A Pc Is Like A Pet...

[Rico]

MAN NEEDS HELP UPGRADING PC
Assistance appreciated

Yesterday I can home to find my previously-on PC off. I pressed the switch a couple times and it didn't start. I cycled the 4way, and it started working. Guess the power is screwed.

But then again so is the CMOS battery (I went through a week of being 2 hours late and not realising it) and the PS/2 slot (if the mouse plug falls out, it takes 2 hours to put it back in) among other things.

Nigerian

I recently recieved a large sum of money from a anonymous Nigerian donor and seek to upgrade.

Problem is, I don't know what stuff to get. I've got 512 mb RAM and the cd drives, joypad, monitor, mouse and keyboard already. What I need are a 5.1" speaker setup, memory, processor, mobo, case, psu and new gfx card.

processor

I don't want to spend more than about £600, since my last whole PC 2 years ago cost £750 (1800+,512mb,gf4 4200 64mb,19" crt).

My current plan is to buy another 512mb of RAM, get a new processor between 2.5-3.5 GHz (AMD), and get another graphics card that's, say, capable of running Doom 3/Half-Life 2 at 1024x768 res, high graphics, with no slowdown.

hard

If you guys could help me out with a few cold hard questions I'd be grateful, plus I think it would help others looking to upgrade their PC for Winter gaming.

• Which is better - AMD or Intel?
• What kind of GHz processor will be the cheapest per GHz in the coming months?
• ATI or nVidia?
• With £600 total, is it wise to get a £250-£300 monster card, or stay conservative?
• Any upgrades to gfx cards or processors in the coming months that are going to make current stuff a lot cheaper?
• Why is life so pointless and depressing?
• Just kidding. Is it a good idea to buy a new 512mb, or would 256/none at all be better?
• Is it a good idea to go 64-bit yet?
• How many more of these questions can there possibly be?

Reply if you wish, there's no rush but I would like the advice of some experts here because frankly my hardware knowledge is equal to how much my mother knows about BDSM. Unless those belts she keeps in her closet WEREN'T for keeping my dad's trousers on.

Cheers!

 

[Axeman]

Which is better - AMD or Intel?

No real preference - AMD is generally slightly cheaper, though the price gap is narrowing considerably...

What kind of GHz processor will be the cheapest per GHz in the coming months?

AMD-wise, a 3000+ is a pretty good bet for the coming months.

ATI or nVidia?

Again, not too much preference in this case - I'm pretty sure ATI have the best range of cards at the moment, though I myslf have a Geforce 4 Ti4600 - and it runs Doom 3 like a dream

With £600 total, is it wise to get a £250-£300 monster card, or stay conservative?

I'd say what I always say about this - whats the point of going cutting edge when it costs so bloody much. You can get a very good card for £100-150. Dont ask me about models, cos I haven't been following it for so bloody long With Gfx card price, apply the law of diminishing returns, and you have it about right.... to be honest, that applies to most of the hardware you're gonna buy... big expensive hardware gives you bragging rights, and thats about it in real terms!

Any upgrades to gfx cards or processors in the coming months that are going to make current stuff a lot cheaper?

Knowing life... probably!

Why is life so pointless and depressing?

You tell me!

Just kidding. Is it a good idea to buy a new 512mb, or would 256/none at all be better?

MORE memory is always better. You wont notice a massive difference if you get a faster type of memory, unless you happen to be going from SDR to DDR RAM.

Is it a good idea to go 64-bit yet?

Not on that budget Seriously - there's no real point unless you're looking at gettin all the opther hardware upgraded to go with it - i.e. 8Mb cache HDDs, Fastest RAM, etc etc. Otherwise, these things will end up being bottlenecks, and make a 64bit processor pointless...

How many more of these questions can there possibly be?

None thank God...!

 

[finty]

I cant be assed reading the posts, but dont buy a motherboard before the PCI express ones come out for AMD. Also I think ATI are on the edge of releasing a new card range for the AMD 64bit's.

 

[mattmagoo]

Meh, i'd just leave it, I've been using the same PC for 6 years and if it wasn't made by TINY it'd be perfect

 

[oxygene]

I cant be assed reading the posts, but dont buy a motherboard before the PCI express ones come out for AMD.

before they come out? too late, I'd say:

00:0a.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 12)
00:0a.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X APIC (rev 01)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 12)
00:0b.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X APIC (rev 01)

 

[finty]

Cool, didn't know they had launched yet. When did they just out of that word that I can't spell (qureosity)?

 

[pubjoe]

I've been waiting for the money (not too much) to upgrade for a while, so I'll tell you what I'm planning:

ATHLON XP MOBILE 2600+!!! These are hard to find in the UK, but you'll find them on ebay if you search 'available to the UK'. They go for around £60-£70 and overclock like mad. Some (trustworthy) people say up to XP4400+ speeds with air cooling. Seriously, get this chip, it's made for laptops, but there is no performance loss, only lower temps and lower voltage. Do a google search about it and find out what all the fuss is about.

Motherboard: I don't know, I haven't looked into it, but I'm happy with my soltek nforce2.

RAM: You should be able to pick up another 512MB for £50 delivered. I'm not too fussed about brands, but you should get some kingston at that price. One thing to think about though is you really want ddr400 (PC3200) so you can overclock that mobile chip properly. If you need to replace your current ram then I've been looking at 1GB's (PC3200) on ebay for about £85

OK, so that's what £110-£145 and that will get you a very very fast PC, as long as you have a compatible motherboard, if not, then add another £50.

As for graphics cards: as Axeman says £100-£150 should be plenty to spend, but I'm seriously interested in a geforce 6800 GT (for < £300) because these latest cards are a bit special as in they really have made a MASSIVE step in performace - around double that of last gen cards, and should last you a long, long while. Other wise, save £200, and run everything perfectly (have you got the monitor for super-high resolutions anyway?).


Personally I think you could play the waiting game forever, whats the point in waiting for the next technologies when they'll cost an arm and a leg? Now, I feel is actually a very good time as most current technologies are kinda reaching their peak and are a nice "sweet spot" in price.

God, when did I become such a dork?

 

[thebluenewt]

I always reckon you should spend about £130 on a graphics card, the £250-350 ones always come down in price sharply and leave you cursing.

 

[Rico]

Very good points here!

I was torn whether or not to wait for 64-bit but as Axeman said it requires a lot of other upgrades. Besides it doesn't seem that magical and I could, as pubjoe put it, play the waiting game forever. I'm in Uni soon so forget that.

As for card... my monitor can go up to 1600x1200 but only at 60fps (ouch). So the realistic max would be 1024x768. Possibly more but my driver is Mr. Generic PnP so it's not accurate at all. 19" anyway.

The 6 GT/Ultra would rock... I've read about it, it's about 2x the speed of the FX range. But these cards have only just come out and will curve down like thebluenewt warns... so a mid-range will be good. Anything good enough for the next two years or so at least. All I know is that the Gf 4200 64mb I bought because of its cheapness two years ago, performs just fine at Far Cry, Doom 3 and UT2004 - but HL2 is another story, and the res for Doom (800x600) is a bit low for my taste. Still, I didn't overclock it. If that kind of performance can be repeated I'd be happy.

So really we're looking at an old ATI 9800 (Pro/XT?) or FX 5950 (I think). If those numbers are wrong let me know. But I think those are the 'mid-range' cards out right now.

And since speed doesn't matter, I'll just pick up Mr. Generic 512mb. As for motherboard, I'd use my current one but I fear it would fall apart later on. I'd need to get its spec and check it against the new hardware.

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

Cat: "How come you need more memory? Over the years you've had more RAM than a field of sheep!." ROFLMAO - one for the windows users.. Roll on Amiga OS 4...


Seriously you can never have too much ram on a windows box.. I used to have a gig for design stuff.. Windows didnt even access it all... but now Im back down to 256 I miss it so.

Also as you have £600 to spend you may wanna invest in a decent monitor too. Iiyama 454's are excellent. Perfectly flat - hi refresh rate, and bonkers resolution! about £230 though - but you can get a bitching Radeon 9800 for around £150 - and they are full on direct X 9, open GL 2 supporting everything sorted, decent good nice. They tend to run a bit cooler than Nvidia stuff so dont warrant massive heat sinks and noisy fans..

www.ebuyer.co.uk are very cheap compared to other places.

 

[CrazyDesi]

I might be wrong on this but I do believe Athlon motherboards FSB runs alot slower then the processor causing it to overheat. Could be wrong though.

 

[hando]

My choice, 512 mb ram of good quality RAM ( i reccomend Kingston's memory - slightly more expensive than no name one, but is really worth of buying)

AMD - something above 2600 - big variety of choice for a good price.

Epox motherboard with nvidia chipset - really good quality for an really good price.

GFX - i preffer Nvidia stuff as it is widely supported by everyone but some people reccomend Ati as well, but basin on my experience with Ati I can say that not every model is good. Nvidia is quite safe. I would go for a geoforce fx with 128 mb with tv out if needed.

And with all of this you can have new and really fast computer for a reasonable price.

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

I might be wrong on this but I do believe Athlon motherboards FSB runs alot slower then the processor causing it to overheat. Could be wrong though.

All chips get hot - most modern processor clocks far exceeds that of the FSB. Infact when you get down to internal clocks...

Just make sure a heatsink and fan is properly seated - and use thermal paste!


A 2ghz processor with a 2ghz FSB... there are limits as to why it can be done at the moment.. not to mention it would cost the earth.


For now a 400mhz fsb will just have to do

 

[Bobsonsirjonny]

My choice, 512 mb ram of good quality RAM ( i reccomend Kingston's memory - slightly more expensive than no name one, but is really worth of buying)

AMD - something above 2600 - big variety of choice for a good price.

Epox motherboard with nvidia chipset - really good quality for an really good price.

GFX - i preffer Nvidia stuff as it is widely supported by everyone but some people reccomend Ati as well, but basin on my experience with Ati I can say that not every model is good. Nvidia is quite safe. I would go for a geoforce fx with 128 mb with tv out if needed.

And with all of this you can have new and really fast computer for a reasonable price.

The Nforce is a good budget chipset - but if you got the cash I would stay clear of Epox and plumb for MSI, or ASUS - AsRok too maybe.

To be honest though all boards at the lower end of the scale are all much of a muchness price and spec wise.


As for Nvidia - there are some cards which cack up with Direct X 9.. the standard Nvidia drivers dont often work with all cards and Direct X 9 such as my PNY Geforce 4 ti 4200.. which means games like Doom wont work. With the ATI its guaranteed to be kosher.

 

[thebluenewt]

Valve are backing ATi graphics cards so I reckon HL2 will perform better on them, when I got my ATi I never imagined it still wouldn't be out...

 

[Rico]

That was something I was definately looking at. Doom 3 was good for my GeForce but HL is going to be a better game, I think. Then again, a LOT of games are going to come out of both engines. You can go wrong either way

How's ATI with Linux?

Thanks for the help all, great responses, I shall hit ebuyer (bobson: already my regular store ) and rack it up tonight.

 

[thebluenewt]

Hmm, I have no idea about Linux but ATi aren't renowned for great drivers so I'd do a bit of research on that just in case.

 

[Rico]

Finalised:

Athlon XP Mobile 2600+ (thanks pubjoe) - £70
1 gig fast ram - £100
gf 6800 gt - £300
nforce2 with the ram speed and 5.1 i need - £46
5.1 speakers - £34
case - £10 or so

In total, that's ... £560. Shit. I guess I'll hang around until the GT goes right down, as it should. It hits the £600 total though, even with the monster card, so I'm not too pissed off.

 

[mattmagoo]

holy crap

for £520 excl. screen @ work (no discount) I can get:

2.6 Ghz P4 32 bit
512 RAM
80GB HDD
126 MB Nvidia
DVD R/W
bluetooth mouse and keybpard

made by HP

 

[pubjoe]

Yeah but £300 is just on the graphics card. I think that doesn't sound too bad. (£260 for the rest of the system)

btw: I've decided to hang on before I change my graphics card, I'm buying an XP-mobile and a gig of ram which should get me up to speed on lowish resolutions. Plus it'll save me a hellofalotta money. I'll get the graphics card sometime between now and christmas I should think.

btw: after reading this I thought, I'm not going to see much difference in graphical quality atm with a new graphics card (for low res anyway). And the best upgrade my machine really needs is ram and processor.

Oh and rico, did you find anyone in the UK selling the XP-M 2600? I've decided to plump for the XP-M 2500 as there's a few ebay seller's in the UK now (Oi! Don't outbid me! ).

I (hopefully) don't think it'll make much difference going for the 2500 (with a good stepping code) and I can't be arsed with the hassel of buying abroad of non-english speakers atm. As long as it goes up to 3200+ + with lower temps then I can't complain.