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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bruce A. Thompson who wrote (43279)	12/13/1998 6:20:00 PM
From: Kevin K. Spurway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573414

Re: "I need advice on buying a computer." My advice would be to get either a 400 MHz K6-2 or a 300 MHz Celeron A. Both can be overclocked pretty reliably to 450 MHz, although if you are averse to overclocking, I wouldn't recommend the Celeron. Computers based on both chips are pretty affordable, and will leave you with plenty of $$ left over to buy a nice big monitor, great sound subsystem, and a good video card (for your video card I'd recommend a card based on the NVidia Riva TNT chipset (such as the Creative Labs Graphics Blaster), although cards based on the new ATI Rage 128 chipset have also gotten good reviews. You could do a Vodoo 2 SLI configuration for your 3D games, but it's expensive and (I believe) a TNT card gives sufficnient performance at high resolutions. The nice thing about the K6-2 system (versus the Celeron) is that you don't have to overclock it if you don't want to, and when the K6-3 comes out you will have an easy, KICK ASS upgrade path. I have a K6-2 350 MHz system, overclocked to (essentially) 400 MHz. It's great, except for my cable modem problem. I use it for essentialy the same stuff you will be using yours for. My only other recommendation is to get a nice (big) monitor--it makes a big difference. Kevin

To: Bruce A. Thompson who wrote (43279)	12/13/1998 6:46:00 PM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573414

Bruce, What Kevin says is quite good. Since the monitor needs to be 21" take a look around town and see if you can get a reconditioned monitor for less money than a new one since a new brand name 21" will take 50% or more of your $2000. The New ATI cards with built in cable TV, with picture in picture are very good and low in cost, under $200 for 8 Meg "all in wonder pro" ATI seems to be on a par with Matrox and the voodoo, but has TV tuner built in. As to sound?, taking a low level signal to a stereo system beats those large speakers attached to the computer, and most sound fanatics (people like you? GGG) have such sound systems already that can be rerouted to accomodate the computer as long as the physical spacing is possible. There are other sound cards that are higher end than the sound blaster, that have more wave and other effects as well as MIDI interfaces, but that is beyond me, I make do with a $10 Yamaha and $10 amplified speakers(not a sound fanatic). Take a trip to a few local clonemakers of the type that screw together customs computers. Never buy a Compaq or other brand name as they usually close off any upgrade path as they want to sell you another box. Look on tomshardware.com and you will see comments about motherboards etc. getting a board that will run the faster 350M + CPU is what you need, one that can be overclocked, is what you should specify. You will need to get the memory that is fast enough for the CPU you intend to get later and since it all screws together you could buy the case from 1 place and the motherboard and CPU from another, same with Hard drives, CDroms, Monitors etc and put it all together yourself.. Save about $100-200 if you do that, plus sales tax, less freight?, but if you have a problem you must ship a part away and wait. If you buy the motherboard you want with the right memory and a good used 21" monitor. Remember the cheapest systems advertised have the older motherboards and they have zero ability to go faster as they are currrently being sold with the fastest chip they can take. Possibly Kevin is on top of what motherboard you would be best buying? Bill

To: Bruce A. Thompson who wrote (43279)	12/13/1998 7:33:00 PM
From: Richie	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573414

Bruce, Love these questions, I am buying on just after Christmas, and after months of searching here is what I have come up with: Box = DELL P2-400, 10G Hard Drive (I plan on installing another later) 8MB nVidia Video Card. $1250 dell.com Buy refurbished, it will save a couple hundred bucks, same guarantees! Boxes do not come with speakers, and don't get one of their monitors either, the monitor below is TOP NOTCH Monitor = Hitachi Superscan Elite 751 (0.22dp)Looks like a photograph 19" a must these days for the price $540 Check out the review on the link, its near the top of EVERYONEs list computershopper.zdnet.com Select the "search & compare" tab, then select "hitachi" under the manufacturer tab and 19" Speakers = Cambridge SoundWorks "SoundWorks" Excellent speakers, 2 satellite cubes and 1 Subwoofer....a must if your going to play games! $123 computershopper.zdnet.com Same process as the monitor, except select Cambridge SoundWorks Total cost $1910 w/o taxes and delivery Let me know what you decide, always can use the feedback! Happy Hunting! RichieH