Re: Econo Box

Interesting question, I have been thinking about it a bit myself as I have some old components which could run a new Mobo so I will write the advice I would give to myself.

If you are looking at boards IMHO you want to get into reviews like Lost Circuits, Anand Tech and Firing Squad among others they will tell you what the little issues are.

IMHO a budget system at the moment would have to be a 950MHz Duron with 128 or 256Mb PC133 SDRAM. But you can get a better performance by spending a bit more on an XP and 2100 DDR RAM.

Of course, you have to decide this before looking at the Mobo.

ummm you probly know this but I will say it anyway - apparently you should always get a 300W PSU for AMD chips.

The problem with integrated vid seems to be that it is always 2 generations behind the current, I think this is because it maximises sales of cards. Nforce mobo set has V good audio but the graphics while better than any other integrated afaik are still pretty nerfed besides an AGP.

Other cheaper A/V integrated boards will let you run modern games but like you got grit in your trainers.

So I agree with Gef2 AGP card and integrated sound as the GFX card will allow you to get a good games performance with a budget system.

In addition I would suggest that the cheapest IBM 60 GXP hard disk would be a worthwhile investment.

Apart from this you have the OS to consider. By the sound of it Win98 SE OEM is the best option unless you have software already in which case anything is better than buying a new OS at todays prices.

Of course once you have it set up dont forget to tweak the sucker