On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, Rob Hudson wrote:
> Could you guys recommend anything under the following categories?
> Motherboard & CPU - I usually stick to AMD. Now the Athlon and the
> Duron are both out. What is the difference between the two (Duron
> is almost half the price for the same speed). Anyone recommend a
They're the same chip except the Tbird has more cache. Both have 128K L1
cache. Duron has 64K L2 and Tbird has 256K L2. The particular way AMD
implements their cache, this makes almost no difference for most
applications. The Durons in a way are much faster than the Tbirds since
with less cache they run cooler and therefore can be overclocked
higher. I'm running a Tbird, so I guess I'm a hosehead.
Duron 700s are $83 shipped right now, and with proper cooling, you can hit
900 to 1050 MHz depending on which week yours rolled off the assembly
line. You'll want an Alpha heatsink/fan, the big one, 34 cubic feet per
minute I think.
> motherboard brand?
I'm running an ASUS A7V, but like I said, I'm a hosehead. The A7V has a
bunch of nice features like ATA100 HDD bus, rock-solid overclocking, 7
USB ports, and of course it just begs for abuse.
> Video - I'm looking at the Matrox G400 multihead card so I can do a
> dual headed display.
If you're looking for high-end video, you should check out the SGI 1600 SW
digital flat panel. The price is crashing and this is THE display to
have. I can buy one or two for you off of eBay or from an etailor for a
modest commission. Dual-head is no problem with the 1600SW, just use two
$50 Revolution 4s, which is probably less than one Matrox. (Confirmed -- I
just checked -- G400 is $150.):
http://www.sgi.com/flatpanel/
-Chris
