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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Street Walker who wrote (986)	6/2/1998 12:44:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Check the sysop site for retailer reputation. Aberdeen has a lot of unhappy customers. sysopt.com For the $30 difference I would get it with the mobo. The $257 chip from RoBot ( Price Watch) is OEM. The three year warranty is through them, not Intel. I would not place a lot of value on that warranty, where will they be next year? The OEM version does not come with the heat sink and fan so you have to add $20+ to the $257 to compare to the others that include the fan. And you will have to mount the fan. Some 300 PII CPUs are really not 300. I do not know how to tell the difference. Reputation of retailer might be a consideration. For piece of mind, my own approach would be to get the boxed CPU and pay an extra $100 ( $388 @ Grump Micro grumpmicro.com boxed with fan and Intel warranty and a retailer with a good reputation per sysop site. They have enough reviews to make the results significant) Have not spent much time on sound cards. I like the one that Networm found but it is pricey. Ensoniq is the card most recommended on the sites I frequent $30+/-. Have you tallied your PCI and ISA slots? PCI or ISA sound? Hopefully Networm can make a recommendation here. Plextor CDROM is mentioned frequently as the best but do you need the best? I think the biggest issue here is compatibility with CD media. The latest Plextor will read CDRW if it makes a difference. Teac is also mentioned a lot as a good drive. Floppies,I have not got a clue. Teac comes to mind, just a brand name thing. You never want your floppy drive to fail. Zeuspaul

To: Street Walker who wrote (986)	6/2/1998 12:52:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

I have a foggy recollection of another Intel price drop June 7. Too late tonight to look around for a reference. Zeuspaul

To: Street Walker who wrote (986)	6/2/1998 8:36:00 AM
From: LTBH	Respond to of 14778

Have run across a fair number of mobo reviews where Corsair would not work in a specific mobo. This is not a traditional RAM failure but one of incompatibility. Have it tested in the mobo. Networm

To: Street Walker who wrote (986)	6/5/1998 1:11:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14778

Street Walker, your machine, some thoughts My guess it will be a year and a half to two years before you exercise the option to upgrade your 300 CPU. Much sooner than that and the economics may not make sense. In 1 1/2 years the options may look so different that you may choose to upgrade your mobo and RAM in addition to your CPU. In other words it is not a sure bet that you will upgrade your CPU. The Asus PL29 asus.com has 5 PCI slots. If I were buying new components I would prefer all PCI if possible. ISA slots are being phased out, it's anyone's guess how long it will take. If you were to go all PCI I believe you can disable your ISA bus with a marginal increase in performance. For the same money you could put together a machine that would probably outperform the BX board. The Asus PL297 is about $40 less and 128 MB RAM would be $100 less. If you added another 64 MB RAM (total 192 MB) the machine may outperform the BX machine for less money. The extra PCI slot would be an added upgrade potential. The overall downside would not be that great. You risk a $140 mobo and $219 (128 MB) RAM. Consider these two items at risk for a BX board looking forward as well. Food for thought Zeuspaul