Good Upgrade Choices?
Comprox
*chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
*chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">for me PC</div> No, this is not another "what should I get" thread. I've read enough of those in the past month to hopefully pick out some good stuff. What I am wondering is if this choices will provide a worthwhile upgrade for my PC compared to what I am running right now.
Running right now:
-P4 1.6
-1 gig Ram
-200 GB IDE
-Radeon 9600 Pro
-Some insanely basic motherboard
What I am looking at upgrading, the rest staying the same:
-Chaintech S1689 Socket 939 ATX Motherboard and AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor
-Western Digital / Caviar SE / 320GB / 7200 / 8MB / ATA-100 / EIDE Hard Drive
-BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC 128MB DDR AGP w/DVI/Tv-Out
Total price tag of about $700 Canadian on the nose. I may need to tack on a new PSU also, not sure how much the new video card will suck up. So, these upgrades going to show a notable improvement, or should I save a bit longer?
Running right now:
-P4 1.6
-1 gig Ram
-200 GB IDE
-Radeon 9600 Pro
-Some insanely basic motherboard
What I am looking at upgrading, the rest staying the same:
-Chaintech S1689 Socket 939 ATX Motherboard and AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor
-Western Digital / Caviar SE / 320GB / 7200 / 8MB / ATA-100 / EIDE Hard Drive
-BFG GeForce 6600 GT OC 128MB DDR AGP w/DVI/Tv-Out
Total price tag of about $700 Canadian on the nose. I may need to tack on a new PSU also, not sure how much the new video card will suck up. So, these upgrades going to show a notable improvement, or should I save a bit longer?
Comments
I agree, but you're going to have to work to find a nice price when it comes to PCI-X cards. At least that was the case for my bro.
Also, go ATI. You can't beat an X800 XT-PE or an X850.
X800 series is totally out of my budget. Best I can in ATI for the same price is about an x600 pro, MAYBE an x600 XT.
As for the motherboard, again, price. The MB and CPU I listed are being sold as a combo on sale, flipping out to another motherboard and buying the CPU seperately adds alot again. ($260 for CPU + $160 for MB = $420) while I can get the combo for $330.
$260 for the CPU? It's $190 at newegg and ASUS A8V DELUXE mobo is only $115. That's about the same price as your combo...
*edit* - to save me spamming the topic - remember, I am CANADIAN <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
*ahem*
Comprox, try Factory Direct / Tiger Direct (although I don't trust them...).
Thre rest I dont know enough about.
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I'd be very paranoid about going down to the ultra-cheap motherboards. We've got a few ASUS A8N and Abit AN8 systems going out these days (~150$CA), though I'm pretty out of touch with the hardware end of things.
Unless you upgraded the power supply from the original system, you will definitely want to do it now. If you want to cut the corner, watch the voltages very carefully in the BIOS for a while when the system is first installed. I watched a housemate's crappy power supply fluctuate his processor voltage between 80% and 140%... fortunately the machine would crash before anything burnt up.
<edit>
Okay, apparantly you're not getting the Chaintech cheap: the prices I have seen for them around seem to reflect low availability and cost. Have never had a problem with ASUS and ABit, though we don't build many high-end machines; most of them are cheapie integrated-everything systems.
</edit>
Personally I'd wait until the next generation of video cards come out.
However, 1.6 is pretty old. If the mobo/CPU combo's a good deal, go for it. EDIT: Unless you can see yourself getting a good deal of performance improvement from a dual-core CPU, in which case wait for a good deal on one o' those.
X800 series is totally out of my budget. Best I can in ATI for the same price is about an x600 pro, MAYBE an x600 XT.
As for the motherboard, again, price. The MB and CPU I listed are being sold as a combo on sale, flipping out to another motherboard and buying the CPU seperately adds alot again. ($260 for CPU + $160 for MB = $420) while I can get the combo for $330. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Awww, if you were i'd want a lock of your hair.
look into the x700 pro and the 6600 GT, both excellent and cheap cards.
Then look for a PCI-E motherboard, they are often less than 20 dollars more expensive for simmilar quality/features.
the x700 pro is marginally better than the 6600 GT, but is really only available in PCI-E versions, so if you end up with an AGP board go 6600 GT.
BTW, that seems like a hella lot for a CPU and motherboard, if the conversion rate was 2 canadian dollars to the USD, you could get a cheaper mobo with PCI-E....
they do take paypal...they have for I think at least 6 months now.
Aim for Nvidia, their cards support Shader model 3, both NV60(6800. etc) and NV70(7800 etc).