>At 09:29 AM 07/04/2000 , Dan Duffy wrote:
>
>I am going to be putting together a 733mhz Pentium III within the
>next couple weeks and I have a couple questions that I hope you can
>help me with.
Dan:
Since it appears that the end user doesn't need a high performance PC, I
suggest you buy on the price curve rather than going up the CPU speed
curve. With the Pentium 4 recently announced, but probably months away from
the distribution channel, and 64-bit processing just beyond that, I would
revisit the CPU decision.
The price difference between a P-III-733 and a Celeron 533 is over $150.
With business applications, I don't think you could see performance
difference. I have a Dell P-III 650 at the office and a homebrew
Supermicro-based Celeron 400 at home and I hardly notice a difference. If
the user doesn't have any video-based or CPU-dependant software (CAD, video
editing/ripping, gaming), there will probably be a lot of empty CPU clock
cycles.
Put the money into components which are equally or more important than a
faster CPU, such as:
1. A very good case with a stable 300watt power supply (and UPS).
2. A quality, NT-compatibility-listed, and popular motherboard that
perhaps is P-4 compliant (don't spend extra for this last feature) from a
top echelon manufacturer.
3. Lots of fast, well-designed DIMMs from a reputable manufacturer; at
least 128MB.
4. A high performance AGP video card with 32 MB of RAM.
5. A fast and reliable hard drive.
The CPU is very easy to upgrade and its price is most apt to drop within
months. And the prevent savings can upgrade 2 or more of the above components.
For reviews of current motherboards, check the NOSPIN site, and:
http://www.anandtech.com
http://www.tomshardware.com/
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/
http://www.motherboards.org/
Regards,
John Chin
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