[geeks] Good low-end AMD 64bit system?

[Bill Bradford]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2004 at 10:47:25AM -0500, Joshua Boyd wrote:
> Oddly the Shuttle (don't know the model off the top of my head, but it is
> a P4) on my desk at work is surprisingly noisy compared to the Dell
> Dimension 8100s I previously used (but not as bad as the generic Athlon
> machine that went in between the Dimension 8100 and this Shuttle).

Well, I built the box today.  Due to price, I ended up sticking with
32bit (since this is more of a gaming machine than anything else) - 
CompUSA (I didn't want to deal with Frys today) wanted $189 for their 
cheapest Athlon 64 and another $199 for the only motherboard they had
in stock that was compatible with it.

- AMD Sempron 2400+ CPU (retail box, with heatsink/fan)
- MSI KT4A-V motherboard 
  (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=KT4A-V&class=mb)
- 1G (2x512) Centon DDR333 SDRAM
- PNY "Verto" nVidia GeForce FX 5500 128M AGP video card
  (http://www.pny.com/products/verto/mainstream/5500agp.asp)
- Hitachi Deskstar 80G ATA133 HD (already had it)
- Toshiba 48/12/48 CDRW I had lying around
- Cheapest case that CompUSA had (will be replaced by this weekend)
- Copy of Half-Life 2

Total cost, around $600.  I could have saved around $100 by using mail
order or going to Fry's and playing the "I hope these parts work when 
I get home" game, but I just wasn't up for it today.  Everything went
together easily and worked the first time I hit the power button, so
its all good.

The 2400+ actually runs at 1.667 Ghz, but this is easily the *fastest*
x86 machine I've ever used.  It even feels faster than my P4 2.6Ghz box
at work (a Dell "workstation" with a nVidia Quadro FX 500 video card).

HL2 plays *great* on it, with the onboard sound and running at 800x600.

I left half the HD unused, and will try out Fedora Core 3 (dual-boot
setup) this weekend.  For now, I've got a gaming machine that works
great.

Bill

-- 
bill bradford
austin texas