I'm also currently working on building my first system and I'll give you
some of my decisions and rationales in relation to your question.

>
>The machine I have in mind needs to be a good all-round machine, but not
>necessarily killer. I'm a happy user of an AMD CPU at the moment, and have
>decided to stay with AMD mainly because I'm not ready to pay the premium
>for the name "Pentium". Also, I've decided to use a AMD K-2 3D 333 because
>the price on these seems to be pretty good right now (compared to the 350).

I was going to go with AMD for the price reason as well, however I changed
my mind when I discovered that the card I wanted to buy, the Canopus
Spectra 2500 TNT based board, scored miserable performance reviews in
conjunction with this processor.  However, when used with the newer Pentium
Celeron 300A this baby is supposed to rock (Rivaling performance of a
single voodoo 2 board).  The point of this is that you should be sure to
consider other components in your processor purchasing decision ... look
around on the web.  Furthermore, the Celeron 300A is not much more
expensive, if any, than the K6-2.  I think I read that the performance of
these two chips is comparable at this clock speed.  The clincher for me was
overclockability.  Now you may not be comfortable with this, and I'm not
condoning it or condemning it here, but the thought of overclocking this
thing to 450 Mhz and getting Pentium II 450 Mhz performance with the 100
Mhz bus speed for almost 1/4 the cost made my budget conscious, 3D game
loving, neurons tingle with excitement.  At worst I'll be one of the
unlucky few who are not successful at getting 450 Mhz and I'll be working
at 300 Mhz (a drastic improvement over my current P-120) and I'll have a
motherboard that supports high end Pentium II's for when the prices drop.
Well I guess worst would be if I fry the chip but I'm not too worried.  :-)

>
>As far as the MOBO goes, I know I want AGP, a meg cache onboard, and a 100
>mhz bus. I'm looking at a Tyan S1590S, and I've found it with the AMD cpu
>for about $220 (from Aberdeen), but I'm willing to consider other boards if
>someone has any good suggestions.

Tom Pabst liked this one.  When I was looking at the AMD I had it narrowed
down to the FIC-PA2013 (supports 2 MB L2 cache), the Aopen AX59Pro and the
Asus P5A (very good board, 5 PCI but only 512 L2 cache - also uses Aladdin
chip set and I've heard rumblings of compatability issues with some
components).  Note that these are ATX form factor instead of the Baby AT
you've listed.  The FIC baby AT is the FIC-VA 503+ but this only has 3 PCI
slots.
>
>Video- I'd like to spend $100-$150 on a video card. I've been considering
>the Matrox Millineum and Mystique G200 cards, but haven't been able to
>determine the difference between the two. TV capability is not important to
>me, and I will probably play games but not extensively. Open to suggestions
>here.

The matrox card is supposed to be very good.  As I mentioned before I
decided on a TNT based board.  There were a couple of reasons for this.
First of all, price.  I've seen some complaints that $150-$200 is a lot to
spend on a video card.  However, when you consider that its works great as
your 2D and 3D video card I cant help but think of the money I'm saving by
not buying a 2D card, I'm saving a PCI slot, and getting top notch
performance (with high end processors only) IMHO ... for me it's a bargain
- note: I don't already own a voodoo card otherwise my take on this would
be different.   Secondly the look and resolution you get from this board
are supposed to be second to none.  However, I'm interested in some real
gaming performance so your decision is probably a sound one based on your
needs and you'll also get a 2D/3D card.

As to the difference between the cards:

Mystique RAMDAC is 230 Mhz / Millennium is 250 Mhz

Different software bundles.

the Mystique uses SDRAM ... I dont know what the Millennium uses

TV out on the Mystique - they seem to promote this as their gaming card

You may want to verify this as I've never used either card.

>
>Sound- I want something good here, but not great since I don't intend to
>invest in wonderful speakers (I already have a stereo system :). Been
>considering a Yamaha card, but am open to suggestions. I don't want
>anything that eats up too many IRQs like the Shuttle card I have on my
>current machine.

Don't know much about sound cards yet.

>
>Case- totally open to suggestions.

Make sure your power supply can keep up with all you upgrading needs and
that you have enough open bays for the same reason.

Bill Nussbaumer

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