I have just completed my 'O' - levels mock examinations and will be facing the real thing for more than a month from the 19th of this month. Since i m gettin a new rig early this December, my time left for reading reviews is very limited. I m a bit left out of the market, haven't updated myself. So i need your recommendations.

This new rig will be used for casual gaming, student projects, loads of mp3s and music playback, some programming and web design. The budget is tight so it should be less than $1100 and this excludes the monitor, OS and softwares. Durability, longetivity, expandability and not to mention stability are the main concerns.

Here are some guidelines.

CPU - Duron or Althon XP

Mobo - ??? with RAID?

RAM - 512MB PC2100 DDR Kingston or Crucial?

HDD - 2x 60G Maxtor or Seagate or WD

3D Card - ATI or Geforce

Sound card - SB Audigy

Burner - 40x 20x 48x Yamaha Burner

Speakers - Altec Lansing 641 or Logitech Z560 ( to fill up the
living room)

Casing - ???

PSU - ???

Ethernet Card (NIC) (for broadband & home networking) - ???

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

CPU - AMD XP 1700 ($66)

Mobo - K7T266 PRO2 ($90)

RAM - 512MB PC2100 Crucial ($145)

HDD - 2x 60G Maxtor or Seagate or WD ($93 each)

3D Card - Geforce 3 ti 200 ($89)

Sound card - SB Audigy ($84)

Burner - 40x 20x 48x Yamaha Burner ($140)

Speakers - Altec Lansing 641 or Logitech Z560 ( to fill up the
living room) ($136)

Casing - Enermax, CS-3051L-B3A. ($84)

PSU - comes with case

Ethernet Card (NIC) (for broadband & home networking) - really any network card, a $19 one will do.


Came up with a total of $1039.

Personally, if I were you, I'd cut one of those harddrives. I have one 60 gig hard drive, I haven't reformatted in 8 months and I have yet found a way to use 20 gigs. Just getting one 60 gig or one 80 gig should be enough.

After a brief price watch of the Singaporean market.....i came out with this configuration slightly over US$1100.


all prices are quoted in Singapore Dollars (US$1.00 = S$1.78)

XP 1700+ - 150

A7V266E (VIAKT266A) ATA 100 - 215

WD800JB Caviar 7200RPM (8MB) 80G - 187

Kingston 512MB PC2700 - 266

ATI Radeon 8500LE - 229

Audigy DE - 109

Yamaha CRW-F1E 44x24x448x - 249

D-Link Ethernet PCI 10/100 - 22

Altec Lansing 641 - 488

ASUStek CD-Rom 52x - 49

Keyboard & Mouse - 75

ENERMAX EG-351P-VE 350 watts P.S (2x Fan) ATX v2.03 - 105

Casing Full tower - 100

Grand Total = 2244

My question now is whether the system is compatible with XP and any Linux distribution?

Most likely, if you have windows xp, it has an option on it to install a second operating system.

Opinions?

Any opinions about the specifications?

A7V266E? Perhaps you should go with the A7V333. The Kingston PC2700 will run at 266MHz instead of the 333MHz it was designed to with that chipset. Really - A7V333.

That's a bit much for an 8500LE. Mine was US$99 I believe.

If you're getting S$488 speakers, you should go with Logitech. Or Klipsch...

I believe that system is compatible with XP and Linux. You may want to check that D-Link NIC for Linux compatability, and look in the manufacturer's website for XP drivers.

Everything else looks good. I'm just shaky on the NIC compatability.

The price for 641 has dropped to around S$479..what i have have observed it that it will continue to drop..hopefully by the time i arrive in Singapore(early december) for the purchase, it may be much more less.

Personally, i doubt the built quality of the logitech z560. read a lot of complains regarding it hardware design. I m afraid that i have to avoid them. Klispch is damn expensive over here 4.1 can cost more than 600 (what more 5.1 is more expensive). I feel that its waste of money on my part to get these babies.

I'll check more about the NIC and the AV7333 but at the meant time i m considering AV78, great reviews,(S$265).