Christmas system upgrades: List yours.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-12-26 11:43pm

Mine was replacing my existing Asus A7N8X Deluxe setup with an Athlon64 combo.

Old system:

Athlon XP2200+ @ 12x166 Mhz
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
2x256MB Kingston PC2700 ValueRam
ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
2 Seagate ST380011A 80 GB PATA HD's
Pioneer DVD-120R DVD-ROM
Plextor PX-W5224TA CDRW
NEC ND-2510A DVD RW

New system:

Athlon64 (Newcastle) 3000+@10x240 Mhz (LDT/FSB ratio:3x)
DFI LanParty UT nF3 250Gb
2x256MB Corsair VS DDR400 (5:6 memory ratio)
ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
Seagate ST3160023AS 160 GB SATA HD
Seagate ST3120026AS 120 GB SATA HD
Pioneer DVD-120R DVD-ROM
Plextor PX-W5224TA CDRW
NEC ND-2510A DVD RW

OC results:

Stock speed is 2.0Ghz.
The biggest problem I had with OC'ing the thing was understanding the relationship between hypertransport speeds, DRAM ratios, and FSB settings.
Once you get that down, it's pretty simple.

My old stuff went into a new case w/DVD-Rom and a Matrox G400 video card as a Christmas gift for my Aunt. It's slow to me, but that Asus/AthlonXP combo will strip the paint off of her current Celeron 400 system.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2004-12-27 12:02am

Err... none. It's a birthday upgrade.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-12-27 12:18am

Ahh, the mighty Matrox G400. A fine 2D card.

My laptop will be receiving a Toshiba 40GB 5400RPM 16MB cache drive to replace its anemic 6GB one.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-12-27 12:26am

I put a Seagate Momentus 40GB (5400rpm, 8MB cache) in my laptop and it was much more responsive.

Momentus 40GB benchmark

Hitachi Travelstar 30GB (4200rpm, 2MB cache) benchmark

No wonder.

Ahh, the mighty Matrox G400. A fine 2D card.

Yeah, it kinda sucked at 3D.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-12-27 02:05am

Shit, I want your old system.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2004-12-27 03:18am

I got a sweet WD 120GB Serial ATA HDD. I desperatly needed it to replace an older 40 GB Segate which is starting to really fail.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-12-27 03:22am

Got a small form factor case with nForce 3 250 mobo, Athlon64 3000+, and a Plextor 16x DL dvd burner. I'm a happy camper!

Haven't hooked it up yet, though.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-12-27 03:35am

I got a new mousepad. *sniff*

Lt. Dan · Post by **Lt. Dan** » 2004-12-27 04:37am

Got a GForce 3 and 128 MB more RAM. Woohoo.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-27 07:48am

Lt. Dan wrote:Got a GForce 3 and 128 MB more RAM. Woohoo.

A GF3? what kind of upgrade is that?!

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-27 09:37am

My own Christmas present is from Intel, a 3.4E chip and a D915PBLL board. Not my favored bit of hardware for a new setup, but I got those and a copy of XP Pro for 200 bucks straight from them, so I wasn't about to complain. The HARD part is getting everything else to go with it. I'm, aah, still working on the DDR2 and PCI-X bits.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-27 09:59am

White Haven wrote:My own Christmas present is from Intel, a 3.4E chip and a D915PBLL board. Not my favored bit of hardware for a new setup, but I got those and a copy of XP Pro for 200 bucks straight from them, so I wasn't about to complain. The HARD part is getting everything else to go with it. I'm, aah, still working on the DDR2 and PCI-X bits.

The 915 can take DDR RAM, and just get a nice 6600GT

.

EDIT: Based off http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showi ... ipsets.jpg

Any DDR333 or DDR400 will run on the 915.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2004-12-27 10:48am

Ace Pace wrote:
White Haven wrote:My own Christmas present is from Intel, a 3.4E chip and a D915PBLL board. Not my favored bit of hardware for a new setup, but I got those and a copy of XP Pro for 200 bucks straight from them, so I wasn't about to complain. The HARD part is getting everything else to go with it. I'm, aah, still working on the DDR2 and PCI-X bits.
The 915 can take DDR RAM, and just get a nice 6600GT .

EDIT: Based off http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showi ... ipsets.jpg

Any DDR333 or DDR400 will run on the 915.

Anand is correct in stating that the chipset will support DDR.

However the 915PBLL will not take standard DDR as the memory sockets are 240-pin DDR2, while standard DDR requires 184-pin sockets.

He has to get DDR2.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2004-12-27 10:50am

a new mouse

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-12-27 12:52pm

Well, I replaced it a couple weeks ago, but I think it counts.

Old:

MB: Iwill XP333-R (ugh - part of me's glad this fucker is dead)
CPU: Athlon XP 1900+
RAM: 1x512MB PC2100

New:

MB: MSI K8T Neo2
CPU: Athlon 64 3200+
RAM: 2x512MB PC3200 for a full gigabyte of dual-channel goodness
DVD-R: NEC ND-3500A

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-27 01:31pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Well, I replaced it a couple weeks ago, but I think it counts.

Old:

MB: Iwill XP333-R (ugh - part of me's glad this fucker is dead)
CPU: Athlon XP 1900+
RAM: 1x512MB PC2100

New:

MB: MSI K8T Neo2
CPU: Athlon 64 3200+
RAM: 2x512MB PC3200 for a full gigabyte of dual-channel goodness
DVD-R: NEC ND-3500A

Graphics are...?

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-12-27 01:54pm

Tsk Tsk, Ace. You know what I do for a living, have you no faith in the depths of my techie-hood? This is no 915PGNL we're talking about!

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-27 02:02pm

White Haven wrote:Tsk Tsk, Ace. You know what I do for a living, have you no faith in the depths of my techie-hood? This is no 915PGNL we're talking about!

What frightens me is that you memorize the names

Lt. Dan · Post by **Lt. Dan** » 2004-12-27 03:14pm

Ace Pace wrote:
Lt. Dan wrote:Got a GForce 3 and 128 MB more RAM. Woohoo.
A GF3? what kind of upgrade is that?!

One that make my PC that not much, but still better.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2004-12-27 03:16pm

Lt. Dan wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:
Lt. Dan wrote:Got a GForce 3 and 128 MB more RAM. Woohoo.
A GF3? what kind of upgrade is that?!
One that make my PC that not much, but still better.

That frightens me, a 9200 is under 50$ and will beat the GF3, a 9600Pro is under 100$.

EDIT: cheap guy who got you the GF3

but enjoy it.

Lt. Dan · Post by **Lt. Dan** » 2004-12-27 03:28pm

Ace Pace wrote:
Lt. Dan wrote:
Ace Pace wrote: A GF3? what kind of upgrade is that?!
One that make my PC that not much, but still better.
That frightens me, a 9200 is under 50$ and will beat the GF3, a 9600Pro is under 100$.

EDIT: cheap guy who got you the GF3 but enjoy it.

Still kinda hard when I have no money. The GF3 was free, so I'm not complaining.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-12-27 04:34pm

Ace Pace wrote:That frightens me, a 9200 is under 50$ and will beat the GF3, a 9600Pro is under 100$.

EDIT: cheap guy who got you the GF3 but enjoy it.

Please. I just recently replaced my GF3 and it will curbstomp a 9200. 9600 non-pro isn't even a huge step up. I still say the GF3 is a good value for what they are selling for.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2004-12-27 04:41pm

All i need is a new graphics card. Embarassingly enough i ran outta money when building my currently machine 2 months ago and the card i have is a spare i borrowed from a friend. When i get paid again, in roughly 5 weeks, i'm blowing half my pay check on the best i can find.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2004-12-27 10:33pm

DVD rom
New Speakers

New Game called Unreal 2

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-12-28 01:39am

Ace Pace wrote:
Graphics are...?

Sorry, I only listed the components that were part of the upgrade.

Still running a Geforce 4 Ti4400, which is still surprisingly decent - the upgrade boosted framerates in all games quite well, when I had been under the impression it was my vid card bottlenecking things.