So I'm building myself a new home computer. Been using a laptop for years and it's time to make myself a present.

Here's what I've been working on for a config:

Abit VH6-II motherboard
Intel 1 Ghz processor (prolly retail, not OEM)
256k PC133 memory (prolly Crucial)
Maxtor 40 or 60 gig ATA100 HD (7200 rpm?)
Pioneer 106S DVD???
Tower, floppy, NIC, etc.

A few questions:

1) I need to buy a CD Rom drive. Since I have no real interest in writing CDs, and I do have interest in DVD on my PC, I am thinking of getting a DVD drive. My questions are as follows:
a) Will I have any problems ripping CDs (making MP3 files from audio CDs) with a DVD drive?
b) Does it really make a difference what speed drive I get when it comes to making MP3 files?
c) Any drive recommendations? Is the Pioneer 106S any good? Seems popular...

2) I'm thinking about the Maxtor 40 or 60 gig ATA100 7200 rpm drives. Is the 7200 rpm model the right one to get? Any real difference between that and the 5400 model? Any objections/recommendations here?

3) Anyone know anything about the Abit VH6-II? There's virtually no reviews anywhere on this puppy. I've found 1 or 2, but no individual feedback.

4) Any overclockers out there think I'm crazy to spend bucks on a 1 Ghz chip? Is a 1 Ghz chip running the momo at 133 faster than overclocking a 800 chip at 100 mhz momo overclocked? I'm not sure about all of this overclocking business. Scares me to tell you the truth...

- Thanx everyone!
- Jon

As you probably know, CD-DA standard (I don't remember the colour of the book ) does not provide for accurate positioning on read requests (besides, read errors are handles in less robust way). Some CD-ROM drives include hardware intended to correct for these positioning errors (jitter - the term is also used for other classes of errors). Plextor SCSI drives have reputation for excellent hardware jitter correction (and, consequently, better and much faster rips). If you need more info, I think there are people on the board who work with these things professionally...

I would recommend one of Plextor SCSI CD-ROM/CD-R/CD-RW drives (in addition to DVD drive). While you are not interesting in burning your own CDs (DA or ROMs with MP3s), I think you should back up your MP3s on something more or less permanent.

Concerning disk drive's rotational speed, I think you will barely be able to tell the difference between 5400 and 7200 RPM models, unless you plan to use your machine for havy database work or have too little physical memory (and consequently a lot of paging and/or swapping).

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I just built a similar system for myself last month, so some of this may help-

You should have no problems ripping with a DVD as opposed to a cdrom. Honestly, I seem to have less problems since I started using a DVD. I may be imagining things, though.

The faster the drive, the faster it should be able to do audio extraction (in theory). I'm not familiar with the pioneer, but I just picked up a 16x Toshiba that so far has done really well for me.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Maxtor, but after a very long discussion with one of my coworkers, followed by a bit of web research, I decided on a 45GB IBM Deskstar. Apparently, they have better throughput, and the price difference was like $5.

I tend to stick with ASUS or Microstar mainboards, so I can't really help with the Abit, nor can I help with the overclocking, since I have no experience there, either.



Bill B.
Mk.2 SN 080000183 - 38 GB / Green

As was already mentioned, the Plextor CD drives have a great reputation for giving you perfect rips. But from everything I've read, most recent drives (DVD, CDR, etc) will also give good rips. Once upon a time, Plextor was the only way to go. Now it's not as much of an issue as it used to be.

I'm very happy with the drive I got recently. It's a Ricoh drive that's a combination DVD and CDR/CD-RW drive. It's an "all-in-one" solution for my drive needs. I think it cost me something like $350.00.

My question to you, though: How do you expect to afford a new computer without a job?

___________
Tony Fabris

My question to you, though: How do you expect to afford a new computer without a job?

Two words... severance package.

Just kidding. Don't worry about me... I have a few pennies stashed away.

- Jon

Pioneer 106S DVD

I have this exact drive in my PIII800 desktop and it works well for audio ripping. With the SSE enhanced LAME encoder set to VBR 1 and the drive, I can get 5x ripping speeds, with no problems. I haven't tested the max of the drive, since I do all my encoding at the same time as ripping. But with your 1000 processor, it should be fine as well for realtime ripping.

And as far as overclocking, don't bother. I saw a huge boost running my Celeron 300 at 450. But running your 1000 at 1100 or so is not worth the trouble. And running an 800/100 at higher speeds, almost the same thing. Probably best that you just get a slightly faster official chip these days.

Oh, and if you are planning on running DVD movies on the system, I'd recommend an ATI Radeon card. While it may not be the absolute best at games, it still flys there, and gives me great quality DVD for my 27 inch monitor without needing a seperate DVD decoder card or the really high end software.

And for the memory, get CAS2 latency with the price of memory these days.

I just checked out the motherboard at ABits' site, looks fairly standard. One recommendation though. If your going Intel for the chip and aren't interested in overclocking, I'd recommend looking into an Intel board too. The combination has given me a rock solid PC. And some neet features too like floppyless Windows executing BIOS flash programs. (It does a trick where it goes to shutdown 2000, kicks most of it out of memory, then does the flash and reboots. Very sweet). Plus mine came with onboard LAN, elliminating the need for me to go buy another NIC. I have the Intel D815EEA. While you probably won't use the onboard video or audio of it (I got the processor and board as a very cheap package deal), they can always be disabled. Looking at the current Intel boards, they also have ones with the 815EP chipset, meaning no onboard video and probably a lower cost.

Wow, that's about the exact oposite of the machine I'd buy.

Asus A7M266
1ghz Athlon (tbird)
256mb PC1600 DDR SDRAM
Toshiba DVD
Asus AGP V7100 (Geforce2 MX)
IBM Deskstar 75GXP 60gig

12gig red mk2 -- 080000125

I've got a pioneer 303S, it's a 6x SCSI DVD drive. I think it's called 103 in the USA. Assuming the 106 is a never generation of the same drive i would highly recommend it. My drive is great for ripping.

I used to use cdparanioa to rip manually. It would give a realtime report of all the error corrections it would make. Using my pioneer drive it would rip flawlessly with no error corrections required. It is also much quicker at ripping than any other drive i have used (i haven't used a plextor though).

My only concern with that system would be the Intel chip. An Athlon will get you much better performance, and save you money too! (Unless you are mainly going to be running some SEE optimised application?)

Allot of 3D games are clock for clock a little faster on the P3, but for just about everything else, clock for clock the Athlon is faster. And for the same amount of money you can get a faster clocked athlon so that for the same amount of cash, you get faster 3D games, despite the clock for clock disadvantage, which is most probably due to SSE optimsations (hopefully we will see more 3dnow optimisations now that the Athlon has a good chunk of the market).

Now THAT's a machine. Although, I'd throw in the extra money and get the GeForce2 Ultra, 512 MB of RAM, and another hard drive. Pentium III systems now a days just aren't worth the money, especially since you can get something with much better performance for less.

IBM is pretty much the only way to go for drives, the other's just have too many problems and don't perform the same. Sure, you end up spending a little more, but after you own one you'll never want anything else. It's like owning an empeg . They are just top quality drives, period.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts on it.

________
Donato
MkII/Blue/40GB/080000565

Hm. Thanks for the advice everyone! I went to Fry's (Bay area mega electronix store) just to look around. They had a deal on the Abit VH6-II + Intel 933 retail box for 299. Seemed too good to pass up. Now I'm having second thoughts since you all are saying Athlon! I dunno, I feel more comfortable with Intel. 933 will blaze compared to what I'm used to (Dell Lattitude 366 laptop!). Is it really gonna help that much?

I ordered the memory from Crucial (CL-2, 256 Megs), the HD is a Maxtor ATA100 40 gig 7200 (the 45 gig from IBM was more than 5 bucks higher!), and I also ordered the OEM Pioneer 106S (for 75 bucks!).

So I'm torn about the momo and the processor. I have 30 days to return to Fry's for a refund...

Also, I need to buy a case. Anyone seen www.colorcase.com or www.colorcases.com? Look cool, and the reviews are pretty good... I don't want a big white rectangular box. These fit the bill nicely. Feedback appreciated!

BTW, THANK YOU for recommending resellerratings.com - what a great site!

- Thanx again!
- Jon

the 45 gig from IBM was more than 5 bucks higher!

Sorry about that. I was going off of memory - when I bought mine a month or so ago, there really was only $5 difference. I guess I should've double-checked current prices. At any rate, you should be pretty happy with the Maxtor. I know I've always preferred them over other brands.

Bill B.
Mk.2 SN 080000183 - 38 GB / Green

Bill,

Sorry, should have put a smiley face after my comment... I do appreciate your input!

- Jon

I've got three of the 45GB IBM's. They usually are about $20 more than other brand drives, and I still think it's well worth the extra money, especially when it comes to performace (all reviews i've ever seen always have the IBM drives on top). I got two of them for about $145 and the third I got when they first came out so it was $240 or so. Pricewatch is always a good resource when pricing parts, it will give you a real good idea of what to expect. Although, you can't compare prices on Pricewatch to prices at Fry's since Fry's is a retail store.
Either way, enjoy your new machine!

As for cases, here are a few reviews to check out, various choices depending on how big you wanna go:

ColorCase Yuri/Venus ATX Mid Tower
Supermicro SC750-A Extended ATX Full Tower


And here are a few sites to check out with reviews, and etc:

Reviews / Articles / Overclocking / Info:
Sharky Extreme
Tom's Hardware Guide
AnandTech
Little White Dog
Fast-MHz
Ace's Hardware

Cases / Etc:
Cool Case Mods


This is just a small list. All those sites have links to tons of other sites with great info on just about anything you'd ever want to know (and not want to know).


________
Donato
MkII/Blue/40GB/080000565

So I'm torn about the momo and the processor. I have 30 days to return to Fry's for a refund...

I wouldn't worry about it at all.

Unless you have some pretty sophisticated diagnostic and benchmark programs, I would defy you to run any software that you own and tell the difference in a blind test between a 933MHz processor and a 750MHz processor of the same family.

We're talking milliseconds faster recalcs in spreadsheets, and just how fast do you think you can type in a word processor?

There are a lot of other variables that denote true "speed" of a computer that are more important than the number of megahertz the manufacturer stamps on the processor chip!

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"