NF7 vs NF7-S, SATA/RAID Cards, PSU Questions!

[alecjahn]

Well i was planning on buying an NF7 with some Corsair or Muskin Basic memory and a new power supply

Of course, I'm on a budget so I know the PS is probably not the best brand in the world but every 5 or 10 bucks i can save really does help.

so i so far have:

Mushkin 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 Basic Green - Retail

I've "decided" (at least temporarily) on this memory. Good or bad choice?

ABIT "NF7" nForce2 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL

POWMAX Demon 580W Power Supply, Model "PSDE580" -RETAIL

I'm only getting that PS cause it only had like 1 or 2 bad reviews out of 35 and it looks great, with a 120mm and 80mm fan + LEDs (and it's black!) I'm hoping that being rated at 580 watts will allow me to get around 450watts at normal operating temperature.


I was looking at the NF7-S, and was wondering, whether it would be a good idea to go ahead and wait a while and save up the extra 20 bucks for the SATA/RAID 0/1 feature.
Is this the only added feature? I was looking at SATA/RAID cards and could find that they rate from 25 bucks to 750 bucks depending on the features/RAID levels offered. Would a cheap card like one of the lower end cards i saw be any better than the onboard on the NF7-S?

Thanks people.

 

[archon45]

You may want to check to see hwo compatiable the ram is with your motherboard. I would suggest getting higher end ram and 2 sticks of it.

The raid card I'm no too sure on, but in my experience the on board ram works great. If its going to be Raptor drives, then I would think you might want to get the card.

 

[alecjahn]

On the Abit "Memory Compatability" list one column lists the following:


DDR400 | 256MB | MUSHKIN | N/A | N/A | 3 | Single: Non-ECC

Where the two non-applicable items are "Chip Vendor" and "Module P/N or Chip P/N"

See what the hell I'm rambling about.

I'm guessing this means it should work fine.

One guy on newegg stated "Works well in Biostar M7NCG v7.x (IGP) and ABIT AN7 uGURU. I guess it will work for all nForce2 Ultra400 based boards."

Although I won't trust a Newegg review for the whole purchase, I will put one into account.

I've also stumbled upon some other forums elswhere and they have reccamended an NF7 and Mushkin basic green to someone else, but again, i dont know those people.

 

[alecjahn]

Does anyone by any chance have some hardware similar to the kind i need (except mobo pretty much needs to be that one.) that i could purchase from them?

About the ram thing...

What do people know about these modules? (the Brand, etc)
SimpleTech 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3500 - Retail
Well, it certainly has the capability of being fast...

 

[alecjahn]

Here goes my first ever Triple Post (out of my lazy-ness)

How about Geil Value Series 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - OEM

 

[alecjahn]

Whew! A Reply! I thank you for your time of writing 2 replies, and that you completed the answering of all my questions.

Is there any way to get these items cheaper than at newegg? eBay is no help, as they may have lower prices sometimes, but the shipping ends up shooting it 5-10 bucks over newegg's prices.
Does TigerDirect occasionally have any better deals?

EDIT:
What's the difference between these? They seem to have different timings... anything else? Which one's better? (I would have to guess 2-3-3-6 is better than 3-3-3-8)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-415&depa=0
CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - OEM

 

[alecjahn]

Yeah, I just wanted to see if there were any other reputable companies out there that I either forgot or for some reason don't know about.