Pentium 4 2.8GHz

Ok my girlfriend has an old Duron 1GHz chip for a machine at the moment and I have just managed to get hold of a okish uATX motherboard for a Pentium 4.

Info on the board:
Here

And I was wondering what do you guys think I should do with it?

I have this in mind:
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/4624/gf4hh.jpg

She already has 512mb of DDR in the machine already I can reuse that but I'm honestly not sure on the rest of the machine, she wants to be able to play The Sims 2 with the expansions.

Any help guys? :)

That should play it fine, looks like a good setup.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chrisg22

Ok my girlfriend has an old Duron 1GHz chip for a machine at the moment and I have just managed to get hold of a okish uATX motherboard for a Pentium 4.

And I was wondering what do you guys think I should do with it?

Any help guys? :)

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You may want to reconsider the RAM speed, you need PC3200 otherwise you won't be able to run the CPU at 2.8, it uses a 800Mhz FSB.

Quote:

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Provide four Low Profile PCI slots or Optional PCI or AGP Riser Card + three Low Profile slots

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Forget that case. Its not very good. Too cramped, limited options, and I wouldnt trust the PSU it comes with :)
Also, if nothing but the Sims is going to be run on it, consider somthing like a 6200. I picked one up off ebay last week for 9 quid (PCI-express to !) :). Its plenty for the sims 2 :)

Thanks for the info guys, I'll have another look around and post the new specification. :)

**edit 1** OK been looking at power supplies and I have the 330W Seasonic S12-330, I know seasonic make decent PSU's and are a decent brand do'ya recon that'll do?

**edit 2** Or the Tagan 330W TG330-U01?

I've got a 500w Seasonic, and can vouch for the quality of the PSUs, so the Seasonic is a good option. I have also built a machine around the Tagan 2Force 330W, and whilst it was a good PSU, it was noisier than my 500w Seasonic, due to using 2x80mm fans.

Dave

Alright then going to re-use her old case as she "likes the lights". I now have the following:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/4819/gf20ao.jpg

Any comments?

My only comment is given the price of the rest of the components £12 for a heatsink seems a little high.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reapsy

My only comment is given the price of the rest of the components £12 for a heatsink seems a little high.

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Unfortunately, the P4 he's got will run quite hot, so good cooling is a must if you don't want to be deafened by fast fans :(

Yeah, that looks like it will do the job ok, and yes you need a fairly decent CPU fan (the one you've listed should be fine). My Northwood core P4 runs at 33' idle, 52' full load with std Intel fan.

you can probably get away with about the same price on a cheapo 939 setup actually.. and probably sell that mATX motherboard..

Consider this..

1. 3200+ 939 for £40
2. Cheapo board, say a Asus A8V-VM for £32
3. Save money on the cooler as the bog standard AMD cooler is more than enough
4. Keep the rest the same..

works out to around £160..

Will definitely be faster than a 2.8Ghz Pentium 4 on other stuff.. such as encoding..

Hmn very interesting, sorry I completely forgot about this thread with a few things happening at home.

I have had a good look into this now and decided at this:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ - Scan – £40.88
Motherboard: Asus A8V-VM 0- Scan - £31.13
Memory: 512MB DDR400 PC3200 RAM (Elixir/Nanya brand) – Microdirect - £25.84
Power Supply: 400W FSP ATX-400PNF – Scan - £32.49
Graphic Card: 256MB Palit 7300GT – Scan - £51.45

Would probably be the best bet, its only £30 more expensive than the other one and its much better. :)