What to buy?
I am going to be upgrading my machine at the end of this month and not sure what I should get. Right now I have an Abit KA7 Slot A MB, with an 800mhz Athlon. About a month ago, I purchased an additional 512MB for it.
I am going to be upgrading my machine at the end of this month and not sure what I should get.
Right now I have an Abit KA7 Slot A MB, with an 800mhz Athlon. About a month ago, I purchased an additional 512MB for it.
Now I want a new MB and CPU and not sure if I should get a DDR motherboard and buy all new RAM, or just go with an SDRAM MB and use the RAM I have.
I am also wondering about RAID. Right now I have a 5400RPM 13GB drive. It still has plenty of space left on it and it works great. Should I sell it and get 2 7200RPM drives for RAID, or just stick with my 5400RPM drive?
I really want to stick with and AMD CPU. I would like to spend no more than $300 on both the MB and the CPU.
Any ideas or recommendations?
TIA
Right now I have an Abit KA7 Slot A MB, with an 800mhz Athlon. About a month ago, I purchased an additional 512MB for it.
Now I want a new MB and CPU and not sure if I should get a DDR motherboard and buy all new RAM, or just go with an SDRAM MB and use the RAM I have.
I am also wondering about RAID. Right now I have a 5400RPM 13GB drive. It still has plenty of space left on it and it works great. Should I sell it and get 2 7200RPM drives for RAID, or just stick with my 5400RPM drive?
I really want to stick with and AMD CPU. I would like to spend no more than $300 on both the MB and the CPU.
Any ideas or recommendations?
TIA
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Well its your decision... I'd say accept the concept of sunk cost and go for a KG7-Lite and 256MB (one stick) of standard Corsair/ Crucial/ Mushkin 2100/CAS 2 DDR RAM; and overclock a little bit. Alternatively go for an Athlon 1000-1400 (266 FSB) + a good mobo and keep your RAM. Again- overclock the box a bit. If your current RAM isn't running at 133 Mhz I'd forget about the second option.
Also, forget about the raid setup and getting more than 256 MB (DDR) RAM if you are watching a budget, the speed increse from these is marginal in real life (unless you do a lot of video/audio editing perhaps). I would however put the next available $$ on a fast, ATA-100 / 7200 rpm hard drive. Also, you don't mention the video card, thats a very essential component to consider when you try to get most bang for the buck.
H.
Also, forget about the raid setup and getting more than 256 MB (DDR) RAM if you are watching a budget, the speed increse from these is marginal in real life (unless you do a lot of video/audio editing perhaps). I would however put the next available $$ on a fast, ATA-100 / 7200 rpm hard drive. Also, you don't mention the video card, thats a very essential component to consider when you try to get most bang for the buck.
H.
If you say your hard disk works great then only upgrade once you fill it. Once you do get a 7200 RPM drive. The new Asus A7A266 motherboards looks like a great performer for good money and is really stable too. Has both SDR/DDR ram sockets so you can upgrade later.
http://www.asus.com/products/motherboard/socketa/a7a266/index.html
Couple this board with a new 1 Ghz+ 266 FSB Athlon and you're all set.
http://www.asus.com/products/motherboard/socketa/a7a266/index.html
Couple this board with a new 1 Ghz+ 266 FSB Athlon and you're all set.
If it supports Palimino, you'll be okay. It also seems like if your board is socket A, you can still run the Pally (MP,XP) minus the extra enhancements, so it wouldn't be better than its predecessor at the same speed, but it would work. A BIOS flash may be needed.
Pricewatch is showing a price difference of 29$ between a 1000 and a 1400 Athlon. Even if its a tad higher where you buy, go for the fastest one, if you have a power supply rated at 300W or above.
The Geforce GTS 2 can handle all games out at the moment, upgrading would cost you quite a bit. I'm stuck with that one too, it doesn't feel like making sence to fork out 150 $ for the Geforce 3 right now. Maybe tomorrow.
H.
Main System:
Lian-Li PC 60 USB /Enermax EG365P 350W Power supply
KG7-Raid MoBo
Athlon 1400@1600, cooled by a Swiftech MC462-A)
256 MB Mushkin Hi Perf. 2100 DDR CAS2-2-2-2 (one stick)
IBM 45,0 GB (75 GXP -DTLA 307045) 7200 rpm ATA100
IBM 27,3 GB (34 GXP -DPTA 372730) 7200 rpm ATA66
Asus V-7700 AGP (Geforce 2 GTS), 32 MB DDR SGRAM
Advansys SCSI Controller
Iomega Jaz drive for Backups
Hauppage Win/TV Theater (model 498) PCI
Asus 50x CD-R
Ricoh 7040A CD-RW (firmware upgraded to a 7060A)
Soundblaster Live! 1024
Cambridge Soundworks speakers
3COM Dynalink 3C905C-TX-M Network Card
Philips 21' Monitor 21B582BH
HP Laserjet 6L
HP Deskjet 970 Cxi
Canon D660U Scanner
Logitech Trackman Marble FX
MS Intellimouse Optical USB
MS Natural Keyboard Pro
Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL router BEFSR41
Motorola Cable Modem
Running Windows 2000, Local LAN (three PC's)
The Geforce GTS 2 can handle all games out at the moment, upgrading would cost you quite a bit. I'm stuck with that one too, it doesn't feel like making sence to fork out 150 $ for the Geforce 3 right now. Maybe tomorrow.
H.
Main System:
Lian-Li PC 60 USB /Enermax EG365P 350W Power supply
KG7-Raid MoBo
Athlon 1400@1600, cooled by a Swiftech MC462-A)
256 MB Mushkin Hi Perf. 2100 DDR CAS2-2-2-2 (one stick)
IBM 45,0 GB (75 GXP -DTLA 307045) 7200 rpm ATA100
IBM 27,3 GB (34 GXP -DPTA 372730) 7200 rpm ATA66
Asus V-7700 AGP (Geforce 2 GTS), 32 MB DDR SGRAM
Advansys SCSI Controller
Iomega Jaz drive for Backups
Hauppage Win/TV Theater (model 498) PCI
Asus 50x CD-R
Ricoh 7040A CD-RW (firmware upgraded to a 7060A)
Soundblaster Live! 1024
Cambridge Soundworks speakers
3COM Dynalink 3C905C-TX-M Network Card
Philips 21' Monitor 21B582BH
HP Laserjet 6L
HP Deskjet 970 Cxi
Canon D660U Scanner
Logitech Trackman Marble FX
MS Intellimouse Optical USB
MS Natural Keyboard Pro
Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL router BEFSR41
Motorola Cable Modem
Running Windows 2000, Local LAN (three PC's)
