OK, in the light of Bobby's expanded info, Allen's approach based on the S754 is entirely correct. It's not that it's 64bit, it's that it's a storming performer even under a 32bit OS. Given the price differential, I think it makes sense to stick with the A64, rather than go with a Socket A solution.
well i'm gonna try and do it for about £450 if possible, taking into account he has the ram and will be using an older style mb to use to the ram and ide drives
He's gonna keep his RAM and mobo? What has he got?
I'd still suggest the same case, PSU, HDD, DVR-RW, and 9800Pro though. The chip will depend on what mobo he has, presumably socket A?
no sorrt i ment older style mobo, as in not a 64bit or sata one.
I was thinking this Abit NF7 V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory Retail Box
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...subcat_uid=265
Good choice - I still use an NF7-S v1. Solid and quick. The vanilla NF7 isn't a soundstorm board; I'd say that if you were after a cheap soundcard and this was the sort of board you wanted get the NF7-S and just don't use the SATA functionality as the S DOES have Soundstorm, which gives good sound and means no soundcard'd need to be purchased.Ebuyer linky
Go for the NF7-S, then use the onboard Soundstorm as I suggested above. Won't need a soundcard then!Originally Posted by Bobby Sixkiller
is it worth the extra £15 then? Abit NF7 V2.0 says it has 5.1 sound? am i getting something wrong?
OK, it does, but it's fairly cruddy; the S implements the full soundstorm spec including hardware decoding and encoding (in fact when the NF7-S was released there wasn't a soundcard available outside of semi-pro products that did anything like this). It's easily better than an SBLive 5.1, and quite probably equal to an original Audigy. You're not going to find a soundcard to even equal it let alone better it (I reckon) for that £15.
See NVidia link for the difference.
The NF7 relies upon (I believe) a rather crappy Realtek chip to provide 6-channel sound.
Last edited by nichomach; 08-09-2004 at 03:31 PM.
Umm, looking at Abit's site, it says that all the NF7's have Soundstorm. Can anyone confirm this? I thought it was only the NF7-S??
:edit: Here: http://www.abit.com.tw/page/uk/mothe...YPE=Socket%20A
:edit2: Scrap that, it's just a badly designed site. On the list of motherboards here (http://www.abit.com.tw/page/uk/mothe...MTYPE=Socket+A) it has a different link for the NF7, NF7-S and NF7-M so I presumed each would be correct for those boards, but the NF7 page has details on the NF7-S and NF7-M on it too... how confusing!
Yes, the NF7-S is worth it, as nichomach said above.
Last edited by Allen; 08-09-2004 at 03:30 PM.
the ebuyer links says so to
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...&subcat_uid=265
Linky no worky...
Ebuyer's wrong.
This is what was on the Abit site too, under NF7. Quite badly written IMHO. Look for the sentance, 'By SoundstormTM technology, the NF7-S supports'...The NF7 series models, based on nForce2 chipset, supports the latest AMD Athlon XP processors with 200/266/333 FSB, and features new dual 400MHz DDR memory controllers that deliver up to a 50% increase in bandwidth. Three DDR DIMM slots support up to 3GB of DDR memory, and optimized 128-bit architecture reduces memory latency. The advanced memory architecture means that the latest 3D games and multimedia applications are able to run smoother and faster than ever before, giving you unparalleled system performance. With the nForce2 MCP2-T, the APU (Audio Processing Unit) delivers Dolby Digital 5.1 cinematic-quality sound and 3D positional audio to your home PC. By SoundstormTM technology, the NF7-S supports Real-time audio encoding delivering up to 256 simultaneous audio streams makes games and applications come to life.
Ah yes...the Abit site...it's better now than it used to be, you know...OK get that horrified look off your face, we know, OK? We know! *winces at Abit site layout*Umm, looking at Abit's site, it says that all the NF7's have Soundstorm. Can anyone confirm this? I thought it was only the NF7-S??
...
so it does have that yeah?
The NF7-S has Soundstorm.
The NF7 doesn't.
Get the NF7-S.
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Hey...was that a haiku?
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