Upgrading your PC

[Liam]

Ok so this thread is all about upgrading PC's, I am looking into upgrading as I think 2500GHz is a bit old hat these days and the newest games like to run on 3GHz and a bit more RAM is nice whilst you have 10 windows open plus HD DVD requires a minimum of 3GHz to run.

So I can only go up to an AMD 3200 CPU with my current MOBO and I ideally like close to 3800 or 4000 but his requires new MOBO and CPU so it's gonna be kinda costly but you can always punt the old stuff on at a reasonable price.

Current Spec is

CASE: ANTEC Slk3700bqe Solution Series - Atx Pc Case With 350w Psu

MOTHERBOARD: AOpen ATX AK77-600GN SktA FSB400/DDR400/S-ATA S & LAN 8xAGP Via KT600

PROCESSOR: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 1.833GHz (333FSB) Barton Core Socket A OEM

RAM: Samsung 512 Pc2700 DDR333 184pinn Original Module x 2

COOLING: Thermaltake A1124 Volcano 7 Cooler for Pentium III, Celeron & AMD XP up to 2800+

HARD DISK: 120GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9, 3.5" IDE 7200rpm ATA133 Hard Drive (6Y120L0)

OPTICAL DRIVES: LG GSA-4167BAL 16x DVD±RAM Dual Layer - NEC 2500A 8x DVD-/+R/RW (Supports Dual Layer Writing)

GRAPHICS: MEDIAMAX 256MB DDR ATI Radeon 9600 PRO TV-Out DVI-I

MONITOR: AOC FT700 17" Pure Flat CRT

So I need a new MOBO, CPU, another HDD (250+ preferably) and 2 GB's or RAM after I sell the two 512 sticks.

Would a new graphics card be of benefit?

What is anyone else wanting to upgrade to?

Oh an I want one of these too http://www.nebula-electronics.com/products/products.asp?class=digitv

Liam

 

[Stu DemonD]

Interesting that you never matched your RAM and processor to your mobo.

I am currently running an 800FSB mobo, with 1Gb [2*512] of PC-3200 DDR400 RAM and a P4 2.8HT - it seems to take most things, although I agree my 9600XT 256Mb GFX can not play the latest games at the highest settings, without a slight judder or loss of gameplay.

I intend to upgrade mine either later on this year, or next. Probably get a higher rated Pentium, with more L1 and L2 cache, and a mobo that supports the latest next-gen gfx cards - current mobos seem to go up to 1066FSB and support PCI-Express, which mine doesn't.

 

[serin]

what will you be doing with the old bits :chin:

as my pc isnt much better than that

 

[Liam]

Interesting that you never matched your RAM and processor to your mobo.

Someone else specced it for me, would it run quicker if everything was matched? It's kinda confusing all this FSB DDR stuff but I hope to get a better handle on it after taking my A+ and MCP later this year.

Liam

 

[Hellcat]

You seen what I did for GhostWkd?

If you fancy I can put a suggested system together, using parts from your current system if wanted - or you could sell it as a whole unit and buy a full new one.

 

[Liam]

You seen what I did for GhostWkd?

If you fancy I can put a suggested system together, using parts from your current system if wanted - or you could sell it as a whole unit and buy a full new one.

Seen pics yeah, erm post the spec of that up and something meaty for me which could keep up for a couple of years like this one has.

Ideally I want to keep my opticals, HDD, Case (but up the PSU).

What is best HDD wise, SATA, IDE, SCSI etc?

Cheers

Liam

 

[Stu DemonD]

Matching up the numbers would have made the system faster. You got an FSB400 mobo which is not being fully utilised by the processor and memory - ah well.

HDD - I run 2 SATA-150 drives - the latest ones now come with a 16Mb cache as well. Easy to plug into the mobo as well.

Ideally, run a few HDDs in there - I am about to install an ATA-133 boot-drive, to help things along, especially with the page-filing.

 

[Hellcat]

SCSII is fastest - but you're looking at for a 36GB disk the same as you would pay for a 300GB SATA. Not really sensible for a home user.

IDE can run upto 133MB/s, SATA 150MB/s and so called SATA2 claimed 3GB/s although I doubt there is a motherboard with that kind of interface available.

Running 2 SATA drives in a striped array will give approx twice the performance. If one drive buggers up you'll lose all data on both but most people put all their eggs in one basket anyway.

 

[Stu DemonD]

Running 2 SATA drives in a striped array will give approx twice the performance. If one drive buggers up you'll lose all data on both but most people put all their eggs in one basket anyway.

Exactly what I do - 2*120 Western Digitals SATA-150s in a RAID 0 stripe - use the Intel array, not Promise. Been pretty good, although needs a format; has held together for nearly 2 years, though.

 

[Stu DemonD]

One thing I also do is keep my HDDs defragged - I run Diskeeper after hours EVERY night, set for 2am - this helps with overall speed.

 

[Hellcat]

Keep your documents and video/music on a different hard drive to your operating system and applications. I can't stress enough how much of an impact all them word documents can have on system performance.

 

[Stu DemonD]

Exactly - I now realise that 2 years down the line, and is why my RAID system is being moved aside, and a new HDD fitted and partitioned to take the o/s and applications accordingly.

 

[Hellcat]

Have you considered keeping the OS/apps on your RAID and using the ATA-133 drive for storing your files?

 

[Stu DemonD]

Have you considered keeping the OS/apps on your RAID and using the ATA-133 drive for storing your files?

Not really, but with the current RAID issues [i.e. RAID failures ] I think I would rather have a new single drive for the o/s - if I see any real drop in performance, then I will reformat again.

 

[thefishdude]

you deffinatly going to need mother board as you say. get an athlon xp chip 3200 is like gold dust if you want new. i just sold one on ebay for 100 that i bought for 60 in september and never used.

would deffinatly suggest going amd they are cheaper chips and use alot less power. 1 gb will be enough but 2gb ram would be slightly better do not need anymore unless you planing on doing masses of video editing. as for hard drives if you want speed then you get western digital raptors 10000 rpm ones. biggest they do at moment though is 72gb but man they fly. nice to have one of them as yoru windows and programs drives and then a normal hdd drive for storage were speed isnt the key. as for psu's get a good branded one and branded one with a lower power rating will be superior to cheap and cheerfull power one. they are mroe stable along the rails.

 

[faster4_tec]

I think you best start again!!!!

My mate has just built himself a nice PC, runs battlefield 2, halflife 2, and counterstrike source etc (And all the other games about at the mo) to full settings flawlessly.

Without the current card cost (6700GT with custom parts) it has cost him about £160, and he's just added a 19" CRT (brand new but a few years old, as like me he can't stand the slowness and eyeball pains that TFT's give us) monitor and a 7800 card to that, should be a stomer, he's over clocked the AMD 64 processor from ???? to about 3400Mhz, and is running two sticks of 1gb DDR 400ram (which is overclocked too, they are clocking 270mhz singlulary or 540Mhz in DDR money) and his MB can support 4sticks of 1gb!!
anyway runs like a train, and boots windows pro in about 19seconds flat!! And I thought my laptop here was running good at 32seconds to boot! (on pro aswell).

 

[gregit]

So glad I don't do PC hardware anymore...

PC does email, Xbox does games. Simple!