buglunch on 9/6/2001 at 02:41
Get an Athlon T-Bird, not a Duron.
Sniper459 on 11/6/2001 at 16:40
I agree with buglunch, even if it takes you a month or so to save up the 320$$ American dollars it is well worth it, not only will your gaming experience triple, so will everything else you do on the damn thing. Such as what I do, Create true 3d solid models and render them through 3ds MAX 4, and create movies with mechanical parts. Im starting to create my own MOD SP, but I havent got any idea what im gonna create yet.
HINT HINT: Im gonna be needing some ideas soon so I get this thing started!!!! Ive already got my fathers help who graduated from Silicon Valley College In 3d solid modeling as a TOP level III designer(cant get any higher), so the maps we create should look pretty damn good. So let me know in another thread if you have any ideas...
WuCong on 11/6/2001 at 19:15
I can't save. I quit work in 3 months to go back to University but before I go I want to up my system specs.
Athlons are just too expensive comared to Durons. I only want to do Uni work and play SS2/Thief FMs and Deus Ex + Mods.
Overall power uppage is good bnut at the moment I'm looking at swapping the HD for a 20Gb one and getting a new MB + Duron and the Voodoo 3. I'm even going to use the PC100 RAM on a board that can support PC133 RAM as I have 190 Mb and I don'r want to waste it. All I need is a machine that'll handle Deus Ex well.
Hey, when T3 comes out I'm getting a Jedi machine. But for now. . .
Raoul Duqette on 12/6/2001 at 09:10
I've only played the demo of Deus Ex, but it gets a decent frame rate on my new system. I got a Duron 900 (£65), 128MB (PC100 should be fine) and I kept my Voodoo3 2000 (a PCI card).
I've got an Abit KT7A mainboard (with the VIA KT133A chipset) for £62, which should allow me to upgrade the system in small steps: a DirectX8 compatible AGP card, up to 1.5GB PC133 RAM, any of the FSB266 Thunderbirds. All the multiplicators and core voltages are easily adjustable in small increments via the BIOS and it even comes with an ISA slot. However, it does not have USB 2, AGPpro or PC266 interfaces. And the southbridge is connected via PCI and not V-Link.
WuCong on 12/6/2001 at 13:44
Ah, a fellow Englander. Where'd you get the Duron at such a ggod price? And what are the specs of that MB?
I'm after the Elite K7VZA which is also based on a KT133 chipset, but can't find it anywhere.
Raoul Duqette on 13/6/2001 at 08:03
I just converted the prices into pounds using a very good exchange rate. Maybe you should buy your components in Euroland. The pound is so overrated.
I was looking for the KT133 chipset, because it still uses the A revision of the southbridge, but these boards were all sold out. All the KT133A boards use the B revision southbridge, which has a serious bug (especially in connection with Soundblaster Live! cards). But there's a patch now and I've never had any trouble.
You can't fit the newer FSB266 Athlons into the KT133. It is uncertain, whether AMD will put out the faster CPUs in both FSB200 and 266 (as they have done with slower ones), so it seems that if you want to reuse the mainboard once the Duron isn't fast enough anymore, you should have the KT133A.
WuCong on 13/6/2001 at 17:52
Thanks for the help. I've checked around and the KT133A boards are just out of my budget, GFX card and HD considered. Perhaps.
That bug doesn't seem to be a problem though so I'm not fussed as I can DL the drivers to fix it.
Don't convert other currency into £s. It doesn't work - it's more expensive here. Period. Convert it and THEN add 10% minimum. UK prices suck for everything.
WuCong on 13/6/2001 at 18:55
One more thing: Will usinf PC133 SDRAM side by side with PC100 SDRAM have any effect on the speed of the PC133 RAM?
All my RAM is PC100 and I have 1 x 128Mb and 2 x 32Mb. 1 of the 32Mb modules is unused as I only have 2 DIMM slotes.
If I get a new MB that supports PC133 RAM(any of the KT133 MBs) with 3 DIMM slots can I use 1 x 256Mb PC133 + 1 x 128Mb PC100 + 1 x 32 PC100 to give me a total of 416Mb?
