Upgrading
Pulse
To create, to create and escape. Join Date: 2002-08-29 Member: 1248Members, Constellation
To create, to create and escape. Join Date: 2002-08-29 Member: 1248Members, Constellation
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">help me choose a new mobo</div> I'm about to get a major upgrade, one that will make my computer something I can actually be proud of. But I'm not all that familiar with motherboards, so I don't know which one to get, and I'm sure someone here can help.
I'm looking at <a href='http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=633516&Sku=CP2-XP26003BC' target='_blank'>this</a> cpu right now (if you know of a better site that ships to Canada, please tell me, but don't post a site unless you are <i>sure</i> it ships to Canada and uses Canadian currency. And no, newegg does not ship to Canada, and even if it did, it would be more expensive than the site I just linked to, I'm sick and tired of having 10 people tell me to use newegg every time I ask about something like this), but I'm not sure which motherboard to get with it. I know that I should get one with 8xAGP, and a bus speed to match my cpu, but I'm sure there are other things to consider.
I'm also getting a new video card, but I'm torn between the Radeon 9600 pro and XT... what exactly makes the XT better than the pro anyways? Every ATI fanboy I met was telling me it would outperform a 9700, but now that it's out, its performance is almost identical to that of a 9600 pro.
RAM is another thing I'm really clear about, how much difference is there between 266mhz and 400mhz framerate wise?
I'm looking at <a href='http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=633516&Sku=CP2-XP26003BC' target='_blank'>this</a> cpu right now (if you know of a better site that ships to Canada, please tell me, but don't post a site unless you are <i>sure</i> it ships to Canada and uses Canadian currency. And no, newegg does not ship to Canada, and even if it did, it would be more expensive than the site I just linked to, I'm sick and tired of having 10 people tell me to use newegg every time I ask about something like this), but I'm not sure which motherboard to get with it. I know that I should get one with 8xAGP, and a bus speed to match my cpu, but I'm sure there are other things to consider.
I'm also getting a new video card, but I'm torn between the Radeon 9600 pro and XT... what exactly makes the XT better than the pro anyways? Every ATI fanboy I met was telling me it would outperform a 9700, but now that it's out, its performance is almost identical to that of a 9600 pro.
RAM is another thing I'm really clear about, how much difference is there between 266mhz and 400mhz framerate wise?
Comments
but be careful about that website, although my friend claims tigerdirect is a good retailer, that particular website says that the athlon xp 2600 is both 333mhz fsb and 266 mhz fsb down lower, the discrepancy is likely a typo, but a pretty major one, youre going to want the highest fsb you can. (did you know that a xp3200+ is just a 2500+ with the fsb turned up from 333 to 400?)
For the memory, DDR266 vs DDR333 vs DDR400 isn't something you can compare FPS wise. Its just overall bandwidth. Games and applications will load faster and perform better overall, but FPS isn't really a viable benchmark for memory, at least it hasn't been so far.