For best bang for the buck, I like Athlon XP processors, PCI/AGP, and the
cheapest nVidia card you can get. All are good for Linux. Avoid SATA. I
didn't and suffered. IDE works better (today) on Linux and is cheaper.
Invest in a good power supply. A _REALLY_ good one. And an APC SmartUPS.
You might have enough cash left over for that flat screen monitor. But you
get more bang for the buck if you get a 19" CRT.
You'll save enough money to upgrade to 64 bits later.
Ken Elliott
=====================
-----Original Message-----
From: slug@nks.net [mailto:slug@nks.net] On Behalf Of Bob Stia
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 6:11 PM
To: slug@nks.net
Subject: [SLUG] New System
Hello Sluggers,
At risk of starting a hardware holy war, I turn to the Sluggers for their
advice and expertise. Finally convinced my wife that the old computer is
"old". Want to keep it under $1000 if possible.
First I am going to get a big usb hardrive to start with and store all of my
data from my present system. Looking at the Maxtor. Comments?
Following are lots of random comments/thoughts.
Most important. Should I go 64 bit? , remembering that this will be my last
board for many years, and, this is where I want strong opinions.
For the motherboard! So many different brands and types - very confusing. I
am kind of partial to the AMD processor as I have been using them for years.
Have seen lots of criticism of ASUS lately. Is heat a big problem? Would
prefer a board without all kinds of built in stuff like sound and video. PCI
slots?, or what is the other? agp?
Would need plenty of USB and at least one serial port for my modem. No
parallell ports needed.
Want a pretty decent video card, but not one of those super(expensive) ones.
3D of course. (Maybe someday Linux will have games) Kind of afraid of the
nvidia cards. Hear all of the horror stories with changing drivers everytime
you do something to your system. (comments?)
Decent multichannel sound card. Not too fancy because I can't hear very well
anyway.
Already have a 40 gig IBM hardrive that I could switch over. But it is
almost two years old. Should I abandon that and go sata? Remember I will
have the USB external.
Would love to get a big flatscreen monitor but I am afraid that would break
the bank.
OK Sluggers all opinions are solicited here about what I have asked about or
not asked about. If you were going to do this what would you do? You don't
have to answer every question. Just where you have strong
opinions/experience.
Last but not least, where would you BUY all of this stuff.
Bob S.
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