mbd/chipset & athlon cpu recommendations

[Mark T. Ganzer]

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, DJA wrote:

I'm also using an ECS K7S5A motherboard that I just installed last 
week to replace an even cheaper 500Mhz K6 motherboard (I don't have much 
money to spend on computers right now).

> It also has a built-on 10/100 NIC (I don't remember what chipset, but

sis900

> ...and sound (a who-cares item).

sis7012 - a little more picky to get running, but i810_audio module in
2.4.18 seems to work okay (supposedly ALSA support as well, but could not 
get that working)

> I've seen the mobo as low as $59. I think Fry's has it for $65.

Got mine from newegg a couple of weeks back for $52, along with boxed AMD
Athlon XP1700 for $124 (inc heatsink/fan and 3 yr warrenty). I ended up
also getting a Thermaltake Volcano 6u+ heatsink/fan ($12) + Arctic Alumina
grease (already had some of that on hand) because I had previously had
heat problems with a 1 Ghz Athlon with the AMD heatsink/fan/thermal pad
combo. Already had 512 MB of PC133 SDRAM, so am just using them for now.
One nice thing about the SiS735 chipset, is that it is a single-chip
design, unlike the 2-chip VIA and AMD chipsets, and reports are that it
also runs significantly cooler than the others as well. It is NOT
something I would recommend for a "bulletproof" server setup, but works
fine for a desktop workstation.

BTW: Fry's wanted $59 for the K7S5A board, $129 for a bare XP1700 CPU and
$159 for boxed CPU. And the rep said I NEEDED a minimum of a Volcano 7 fan
(additional $35), even though the Thermaltake web sites says the 6u+ is
rated for XP2000+. Needless to say, Fry's did NOT get the sale, and
shipping from newegg was only $8...

For a case, I already was using one of the Antec mid-tower cases with 300W 
AMD-approved power supply. And I have 2 case fans installed as well 
because my converted garage office gets pretty warm during the summer. 

Now I finally have my VMware sessions running at a reasonable speed, and I 
STILL feel like a "Cheap Bastard"...

-Mark Ganzer