Upgrading my computer - please help!

[Jomboni]

Ok, this is what I'm getting so far:

-new motherboard with AMD 1.4ghz Athlon
-Geforce 3
-some Creative Labs card
-some tv tuner

Can anybody recommend a good sound card and a tv tuner that are fairly easy to get running under Linux? I'm trying to keep the total cost for both items under $100. Thanks!

[MandK_10]

Any of the SoundBlaster cards will work under linux. I have used old jumpered ISA cards through the AWE64 PnP. I know that the PCI128 and SB Live work as well. You can get a SB Live Value OEM for about $25.

I don't know about TV Tuners

Mike

[Jomboni]

Thanks! I ordered the SB Live... I found it for $31 which is pretty cheap.

Now I'm debating between a Geforce 2 and 3. Is the performance of the 3 so much better that it's worth spending the extra money?

And again... any info on tv tuners would be a big help!

[Molecule Man]

Get the ati all-in-wonder. bttv is suppose to be very easy to setup in Linux. Check out http://linuxvideo.org

[Jomboni]

Heh... the All in Wonder is what I have now. The 3d support is unacceptable for me. It's a good well rounded card, but just not what I need.

[SkyNet]

Jomboni,

For the Motherboard you should look into getting the Elitegroup K7S5A which is an SiS 735 chipset motherboard that contains 2 DDR-DIMM slots as well as 2 SDR-DIMM slots. That means you don't have to purchase DDR Ram right away if you don't already have some. Otherwise the top performers would be the VIA KT266A chipset mobo or the nForce 220/420 chipset.

Also make sure you get a 266 FSB 1.4 Ghz Athlon.

For the graphics card the major difference between the GeForce 2 and 3 is that the 3 does not lose alot of performance when it switch's to 32 bit mode whereas the 2 does. Also the new Detonator 4 drivers will give the 3 alot more of a performance gain as oppossed to the 2.

[Jomboni]

This is the motherboard I ordered: http://www.partspc.com/product1234.html

I got many recommendations for Asus...

[SkyNet]

Asus is a great brand and they make wonderful motherboards. However you have purchased the A7V133 which will limit you to the PC-133 SDRAM which is the old standard now. The newer more powerful PC2100 DDR-RAM should have been what your aiming for.

The A7V133 uses the KX133A chipset. If your purchasing a computer for today you will want to get a chipset that supports both DDR-RAM and 266 FSB of the current Athlon Chips.

To name a few chipsets would be the:
AMD 760
SiS 735
Ali Magik1
VIA Apollo KT266
VIA Apollo KT266A
nForce 220/420

A motherboard based off of those chipsets would provide DDR-RAM support as well as 266 FSB in most cases.

If you can cancel the A7V133 and get the A7V266 which is the VIA chipset KT266 or the A7A266 which is the Ali Magik1 chipset. Both of those boards are also produced by Asus and support the DDR-RAM.

The reason I mentioned the SiS 735 chipset board was because it supported both the PC-133 SDRAM and the PC2100 DDR-RAM plus the 266 FSB and recieved a nice review from www.tomshardware.com (http://www.tomshardware.com)

In other words you can get the new standard and still use the old standard. The SiS 735 board is also a fairly cheap board at that.