choosing the right hardware
 

Hi everyone !

I have come here to figure out what are the best :

- motherboards;
- processors;
- HD;
- CD-rw , DVD or even DVD-rw;

for linux ?

I explain better , i have decided to build a computer and i have already :

- US robotics modem
- TNT riva (16MB)
- creative sound blaster card
- 1 p4 tower and power supply


Can anyone give me a hint please , so far i looked into asus and soyo motherboards but i can´t make up my mind cause i don´t know jack about , BTW can someone tell me if the amd athlon 64 processor is worth it or not ($465)? does linux already have a 64 bits version OS(or whatever the name people call it) ?

thanks for your attention

BTW I only have $550 and it seems like i could build a nice machine if i build one as i stated before , please give ideas .
Don´t post links with nice prices of ready made machines cause i
really am going to do this (assemble a computer)sorry if i sound rude but i am just trying to be practical

I'm no expert, but

MSI - make good motherboards
Intel Celeron processors are solid, cheap,
Western Digital or Seagate 60 or 80 gig is plenty sufficient
Lite-On cd rewritable drives are solid and cheap

Personally - for ordinary use an Athlon 64 would be overkill.

Hopefully others will chip in with ideas......

Stear clear of Celeron chips as they're just Pentiums with flaws. A lot of people will say go AMD and I'd have to agree, same power, far less money.

Other than that, I agree with Skyline :)

The only restriction as I see it with Intel Celeron procesors is their relative lack of Level 2 cache - this is why for heavy Gaming you should go with a Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor - personally, have never had any reliability problems........

The reason the Celerons lack L2 Cache is that it's "cut off" along with whichever part of the chip isn't functioning correctly. You won't see any stability difference, but the main part of the CPU will be left doing calculations that something else should have been doing for it. At least, that's how I understood the explanation. Celeron chips aren't intended to be made, they are a result of Intel being efficient and making good use of what would otherwise be waste.

If a Celeron chip is cheaper than an AMD of the same speed and you don't want to do anything CPU intensive (like gaming) then I'd say go with the Celeron.

Looking at my supplier, an AMD Athlon XP2000+ (equivalent to a 2.0GHz P4) is £43.09 while a Celeron 2.0GHz is £50.48. Or, alternatively, for the same cost as the Celeron, you can get an Athlon XP2200+ (£50.78)

Obviously this may very well be different in your country Jamaso :)

thank you for your replies everyone . What about AMD 64 bit processor i think i have heard something about a linux version somewhere (don't know if it's the same pc arquitecture tough) , but can you comment on that please ? thanks a lot

The AMD 64 bit CPU would eat up almost all your budget and really would be overkill. I wouldn't bother with it.

I would say to spend money on everything else FIRST, leaving some money for a CPU chip. If you have the extra money, then maybe get the 64-bit CPU chip, but its not all that neccesary, and won't be for a while (a while being a year or two). What I do when getting hardware is getting the best I can because I never know when I will get money again to get better parts.