Intro, Processor, Motherboard

System Recommendation Guide – January

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

I figured enough time has passed that I could make an update to our Recommended System Guide without getting a whole bunch of flak. At Amdmb.com, we believe that yes, there can be one system for all your needs. That is why you won’t see a “High End, Low End, Mid Range, Gaming, Business, etc, etc.” system guide here.. No, sir! One guide, that shows you what we think is the best all around system for you hard-earned (or stolen, we’re cool with that) money.

Here you go!

Processor – AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2 GHz (133/266 DDR MHz) – $290

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Last time around, I chose the Athlon 1.0 GHz processor for this system. But what good is a new system without an upgrade? 🙂 This time around, I have decided that it’s time to move from the land of the 100 MHz FSB to the wonderful world of 133 MHz FSB. This change is basically due to our motherboard choice, which you can see below, and the fact that all the major chipsets that are being released in the coming months have support for these new stepping C processors. The DDR chipsets including the AMD 760 and VIA VT266, as well as the new KT133A chipset, fully utilize the new, faster bus speed to give you a great performance boost.

As of press time, there processor were very hard to find. AMD has been very stingy getting them to the individual buyers and has been mainly offering them the Alpha Level channel OEMs. You’re best bet is to call a big company like, Monarch Computer and ask if they have any or when they will.

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Motherboard – Epox 8KTA3 – $129

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This change in our system guide was a little surprising, even to me. But after the great performance of the 8KTA3 motherboard in our review, it was simply not possible to recommend this motherboard to you all. Achieving a FSB of 150 MHz (300 MHz DDR) for a total of 1.35 GHz out of our 1.2 GHz processor left us more than a little awe-struck. The only reason I could see to pass up this motherboard is to wait a bit for the release of the 8KTA3+, which has a High Point 370 RAID controller on it.

Read our review of the Epox 8KTA3.

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