I have a pretty old computer.
It's only a 1200mhz Athlon Thunderbird with the following specs:
-512MB SDRam
-40gb failing HD
-Radeon 9600PRO
The monitor, mouse and keyboard are not worth mentioning, the speakers are as old as 1996.
I don't think I need that much more power, I don't play games and I am not sure now is the best time to upgrade either, what with the apple mac starting to use Intel chips, might be possible to run windows on such a machine which means no emigration headaches, really just a pretty PC that runs OS-X.
I am thinking though about some cheap and effective way to tidy me over for a year or two, maybe a new motherboard or just CPU(dunno how fast a CPU this board can take) or more RAM.
The HDD has to go anyway ofcourse so thats not relevant.
Cheapest upgrade path?
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His Divine Shadow
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Cheapest upgrade path?
Last edited by His Divine Shadow on 2005-06-15 02:49am, edited 1 time in total.
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Since PCI-X is in and here to stay for Video cards you are in kind of a bind, either you can simply upgrade to the fastest CPU aviable for your MB or go with one of the new Venice core Athlons and a new motherboard to support it
But then you hit the problem of all Video cards going PCI-X, there ARE a few MB out there that have AGP slots and PCI-X slots on them, pick one of those, a Venice, and then a new hard drive and your good to go.
But then you hit the problem of all Video cards going PCI-X, there ARE a few MB out there that have AGP slots and PCI-X slots on them, pick one of those, a Venice, and then a new hard drive and your good to go.
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Erm, isn't PCI-X a different specification than PCI Express?
ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
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Yes, it is and he's not the only one to mix the two terms up at times.Pu-239 wrote:Erm, isn't PCI-X a different specification than PCI Express?
IMHO, the best 'bang for the buck' intermediate upgrade path if you don't need the latest and greatest video card is a Socket 754 or 939 Athlon64 setup w/AGP instead of PCI-e.
As for which chipset, my personal experience is that while the nForce3 is easy to overclock and is stable at high overclocks, nVidia still hasn't resolved some USB device incompatibilites and the intermittent failure to detect SATA hard drives that occurs intermittently for a lot of people (including myself).
In January I recommended the DFI nF3 board, but the USB and SATA issues that cropped up led me to ditch it later on for an Asus K8V-SE Deluxe VIA K8T800 board.
The Asus isn't overclockable at all, but it has had zero USB issues, has never failed to detect any of my SATA drives, and is stable as a rock.
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Oderint dum metuant
Well, 939 is upgradable to dual core if you care and plan to upgrade when prices go down.
ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer
George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor
Search & replaced PCIe for factual correctness:
PCIe is the proposed replacement for PCI, and is being adopted really fast
I would suggest looking at Ars Technica budget box for ideas. You can probably reuse your current OS and any CD/DVD drives, monitor, mouse & speakers.
PCI-X is an enhancement to PCI and is an utter deadend and is only widely seen in server components.Mr Bean wrote:Since PCIe is in and here to stay for Video cards you are in kind of a bind, either you can simply upgrade to the fastest CPU aviable for your MB or go with one of the new Venice core Athlons and a new motherboard to support it
But then you hit the problem of all Video cards going PCIe, there ARE a few MB out there that have AGP slots and PCIe slots on them, pick one of those, a Venice, and then a new hard drive and your good to go.
PCIe is the proposed replacement for PCI, and is being adopted really fast
I would suggest looking at Ars Technica budget box for ideas. You can probably reuse your current OS and any CD/DVD drives, monitor, mouse & speakers.
Last edited by Xon on 2005-06-15 06:31am, edited 1 time in total.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
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His Divine Shadow
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