Here are some more information for Branded Sempron:

Picking the parts for your computer is one of the most important things in building a computer, because you cant assemble a computer without the parts! Picking parts for computers has become much easier than before, because things have been standardized, however, you need to make sure everything will fit. The first thing to think about when choosing the components for your computer is what you are going to be using it for. If you are creating a computer for just checking your eMail and using word, you are going to need much diffrent parts than a computer that you are going to be using for gaming.

CPU

The first thing you should pick out about your computer is what CPU you are going to use, because it determines what motherboard you are going to get, which determines what other components you get. There are two main CPU manufactruers, Intel and AMD. Both have their Pros and Cons, but they are pretty similar. I would suggest using AMD, because they give you a little more bang for the buck.

Here is a brief overview of the diffrent Intel and AMD CPUs:

Budget: AMD: Sempron

Intel: Celeron D

Midrange: AMD: Athlon 64>br>

Intel: Pentium 4

High End: AMD: Athlon64 X2

Intel: Pentium D

If you are spending below $500, I would suggest a budget proccesor, Between $500 and $1000, midrange and $1000 and above I would suggest a high end proccessor.

Motherboard

Choosing the right motherboard is vital to building your computer. First, make sure you find a motherboard that has the right socket type for your CPU. Then, check the diffrent features of the motherboards you are looking at. If you arent going to buy a video or sound card, make sure your motherboard has onboard video and/or sound. Other things to check for on your motherboard are the hard drive interface, graphics card interface, expansion slots, the memory size and speed. Also, check for the chipset. There are too many to talk about, but generally Intel and nVidia chipsets are better than the other ones. Now that you picked out your motherboard, you know what to look for in your other components.

RAM

Getting the right speed and amount of RAM is vital to the speed and stability of your system. If you are running XP, you will probably need at least 256 or 512Mb of RAM. If you are going to be doing anything memory intensive, gaming, rendering or just want a faster computer, you should get 1Gb. Make sure your motherboard has enough DIMMs and the right type of DIMMs for your RAM. Also, be sure to check the speed and CAS Latency.

Hard Drive

Now its time to pick your hard drive. There are few variables in picking a hard drive. The first, and most important is size, 120Gb is usually enough for most people unless, you are going to be storing alot of pictures and video. Also, make sure you get an HD with the right interace that fits your motherboard. Almost all motherboards have IDE, but some have SATA (Serial ATA) Which is a much faster hard drive interface and uses a thinner cable which helps with airflow in your case. There is even SATAII now, which is twice as fast. Also look at speed, almost all desktop HDs are 7200RPM and Cache, most are 8Mb, dont buy a HD below those standards. If you want to spend some money, you can get 2 HDs and run them in RAID which increases performance.

Video Cards

If you are going to be doing any gaming, be sure to buy a video card, if youre not, onboard video is fine. The first thing to check for is the interface, most are AGP or PCI-E. I personally like nVidia cards better. If you are going to be doing graphic intensive games, I would suggest at least a 6600. If you have alot to spend, go with a 7800.

Optical/Floppy drives

Another thing you are going to is a CD drive, most are IDE. Get a DVD Burner if you are going to use it. Also, you should get a floppy drive, they are only $10ish and you might need it to install drivers when building your computer.

Case and Power Supply

Make sure you have a sufficient power supply!! If you have a high end computer, you should get a 450W PSU. Otherwise, 350W should be fine for most people. Most cases are ATX, but make sure it is the same type as your motherboard (ATX, MicroATX, BTX, etc...).

Be sure to make sure all your components are compatible!

Chris Silop, owner and admin of

http://www.syschat.com/ Go there for more articles and forums on computer hardware

What Is The Best Laptop Processor

One of the most frequently asked questions when choosing which new laptop to buy is which processor is the best one to get. The answer is not as simple as naming a processor brand or model. There are a number of things to consider in order to determine which processor is the best for your needs.

First of all there are only two main commercially available processor manufacturers: AMD and Intel, so you will only be choosing from two brands. Chances are you have already heard about Intel processors such as the Intel Pentium 4, Pentium Dual Core, Core 2 Duo, etc. Quite a few people do the foolish thing and buying an Intel processor because it is the brand they have heard of, or because uncle bob says to get one.

In truth, you should never buy a processor because of its brand, as the brand has no effect on the processors performance. Instead, you will need to search the internet for reviews of specific processor models so that you can determine their performance levels. What you need to look for, are performance benchmarks of each processor when running a certain program. These results will usually be expressed as graphs to help you make sense of the results.

The other thing to look out for is how well the processor you are looking at performs in the programs you will want to use on your new laptop. There is no point buying a processor that is good at playing games if all you want is to surf the internet and use office applications as the processor will be way too powerful for your needs and you will end up unnecessarily paying for performance you will never use.

If looking through processor reviews seems a little too daunting for you then don’t worry just go by the following recommendations. Those of you looking use your laptop for office applications, email or just internet surfing, will be fine with the cheapest laptop processors on the market today. Any single core AMD Sempron or Intel Celeron processor will be more then enough for your needs. If you want to do all of the above but at the same time chat to friends on instant messaging or VOIP programs like MSN messenger and Skype, listen to music or watch videos and movies, then you will want to look for any dual core processor. Even the cheapest of the dual cores will do such as the Intel Celeron Dual Core or the AMD Sempron X2.

It is only when you want to do computer gaming, video and music editing or graphic design that you will need a more powerful processor such as an AMD Athlon Dual Core / Turion or Intel Pentium Dual Core / Core 2 duo with more than 2Ghzs. However please bare in mind that for these programs you will also need a dedicated graphics card so don’t splash out on the laptop with the fastest processor you see, check if it has a good graphics card too.

About the Author

For more information on which is the best laptop processor for you, visit: Best Laptop Review as well as for reviews of the best laptops on the market today and where to buy them at the best price.

Can registered RAM and unregistered RAM be combined?

I have an AMD Athlon Sempron 2600+ (non-64bit) CPU and Gigabyte KN400 Pro 2 (Rev.2.0) motherboard. It supports up to 3 GB of RAM (DDR 266, 333, & 400 support) and has 4 DIMM slots. Ok... the reason I'm asking is because I recently bought 1 GB Kingston Value RAM (KVR333/1GR) and it's registered. The system already had 768 MB of DDR333 RAM that's unregistered (one 256 and one 512 MB modules). As soon as I put the 1 GB module in, it worked fine-- for a while. I started to have system errors and 2 blue screens. I know that the RAM was brand new and untouched so I ran Microsoft's Memory Diagnostics on the 1 GB RAM installed by itself in the PC-- without the other 2 modules. It found no errors. I was wondering if that's because I combined 2 different types of RAM: registered (non ECC) with unregistered RAM.

Nope, it probably won't even let you boot.

"CAN I MIX REGISTERED AND UNREGISTERED MEMORY?

While most PC’s will only accept unregistered SDRAM, there are some that accept registered SDRAM. Keep in mind that when you install registered SDRAM, all of the modules installed in your PC must be registered, because unregistered and registered modules are not interchangeable"

quoted from: http://www.datamem.com/faq.asp

Farewell to ATI, AMD to Retire the ATI Brand Later this Year
    Four years ago AMD did the unthinkable: it announced the 5.4 billion dollar acquisition of ATI in a combination of cash and stock. What followed was a handful of very difficult years for AMD, an upward swing for ATI and the eventual spinoff of AMD’s manufacturing facilities to GlobalFoundries in order to remain profitable and competitive. In the years post acquisition, many criticized AMD ...

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