My boss is selling an AMD 1800 with 256mb of RAM that he built for $135. Is this a good buy? How fast is an AMD 1800 in mhz?
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Is anyone here knowledgable about PC Chips?
- Thread starter 18thTomorrow
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toezter
macrumors regular
18thTomorrow said:
w/what board? PC Chips (the company)?
i've heard nothing but bad news from PC Chips. a friends p4 burnt out from it. probly because of bad heat sink placement, but still.
the AMD 1800 is a 1.8mhz (unless clocked higher). its fairly old now. 256MB is minimum, 512MB is a good number, 128MB is whats need to run XP. tho my friend has a AMD 1800 sys w/ a gig of RAM and 9800pro that runs Doom3 well. it all depends on what its got.
he just selling the processor and ram? thats not a good deal. if its a whole computer (psu, cdrom, mobo, case, ect) then its a fairly good deal. find out more on what he is including for $135.
toezter said:
The 1800 runs LIKE a 1.8ghz machine, it's actual clock speed is 1.53ghz. They did it for marketing, knowing that most people would assume that a 1800 is 1.8 or a 2400 is 2.4; which runs at 1.99ghz in reality.
Would I personaly buy it? probibly not, unless it has some expensive video card or something... as frys has 2800 with motherboard for 69 bucks now adays.
Flyinace2000
macrumors 6502a
18thTomorrow said:
Offer him a hundred bucks. Use it for surfing the web or make it a file servers.
Still quicker than any G4 out there 😛
And toetzer, I would love to see you try and run Win Xp in 128mb RAM!!!!!
And toetzer, I would love to see you try and run Win Xp in 128mb RAM!!!!!
TDM21
macrumors 6502a
Bigheadache said:
I've done it. All I can say is SLOWWWWWW. That system also had a Celeron 556mHz processor. XP normally will take up 128 mb itself, but with only 128mb to work with it will use 64mb.
All I can say is if you buy that, spend another $50 on some ram. I have a pc that has a 1800+ with 768mb of ram and it runs quite well.
Quicker than any G4 system?
The 1800 system is NOT quicker than any G4, I am very protective of my Dual 1.25 GHz G4 system (2mb L2 cache, ATI 9800 Pro, 120GB+80GB, 512 ram and superdrive)
that goes in my big book of "so there's" 😛
3 of my freinds all built 1800 systems and thought they were so cool, but when I showed them how well halo runs in full resolution on my nearly year old powermac, they just couldnt believe their eyes 😀 😛 🙄
The 1800 system is NOT quicker than any G4, I am very protective of my Dual 1.25 GHz G4 system (2mb L2 cache, ATI 9800 Pro, 120GB+80GB, 512 ram and superdrive)
that goes in my big book of "so there's" 😛
3 of my freinds all built 1800 systems and thought they were so cool, but when I showed them how well halo runs in full resolution on my nearly year old powermac, they just couldnt believe their eyes 😀 😛 🙄
stevep
macrumors 6502a
The AMD 1800 actually has a clock speed of 1.53 mHz.
Your 256mB of ram will run Win XP, 512mB is much better though. I would get another 512mB module.
But why ask this question on a mac forum - maybe you already have a mac??
If so, then surely $135 is a bargain, and you can then network it, and use it as extra storage, a fileserver, a print server etc etc - OSX and WinXP work very well together (mainly due to Samba and CUPS, not much to do with XP........!)
Your 256mB of ram will run Win XP, 512mB is much better though. I would get another 512mB module.
But why ask this question on a mac forum - maybe you already have a mac??
If so, then surely $135 is a bargain, and you can then network it, and use it as extra storage, a fileserver, a print server etc etc - OSX and WinXP work very well together (mainly due to Samba and CUPS, not much to do with XP........!)
nope, it doesn't sound like a good deal at all.
PC Chips MB = bad news, unstable and all I heard also is bad news.
About 1 week ago Fry's/OUtpost.com had a deal for $69 or something like thatn an Athlon XP with a MSI? or something like that MB. Far better than PC-Chips. Also advoid chaintech mb/video cards too.
PC Chips MB = bad news, unstable and all I heard also is bad news.
About 1 week ago Fry's/OUtpost.com had a deal for $69 or something like thatn an Athlon XP with a MSI? or something like that MB. Far better than PC-Chips. Also advoid chaintech mb/video cards too.
TDM21
macrumors 6502a
Bigheadache said:
I've done it. All I can say is SLOWWWWWW. That system also had a Celeron 556mHz processor. XP normally will take up 128 mb itself, but with only 128mb to work with it will use 64mb.
All I can say is if you buy that, spend another $50 on some ram. I have a pc that has a 1800+ with 768mb of ram and it runs quite well.
stevep
macrumors 6502a
Like many m/b manufacturers, PC Chips have a few failures. However, unless you know how many then a subjective comment such as this is about as much use as a third eyebrow. PC Chips wouldn't be in business if everything they made was rubbish.
Buy it. If it fails then replace the m/b - about £45 and 1 hrs work for anyone with a screwdriver and more than one brain cell.
AMD Ratings
Athlon XP 1800+ means that an Athlon "Thunderbird" would have to run at 1.8 GHz to match the performance.
You cannot compare clock frequencies directly between different cores. Even worse, things like a Pentium 4 are designed to maximize clock frequency, not performance, for marketing reasons (this is called 'marchitecture', that is, marketing-driven architecture).
You should use benchmarks (eg. SPEC) to compare.
Athlon XP 1800+ means that an Athlon "Thunderbird" would have to run at 1.8 GHz to match the performance.
You cannot compare clock frequencies directly between different cores. Even worse, things like a Pentium 4 are designed to maximize clock frequency, not performance, for marketing reasons (this is called 'marchitecture', that is, marketing-driven architecture).
You should use benchmarks (eg. SPEC) to compare.
Thanks for the advice. I know quite a bit about Pentium chips and their relatives, however BYO like AMD are foreign to me. I might buy it just to have a PC on hand. I have 2 macs of my own already and though I have access to two PCs (I live at home and my family uses pcs) it might be nice to have one of my own. (To add to the growing pile of computers, monitors, and other associated items that scatter the floor of my room... 😱 )