chip and as such had some optimisations wrt graphics (ie game use) throughput that Pentium IIs at the time didn't, however the Pentium machines, being designed for office use were better for hard core number crunching (ie large financial/engineering calculations). For home use I could usually get better value for money with a Celeron in those days.

I've had to reinstall a few Pentium II 300s and Celeron 333s recently at work and the relative performance is neligible. That said nowadays I would suspect the Pentium IV is just better at everything, but then you pay more for it so it should be.

Of course in general I'd recommend an Athlon straight out as value for money.

 

[nonchalance]

Athlons also overclock further than P4s, although in general P4s are now better than Athlons are.

Incidentally, never buy a computer from Harvey Norman. Buy it from somewhere else, anywhere else, but not Harvey Norman.

Celerons are Pentium's little brother - cheaper but not as good.
Durons are Athlons's little brother - ditto.

Celeron will generally do fine, but the Pentium is better.

 

[Winmar]

I'd already decided not to buy a computer there, but what makes u say that? Did they **** you over at some stage?

What's overclocking? Is it a good thing?