Recommandations








What should I use today?™


I get many e-mails now and then with reports with people asking
me what I think about their system and how they should improve
it. There are plenty better sources on the Internet, but just
in case you really want my opinion here it goes (don't say
I did not warn you!):

CPUs
Chipsets & Mainboards
RAM
Video Cards
Hard Disks
CD-ROMs
Mice
Keyboards
Modems
Sound Cards

CPUs:


386, 486, 5x86 - Buy a new mainboard, the price of
Triton VX mainboards is very low now. There is no point buying
those OverDrives or "Make-it" crawl.


Pentium Classic - If your mainboard has a Socket
7 and supports dual-voltage (very new ones) then you could upgrade
to any of the CPUs below. Don't do it just to get MMX though,
wait for the technology to mature and the prices to come down.
And don't touch those OverDrives! Better buy a new mainboard
+ CPU it'll cost your the same amount and you'll get better performance.
However I did see some very cheap AMD K6 "upgrade packs"
- may be a good buy for your P100. (The K6 233MHz comes in a 3.3V
core / 3.3V I/O which may work in a non-dual voltage mainboard
but you may destroy the voltage regulator due to the larger current
the K6 draws. Be careful!)


Cyrix 6x86 - good CPU as long as you have the 'L' version
that runs at a lower voltage and it way cooler. Good integer performance
but FPU is again inferior to Intel's Pentium. For the PR200 (150MHz)
you need a mainboard that supports 75MHz bus and preferably
SDRAM if you want peak performance. The Intel Triton Chipset may
not be the very best choice for this CPUs. The VIA may be better.
The SiS supports cache linear-burst-mode but are inferior in performance
to Intel's.


Pentium MMX (200MHz - maybe overclocked to 233) - I'm
not keen on MMX as there are few applications yet (and version
1.00) but the bigger internal cache (16+16) does help a lot. Parallel
instruction execution has been improved as well as branch prediction.
A Pentium MMX is around 10-20% faster than a Pentium with non
MMX code, so there. You need a MMX-aware (dual-voltage) mainboard.
The very new rev 4/3 Pentium has modified timing and seems to
execute some code faster than the "original" Pentium
MMX. (Do note that most Intel CPUs don't overclock using the multipliers
since Intel disabled them. You need a mainboard that works at 75/83MHz)


AMD K6 MMX (PR200 200MHz) - good CPU but quite new
and "potentially" buggy. If you're not worried about
this then get it instead of the Pentium MMX as it offers greater
overall performance. But FPU is not so fast - just don't play
normal Quake... The PR233 is more expensive for a small increase
in performance. You may need a MMX-aware mainboard and a BIOS
that recognizes the K6. All in all it is better than the Pentium
MMX.


IBM/Cyrix 6x86MX (PR200 166MHz) - may be one of the
fastest upgrade for your Socket 7 mainboard. Based on the with
MMX, 64K cache and a 'Pentium Pro' like architecture make it rather
good. The PR233 is quite close to Pentium II in performance which
is impressive. You need a MMX-aware mainboard (core 2.8V, I/O
3.3V) and a BIOS that recognizes the Cyrix 6x86MX. Some CPUs were
buggy and have been recalled by Cyrix. However, currently it seems
the AMD K6 is more popular.


Cyrix MediaGX - if you want a very cheap computer (for
your kid) with medium performance then this may be a good buy.
The current chips (no MMX) do not come close to a Pentium in performance
whatever Cyrix says (more like ½ of official PR) but new
chips may appear adding MMX and larger caches. As video and audio
is built in you cannot change it so you're stuck. Avoid unless
really desperate.


Pentium Pro - this is a great CPU with great performance.
If you don't care about MMX (like me) then now is the time
to get it - it's faster than the Pentium II at the same clock
rate due to the internal L2 cache but is cheaper. Not many hopes
of upgrading the Socket 8 though, but there are boards that take
either a Pentium Pro or a Pentium II. If you have one forget about
the lame Pentium II and wait for the real CPUs (Pentium II Mk
2) to come…


Pentium II MMX (Deschutes) - the fastest CPU available.
Adds MMX to the Pentium Pro but removes internal L2 cache. If
you're buying top of the range (400MHz+) you may as well get it
but you'd be well served buying an older (Klamath) Pentium II and
a new board since most of them can work at 100MHz.


Celeron MMX - just a PII with no L2 cache. Some say it can
be overclocked higher than a normal PII. However, we know since the
first Pentium boards came out that no L2 cache is not good. Sooner or
later you'll regret it. But, between a Socket 7 system and a Celeron
a Celeron is better since you can keep the board when you upgrade to
a PII or whatever comes next.


Slot 2 - just to repeat (as some other people have
already stressed) this is NOT the replacement to slot 1, but it will
coexist with it. There will also be a slot 1 lite for PIIs
with the L2 cache running at the bus speed (like Pentium now).
Not that anyone in their right mind should buy one - isn't it
enough the L2 cache is external on the PII unlike the P6?


IDT C6 WinChip - cheap processor, but the performance
is more like the original Pentium, nothing to get excited about.
Also it's very new and hard to find. Haven't seen any yet but
I wouldn't buy one until they manage to really increase that clock
speed.


Overclock - I'm sure that everyone has done it but
I'll say it again: Don't buy a lower speed CPU thinking you can
overclock it! New Intel CPUs can't be overclocked using the multiplier
and Cyrix's get too hot. If you can get away with it - fine, but
don't bet on it.

Chipsets & Mainboards:


Triton FX (Pentium) - pretty good even now but few boards
still use it. It supports EDO RAM, pipeline-burst cache, bus-mastering,
etc. so you won't feel left out. May not support new CPUs like
the MMX-versions. I really can't tell from most benchmarks between
this and the HX, VX or TX so there you have it. Caches 64M only
so I can't really use my old SIMMs to go up to 80M. Shame.


Triton VX (Pentium) - supports USB, SDRAM and PIIX3
but I'm not sure if it's any improvement over the FX. Buy it if
you're on a budget but otherwise choose one of the other chipsets.
Caches 64M only as well.


Triton HX (Pentium) - the Chipset to beat. Supports
EDO, ECC memory, PIIX3, USB but faster performance than the VX
so it is usually found on the better boards. Can also work at
75 & 83MHz yielding greater performance. The one to get. Can
cache more than 64M (256M) but it needs more tag memory installed.
Typically this chip is not installed by manufacturers so if you're
lucky and you have a slot then you can buy one. Otherwise forget
it.


Triton TX (Pentium) - the newest addition with PIIX4
(& Ultra DMA/33), Power Management, SDRAM, USB but not faster
than the HX. However, most boards that use it support 75MHz (&
83) memory bus speeds, extra multipliers, the newest MMX processors,
etc. So if you're buying today you might as well get this one.
Try to get one with temperature control sensor, it should
come quite handy. Caches 64M only as well.


Natoma FX Chipset (Pentium Pro / PII) - the only "real"
choice if you want to get the full performance out of your Pentium
Pro. Supports EDO, BEDO, ECC RAM, PIIX3 but not quite up the latest
gizmos found on the Pentium TX Chipset. If you're buying Pentium
II you'd better wait for the LX.


LX Chipset (Pentium Pro / PII) - Adds AGP, USB, PIIX4,
SDRAM support to the FX. Still using the 66MHz bus but many mainboards
like Asus include jumpers for you to run it at 75/83MHz if you
can. Again, AGP and USB are a bit useless today but you might
as well have them if you intend to keep your computer for a little
bit longer…


EX Chipset (PII) - From software's point of view it very hard to
distinguish between a EX and LX. Even the IDs are absolutely the same. Why
would anyone buy it when the older LX boards may actually be cheaper?


BX Chipset (PII) - Finally a chipset which allows AGP to take off
and not too soon. At 100MHz or even higher (133) you finally get an improvement
with PC-100 SDRAM. This is going to cost you. Since the L2 cache of the PII
runs at 1/2 processor clock the memory bandwidth it's not so important. For
a Celeron it would make a difference since it has no L2 cache.


Other Chipsets - There are many other good non-Intel chipsets
made by VIA Tech,
SiS, etc. but boards using this
chipsets tend to be OEM and harder to find. Some CPUs like the
Cyrix 6x86 may work best on non-Intel chipsets which are not Pentium
optimized and support the advanced features of non-Intel CPUs,
so check before you buy.


Cache - Make sure you have at least 256KB pipeline-burst cache
on board - preferably 512KB. And try to get a mainboard
that supports 75/83MHz bus. Running a P200 as 83*2.5 works
out faster than a P233 and even a P166 as 2*83 will come close
to a P200!


ISA Bus - this bus is going. So DON'T buy any
more peripherals for this bus. I know Plug & Play works quite
well but we should let it rest in peace. Try to get a mainboard
with more PCI slots rather than ISA. Soon, you won't find any
mainboards with ISA slots anywhere.


PCI Bus 66MHz - yeah, this is cool but remember that
ALL your PCI devices must be capable run at 66. If you
put an old card in you've ruined everything. And "capable"
may not mean that it actually runs at 66. Check before
you get burned. I'd like to see dual-PCI buses on mainboards,
one 33 and one 66. Put your fast devices on one, the old on the
other.


ATX - make sure your case is ATX before you buy a new
mainboard. While ATX is not new there are a lot of AT cases
around. ATX cases can be quite expensive.


DIMMs - also, if you get a new mainboard you may
have to junk all your old SIMMs and get new DIMMs, preferably
SDRAM. Unless you can sell your old memory for a good price it
may cost you a lot. Do note that for 66MHz or lower, SDRAM is not
significantly faster than EDO. Only PC-100 SDRAM makes a difference.


Power Supply - make sure the power supply is rated
at 230W or better 270W or more. Now that we're adding
CD-ROM writers, ZIP, JAZZ, PCI cards, built-in modems and bigger
CPUs, more RAM, fans, etc. you may be stretching a 200W power
supply. You may get errors you cannot pin-point and it could be
the power supply.


Built-in Video - don't make the mistake and buy a mainboard
with a built-in video card whatever the chipset. If you want to
change it later or trade it you'll get into troubles so might
as well do it right from the start. Keep it simple and you'll
be OK.

RAM:


Memory Size - Go for 32-48MB or even better 64MB
if you have the money. This should be enough for Office 97 or
something like Visual Studio 97 and should be enough for the next
months… Go for EDO 60ns or even better, SDRAM if the
Chipset supports it and you want to use 75/83MHz bus speeds. If you
want to use 100MHz you definitely need PC-100 SDRAM.


Memory Type - I'm a concerned that we're still using non-parity RAM. If
you overclock or have a slightly faster setup than you really
should, having parity is a good thing. How many errors
go un-noticed simply because there is no check? I still prefer
ECC EDO over SDRAM - hopefully ECC versions should arrive soon.

Video Card:


Memory - make sure it has at least 4MB, preferably
8MB. You don't need to go for 128-bit cards as 64-bit cards
like the Matrox Millennium are still just as fast. Check that
the DAC is at least 150MHz if you have a 17" monitor,
preferably 200MHz+.


3D - If you want real 3D forget about the 2D chipsets
which have "built-in" 3D acceleration and get yourself
a real special 3D card based on the 3DFx VooDoo II chipset. You'll
never be playing old games again; Quake, Tomb Raider, Incoming
never ever looked so good. But you need a good 2D card as well.
Don't get the Rush version which is definitely no improvement
and not worth the hassle. Voodoo I has been surpassed so get it
only if it's really cheap.


Combos - If you have an old 2D card, you might as well
replace it with one of the new 2D/3D solutions based on the Rendition
Verite V2x00, nVidia Riva 128 or Matrox G100. For AGP bus Intel 740,
nVidia Riva 128TNT, Matrox G200 are all very cool and also have some
sort of MPEG2 hardware support so you don't need a decoder. Most of
them are already faster in 3D than Voodoo I but not quite Voodoo II.


Direct X - make sure you install DirectX 5.2 and any
other up-to-date drivers. Yes, there's no escape. Win95 games
are slowly getting better every day…


BIOS - Make sure it has a flash BIOS so you
can upgrade it the same way you upgrade your system BIOS. Things
move very fast here so you could need updates soon.


VESA - Make sure the card has VESA 2.0 in BIOS.
It adds linear frame buffer (LFB) support among other things (no
need to switch banks to write to video memory) greatly increasing
performance. Some games like Quake need LFB if you want to use
anything better than 320x200. I don't like TSRs like Scitech's
Display Doctor; why should you buy a an extra utility when the
functionality should be there?


VESA VBE/PM - (VESA Power Management) is very useful
is you want to shut-down your monitor in DOS after a period of
inactivity.
AGP Bus - while AGP may be great in the future,
forget it for now - there are no good AGP video cards now. Wait
until optimized cards come out and Windows (DirectX too) knows
how to handle them. Remember when PCI cards came out - most were
VL-BUS designs ported to PCI (with no improvement) or when local-bus
cards came out: benchmarks did not reflect any difference at the
start. Why pay more now?

Hard Disk:


SCSI Bus - if you do have the money go for a SCSI adapter
and hard disks. It's expensive but you can connect your hard disks,
CD-ROMs, ZIP, JAZZ, tape, scanner, etc. with no fuss and you don't
need to worry about interfaces. Fast-Wide hard disks always smoke
ATA devices. An all-SCSI system is a killer.


ATA Bus - try NOT to buy any more devices for
this bus unless you can't help yourself. SCSI is getting stronger
and more mainboards come with SCSI built-in. Soon, it will be
on all like ATA is now. This bus is going too and I'm glad. Try
not to buy any more ATA devices.


ATA-3 (& Ultra DMA) - if you buy new you might
as well buy ATA-3 hard disks. Even if your Chipset does not support
Ultra-DMA (33MB/s) the hard disk is likely to include many improvements
like SMART, security, better PIO 4 support, etc. at little extra
cost. Check out the Maxtor Diamond, Seagate Medalist Pro, etc.
Don't expect a huge improvement over ATA2 yet though…


Size Matters - Make sure you buy 4GB or larger,
you'll need it one day. Some 6.4GB drives are quite cheap now
so you might as well buy them. But do watch the rotational speed
to be 5400rpm or faster - don't buy the slower ones (aka
the BigFoots)!

CD-ROMs:


See above. Similar comments apply.


Speed - There's no real need to buy the very fastest CD-ROM drive.
A normal 12x will do. There are still drives that perform no better
than a 8x or even 4x. The transfer rate may be great but the access
time is no better and with small internal buffers you won't get
significantly better performance. Not all 12x drives are the same,
so compare access times, buffer sizes and specs.


DVD - is supposed to be coming soon so you may need to
upgrade sooner than you think. Then you'll need to bin your new
faster than ever CD-ROM drive…

Mice:


Microsoft Mouse - yes, I really like it. There are
good mice from other companies but I do like this one best.


Microsoft Intellipoint Mouse - at the beginning you
might think it's stupid to have a wheel but go on and try it,
I'm quite sure you'll like it. I'm was amazed. Very expensive
but if you're buying a new computer make sure you get it. You'll
have to wait until all applications take advantage of this feature
- one more way to make you buy Windows 98?


Logitech Pilot+ & Mouseman+ - if you want the wheel
on the cheap then this mice are not bad. You can buy two for the
price of a Microsoft one and give the other to your friend as
a present.

Keyboards:


Microsoft Natural Keyboard - well, I'm not too keen
on it but it's not bad. It forces you to type correctly (can't
stretch with your left hand to type 'p' or 'q' with your right)
but is expensive and the feel is not quite up to the very best.
Expensive - did I mention this? But I do know people who swear
by it (I am one of them).


Make sure it has the Win95 keys - not a big deal but might
as well…

Modems:


56K - While the fastest now is 56K, the standard
has not yet been ratified (seems soon now) so you may be left
with a 33.6K modem while paying twice as much. Better wait unless
your Internet provider already offers 56K access and buy a compatible
modem. Anyway most modems can be flashed now so you should not
be stuck with an incompatible one but make sure the upgrades are
free.


33.6K - modem seems a good bet - again make sure the
Internet provider allows 33.6K access! Unless you have a very
good telephone line you may be limited to 28K anyway so don't
pay over the top for your modem. There is still life in the old
28K modem yet.


Internal/External - If you want a neater computer and
a wee-cheaper modem buy an internal one. You should buy an internal
modem if your UART can't handle high comms-rates in Windows. Otherwise
an external modem gives you more information about what is actually
doing/trying to do and you can move it around if you need to.


ISDN - if you can afford ISDN then forget modems, and
go for it. One channel without compression gives you about 8K/sec
compared to 3K/sec for 33.6 modems. While 56K modems may offer
you around 5K/sec this is for downloading only. A dual-channel
ISDN line with compression can hit 32K/sec most of the
time (unless you're downloading compressed files only) which is
a killer. Also QuakeWorld pings are extraordinary - don't we all
hate LPBs?


Cable Adapters - I don't have any experience with them
but watch out: the speed may be 10Mb/sec but that's if you're
the only one using the link! If other 99 users are using it with
you concurrently then you'll be lucky to get 1K/sec which is worse
than a modem! The problem is that at first when the service is
introduced there are few subscribers so it's fast but later it
may become unusable.


Satellite Adapters - this is very cool but you still
need a modem. Could be quite expensive and the latency is rather
high. Downloading may be very fast but unless you're downloading
huge files every day, I don't know. Maybe use it only when you
need a 20M demo off the Internet or something like that (like
beta Windows 98!!!).


Power Line Adapters - this is the coolest since
you'll get a permanent connection to the Internet (yes, Americans,
Europeans do pay for local calls) and the speed seems to be quite
high. Maybe that IE4's ActiveDesktop may become useful
for a change. For people who never sampled the fast, permanent
connection Universities have, this is the closest you'll get.
And not before time!


Telephone - Make sure your telephone line is good!
My new 56K modem could only connect at 21.6K which did not make
me happy at all…


Extra Stuff - And don't buy voice modems unless you
are actually going to use it. You may find that you don't have
the time to do it or it's not worth it.

Sound Card:


SB AWE32 - this is my soundcard of choice. Fully SB16
compatible with hardware wave-table synthesis using the EMU 8000
processor. You can reuse your old 30-pin SIMMs by adding more
RAM and using sound fonts especially large versions of General
MIDI. Even if you don't mess with music you should get it. I'm
not very happy with the pseudo-3D it makes music sound weird.
Don't touch the Value version or the SB32.


SB AWE64 - no reason why you should buy it instead
of the AWE32. You can't use your old SIMMs, the new 32-voices
are through software. Why pay more??? This is really a stinker.


SB AWE64 Gold - if you don't mind paying extra and
you want quality sound then do get it. With 4MB RAM and careful
low-noise construction it is at least an improvement over the
AWE32; not a revolution but an evolution. Very expensive though.


PCI Sound? - Wait for the PCI sound-cards to really
hit the main-stream. I'd love a SB Gold PCI since it should make
your computer a bit faster. Somehow ISA still slows down the
system even though it should not. However, the SB 64 PCI is just
Ensoniq's AudioPCI - NOT SB compatible! While it's a good card it's
too expensive now.


There are other sound cards which are OK as long as DirectX
sound drivers are available and you don't use DOS games. But they
are not always better or cheaper than SoundBlasters so you might as well
get the real thing. At the moment some PCI sound cards are better
than SB though.


This topic was valid at the time of writing, in 12/05/1998
(dd/mm/yyyy). Feel free to disagree or send me any comments.