I've GOT to upgrade - what'd you say was the minimum

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
I'm running on what used to be a kick-ass system when I put it together.

AMD Tbird 750mhz, 128mb pc100, 20GB HD, Rage128, TNT2 Sound-card all on a Asus K7KXA Mobo.

I obviously need to upgrade... what'd you consider the minimum UG for my buck?
 
New mobo, DDR RAM, new chip. Video card is optional but suggested.

I'd go with an Athlon XP 2800 or 3000+, with 256 MB of PC4000 DDR RAM. Get your NIC and sound on the mobo. That ought to run you in the neighborhood of $280 to $300. Video card can be anywhere from $115 to 350, depending on what you get.

What's your overall budget? Is that HD 7200 or still 5400 RPM?
 
HomeLAN said:
New mobo, DDR RAM, new chip. Video card is optional but suggested.

I'd go with an Athlon XP 2800 or 3000+, with 256 MB of PC4000 DDR RAM. Get your NIC and sound on the mobo. That ought to run you in the neighborhood of $280 to $300. Video card can be anywhere from $115 to 350, depending on what you get.

What's your overall budget? Is that HD 7200 or still 5400 RPM?
Click to expand...

ITs an old 5400rpm. I've got to talk with (see beg) my wife re: my budget...off hand, I'd say about $3-500CAN.
 
Asus A7N8X-X
Athy XP 2700+ Barton core retail with HS/fan
Corsair Value select 512 MB PC3200

$250 total at newegg. That ught to shift you into a higher gear, and build from there.

Add a ATI X300 128 MB video card for $68 more, and you;re starting to run some real specs.
 
The video card takes precedence over the HD, but if you do what I suggested above, the HD is the next logical bottleneck to address.
 
They may not be much for gaming, but the Semprons are dirt cheap, run a 333MHz FSB, and do great for your average desktop.
 
markjs said:
You gotta have a gig of ram for optimal XP performance.
Click to expand...
Alienware :beerbang:

Marc, I can get stuff shipped to you for dirt cheap...I was comparing prices with Cam and I was making like $30 savings on HDD's etc.

What I'd go for is:
Cheapass mobo (if not for gaming, if you are then get one of the new Asus ones :))
At LEAST a gig of DDR-400
Cheap AGP card (or actually seeing as you are kinda gfx intensive at work, try a higher end GeForce, ATI bite :p)
Onboard sound and NIC
One or two (your choice) 80-120 gig HDD's.
 
What most people don't understand is that it's the processor that's working when you render graphics(as in Photoshop, 3DSM), not the graphics card. So, I suggest the following if you want a computer for graphics editing:

Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD800JD - $65

Kingston 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-2700 - $76

FOXCONN "K8S760MG-6LRS" SiS 760 Chipset Motherboard For AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 CPU - $68

AMD Athlon 64 2800+, 512KB L2 Cache, 64-bit Processor - $127 (socket-754)

APOLLO GeForce4 MX440 Video Card, 64MB DDR, TV-Out, PCI, Model MX440 64MB-PCI - $49

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Total: $366 = approx $422CAN (at Newegg.com)

Should be enough for your needs. SATA and 64-bit processor is a big leap in performance.
 
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