Hardware suggestion

[satimis]

Hi folks,

I'm preapared to build a 64bit AMD box for TEST purpose NOT for producion. I haven't had a budget in mind but prefer to be economical as possible. My preliminary setup as follows;

CPU 64 bit AMD Athlon 3000+/3200+ 939 socket
RAM 1G DDR400/500
OS Linux/Unix

please recommend;
Motherboard - with build-in sound card and "VGA card", if possible to save the cost of a VGA card
VGA - card with DVI input
SATA 80G 7,200rpm HD, 8MD cache memmory

I will retain the old CDWriter 12x/8x/32x

Any suggestion would be appreciated. TIA

BR and Happy New Year
satimis

[AlexK]

1. I don't think any motherboard with a builtin vga card would have a dvi output as you stated was the requirement for your video card. Otherwise, for a good performing board, you can't go wrong with a board based on the nForce-4 Ultra chipset. They have built in sound cards (AC97 based ones).

2. A card with DVI input, that I don't know, but DVI output, there should be plenty to choose from. If you want a mid range one, go for a GeForce 6600, or for a low end one, go for a GeForce 6200.

3. Segate 80GB SATA drives are good, I don't know if they come with 8MB cache for a drive with that low space. But I know that some of their 120 and 160GB drives come with 8MB cache, and costs roughly $30 more.

Otherwise it is a good setup. If you want save some money by not getting DDR500 RAM, rather get low-latency DDR 400 RAM.