To upgrade or not to upgrade

[Brain]

I am perplexed whether or not to upgrade my system. First I will show you my current machine specs...

PII 450
256Mb PC100 RAM
12.5Gb Hdd
Obscure Mobo with integrated Creative 64D sound Crd
19 inch monitor
Dvd Drive
CD RW 8x4x32
Geforce 256 32Mb DDR
Boston acoustics digital media theatre (damn good speakers)

I got this setup 2 years ago, and at the time was a rather good machine. But now it isnt. I have done a couple of small upgrades like the extra 128Mb ram, Geforce and the cdwr but i am at the point where i feel i need a little more power.

The syatem i am thinking of getting is listed below, but i will keep certain components such as the cdrw/dvd drives and possibly the geforce(depending how much money i will be able to spend).

Athlon Thunderbird 1.1GHz (1.2 not redilly available here in UK)
Abit KT7 Raid Mobo
256Mb (or maybe 512) Cas2 133 Ram
IBM deskstar 76.8Gb udma 100 Hdd
Creative snd blstr platinum 5.1
Gefore 2 Ultra

What do you think?
I am not sure if I should wait a couple of months, as all the new harware such as the P4 or DDR etc that is coming out will probably put this setup to shame by the middle of Q1 2001.
And I will probably get rather annoyed if this does happen, especially if the prices plumit.

[ReddDogg]

ARe you gonna run windows ME or 2k? if so, the 256 ram would be good, but if running windows 98SE, then 128 is enough, I have never seen a difference in anything having the 128 extra.

As for the Processor, I would stick in the 900 or 1 gig range, these new t-birds I have heard of having over heating problems. Durons are the same way. that is the problem with socket over slot, a tad harder to keep cool, but they seem to run faster.

As for the hard drive, I have done research and found the 7200 rpm type seem to top out at 60 gig drives. I would go with a Maxtor or Desktar in the 7200 rpm class to ensure faster performance, that can really be a system lagger, especially with the high end processors.

What you gonna do with your sound card??? Platinum has alot of features i know I will never use, hence, I don't see a need personally to fork out the extra 100 dollars for it. I go for a sbl gamer card, about 100 dollars or maybe a bit less.

I am a fan of the Radeon series ATI video in the 32 meg class, or the VooDoo 5 5500 for 64 meg cards.

AS for the Ram, take the pc133, the ddr ram isn't gonna be that super great, not for the price hike. If you have that much extra dough, spend it on me.... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif



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Joe Redd
MCP

[Brain]

first of all i think i will be using win2000(what i use atm) as i prefer the stabilty etc
do u think there would be a great deal of difference if i were to get 512Mb rather than 256?

and i think i will stick with the thunderbird processor. although it runs at high temps i will just get a good fan like the one of the orb range.

ah yes the sound card. i wanted to get the platinum because of all the extras like the front bay and digital out etc. but i dont mind paying extra fro the snd crd.

but im still pondering over the graphics card. i would like to get the geforce ultra, but i have been hearing rumours of a new card from nvidia in the near(ish) future which will be considerably better. should i w8 for that or not?

only other problem i have is money. i live in the UK, thus everything is about a third more expensive than in the states. eg athlon tb 1.1Ghz costs £319 here, thats about $446. in the states it currently costs about $340.

i had thought about getting my freinds in the US to order and ship it over here (CPU, and other expesive components), or better yet from my freinds in hong kong where its even cheaper.

anyway, thanks for the reply