Building a Shuttle SN45G/Athlon Based System

I am looking to build a "medium power" Shuttle-based system, mostly for
general computing (internet and light office and graphics work), Linux
and hobbiest programming purposes (my own programs are small, but I
would like some power for compiling some of the larger Linux open source
projects (e.g., Mozilla with certain options enabled)). I am not much
of a gamer (only non-free games I own are QII and Q3A). Looking at the
alternate.de ads in a recent c't Magazine, I priced out the following
system. I would appreciate any thoughts on whether I would be
overbuying or underbuying in any particular category, given my objective:

Shuttle SN45G 249 Eur
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton) Boxed 119 Eur
Corsair DDR400 1.0 GB RAM (Doublepack Dual Channel) 252 Eur
Video Card:
Club3D ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (TV Out, DVI) 159 Eur
or
Leadtek A360TD GeForce FX5700 (TV Out, DVI) 159 Eur
Maxtor 120 GB U-133 IDE 8MB cache/7200 RPM 94 Eur
Samsung CD-RW+DVD Player 74 Eur
Floppy 10 Eur

Total: 947 Eur

If I drop down to 512 MB RAM (140 Eur) and a Radeon 9200 or GeForce 5200
(89 Eur) I can get the total down to 775 Eur. I would use a spare CRT
monitor for now, but would hope later to get a 17" LCD screen with DVI,
which I guess will cost about 450 Eur.

Several particular questions:

1. Does DDR400 memory provide any benefits over DDR333, given that the
Athlon is 333MHz?

2. Memory is often designated as "233", "232", "222", etc., with the
lower-numbered memory being slightly more expensive. I assume this has
something to do with how the memory uses the clock cycle. What cycle
would be appropriate for the SN45G and the Athlon mentioned above?

3. Is the TV-out function of a graphics card "international"? That is,
will it work for both PAL and NTSC televisions?

4. Have people generally had good experience with alternate.de?

Thanks in advance.

xyzabc wrote:

I am looking to build a "medium power" Shuttle-based system, mostly for
general computing (internet and light office and graphics work), Linux
and hobbiest programming purposes (my own programs are small, but I
would like some power for compiling some of the larger Linux open source
projects (e.g., Mozilla with certain options enabled)). I am not much
of a gamer (only non-free games I own are QII and Q3A). Looking at the
alternate.de ads in a recent c't Magazine, I priced out the following
system. I would appreciate any thoughts on whether I would be
overbuying or underbuying in any particular category, given my objective:

Shuttle SN45G 249 Eur
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton) Boxed 119 Eur
Corsair DDR400 1.0 GB RAM (Doublepack Dual Channel) 252 Eur
Video Card:
Club3D ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (TV Out, DVI) 159 Eur
or
Leadtek A360TD GeForce FX5700 (TV Out, DVI) 159 Eur
Maxtor 120 GB U-133 IDE 8MB cache/7200 RPM 94 Eur
Samsung CD-RW+DVD Player 74 Eur
Floppy 10 Eur

Total: 947 Eur

If I drop down to 512 MB RAM (140 Eur) and a Radeon 9200 or GeForce 5200
(89 Eur) I can get the total down to 775 Eur. I would use a spare CRT
monitor for now, but would hope later to get a 17" LCD screen with DVI,
which I guess will cost about 450 Eur.

Several particular questions:

1. Does DDR400 memory provide any benefits over DDR333, given that the
Athlon is 333MHz?


Various benchmarks show that the DDR333 will be faster with that Athlon.

2. Memory is often designated as "233", "232", "222", etc., with the
lower-numbered memory being slightly more expensive. I assume this has
something to do with how the memory uses the clock cycle. What cycle
would be appropriate for the SN45G and the Athlon mentioned above?

3. Is the TV-out function of a graphics card "international"? That is,
will it work for both PAL and NTSC televisions?

4. Have people generally had good experience with alternate.de?

Thanks in advance.

If I drop down to 512 MB RAM (140 Eur) and a Radeon 9200 or GeForce 5200
(89 Eur) I can get the total down to 775 Eur. I would use a spare CRT
monitor for now, but would hope later to get a 17" LCD screen with DVI,
which I guess will cost about 450 Eur.

512Mb and no graphics card has been fine for me: I don't play games
either so I've found that assigning 64Mb memory to the onboard
graphics runs all office apps, video making software and image progs
like photoshop without any problems.

Several particular questions:

1. Does DDR400 memory provide any benefits over DDR333, given that the
Athlon is 333MHz?

No

3. Is the TV-out function of a graphics card "international"? That is,
will it work for both PAL and NTSC televisions?

Yes, it's configurable in the bios

HTH Mark

"Mark" wrote in message
m...

512Mb and no graphics card has been fine for me: I don't play games
either so I've found that assigning 64Mb memory to the onboard
graphics runs all office apps, video making software and image progs
like photoshop without any problems.


Than you DON"T have an SN45G................this model has NO onboard video.

Marcel

"xyzabc" wrote in message
...
I am looking to build a "medium power" Shuttle-based system, mostly for
general computing (internet and light office and graphics work), Linux
and hobbiest programming purposes (my own programs are small, but I
would like some power for compiling some of the larger Linux open source
projects (e.g., Mozilla with certain options enabled)). I am not much
of a gamer (only non-free games I own are QII and Q3A). Looking at the
alternate.de ads in a recent c't Magazine, I priced out the following
system. I would appreciate any thoughts on whether I would be
overbuying or underbuying in any particular category, given my objective:

Shuttle SN45G 249 Eur
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton) Boxed 119 Eur

Why boxed?? The shuttle comes with a heatpipe and cooler, saves you a few
euro;s

Marcel

In article l,
"Vertexsc" wrote:

AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (Barton) Boxed 119 Eur

Why boxed?? The shuttle comes with a heatpipe and cooler, saves you a few
euro;s

This may have nothing to do with it but...

One of the suppliers I use said they prefer to sell the boxed product
due to the longer manufacturer's warranty.

In my case, we were discussing the Intel product. According to the
supplier the warranty on the box product was one year but a mere 90 days
on the oem tray. For this reason the supplier stocks only the box.

Anyone want to buy a brand new heat sink and fan? ;-)

hth,

Mark