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Date |
: May 1st, 2002 |
| Category |
: Various |
| Manufacturer |
: Various |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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Next up is the motherboard. I picked up an ASUS TUSI-M MicroATX motherboard for 3 main reasons; it had integrated C-Media 8738 hardware audio, Tualatin support, and it was the best that was available at the time. Would have preferred the version with an integrated NIC, but the supplier was fresh out and airlines don't wait for you. ;)
The TUSI-M is based on the SiS630ET chipset. Feature-wise, it is sufficient for our purposes. The built-in SiS300 video is nothing to write home about, but it'll get the job done nicely (other than 3D gaming). You have support for 4 USB ports, 2 front and 2 at the rear. The integrated audio does a pretty darned good job (heck it's even A3D compatible), and overclocking niceties (eg. Vcore, FSB adjustments) are there. One nice thing about the SiS630ET chipset is the ability to run the FSB and memory asynchronously. With PC-150 SDRAM strapped in, you could run your FSB at 100MHz while running your memory at 150MHz to get the maximum benefit. Overall, a pretty nice package.
By now you're probably screaming bloody murder - why a Socket-370 platform?!? Two very good reasons - heat and noise. A 1GHz Duron pumps out 45W, while the 1GHz Celeron I chose to go with pumps out just 29W. In this tight a space, cooling becomes an even more serious issue and dumping an additional 16W of heat into the enclosure does not help any. Since the case used is MicroATX-sized, you could probably install a more powerful HS/F unit, but that is also going to increase the noise level. Another option would be to use a VIA C3 instead, but I required the beefier FPU of the Celeron in some applications. It's all about trade-offs.
The HS/F for this setup is the Spire 5P53B3, being the smallest unit I had. While not terribly efficient (0.67 °C/W), it keeps the 1GHz Celeron sufficiently warm and comfy, and has the advantage of not being noisy. Moreover, its super-shiny copper looks kinda groovy.
The SiS630ET takes only SDRAM, so in went 2 256MB sticks of Kingmax PC-150 SDRAM. Inexpensive and excellent as far as SDRAM is concerned, used in all our SDRAM rigs. And in case you're wondering, no Kingmax didn't make us an offer we couldn't refuse - we just like the stuff. Just a couple of parts left and we have a complete system.
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