Upgrading my 2001 PC

[terrellc]

First of all, I recently built a brand spankin new machine and would like to thank everyone who contributes to this board. I was up and running very quickly and just love the new PC. This, however, makes me want to upgrade my old one just a bit.

Here are the specs:

ASUS A7M266 Bios Rev 1005

AMD XP 1900+ (1.6 GHz)

1 Gig of DDR RAM(PC 2100)

NVIDIA Geforce 3 TI 500 64 DDR SDRAM
240 MHz core clock
500 MHz memory 250 MHz DDR.
350 MHz RAMDAC

Windows XP Service Pack 2

I would like to get to the point to be able to play some of the newer games. I don't expect a 50+ FPS or anything, just be able to handle them.

My thought was to upgrade the CPU (Socket A) and the Video Card (AGP).

I am considering:

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Barton 333MHz FSB Socket A $125
SAPPHIRE Radeon 9600 Pro Advantage 100562 Radeon 9600PRO 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X - $78


1) Are these the best bang for the buck to get better game performance?
2)Are there any bottlenecks? Is my motherboard interface too slow to take advantage of the cpu or the gpu?
3) Is the RAM fast enough? I'm not sure if I can plug in faster ram into my MB.

As always, thanks for the input. I look forward to any thoughts or suggestions.

Terrell

[terrellc]

I also saw this had excellent reveiws:

eVGA 128-A8-N350 Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail Core clock: 500MHz Memory Clock: 900MHz $139

I just hope my Motherbaord and RAM can handle the upgrades and not bet the choke point.

Terrell

[jahajazz]

What's your budget?

[jahajazz]

Well as far as the CPU you could buy this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819104241) new sempron and this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813157077) new mobo for it and only spend $136.75 so a much newer CPU and a mobo for it and all for only 10 bucks more.

[terrellc]

My budget is probably around $300.

So would the following setup beat upgrading my old MB?

AMD Sempron 64 3000+ 800MHz FSB Socket 754 $86
ASRock K8Upgrade-NF3 ATX AMD Motherboard $50
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 $76
SAPPHIRE Radeon 9600 Pro Advantage 100562 Radeon 9600PRO 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X - $78

Grand Total = $290

Wow, didn't think things would be so cheap.

Any other suggestions? Is this Video Card decent and will it be able to play most new games?

Thanks!

Terrell

[terrellc]

One more question:

I read the following reveiw on Newegg. He had glowing things to say about the processor but said for gaming:

"Not as good for gaming. The lower cache plays into this, but the largest performance difference comes from this proc only supporting single channel memory versus the A64 utilizing dual channel."

What does this mean as far as my memory selection? The MB supports DDR 400(PC3200). Should I be worried?

Terrell

[i an not a nerd]

Ok, that vid card will be able to play newer games, just not all at higher settings...

About the cpu thing. The Sempron will suck for gaming. The slow HT link has a big impact on gaming as will the lack of dualchannel memory support. Dualchannel memory pretty much means getting double the memory bandwidth using two identical sticks of memory. The 800mhz HT link does not allow the high bandwidth needed.

About the memory selection. That selection should be fine. You can use as many sticks as your mobo can fit, but you won't get dualchannel.

[i an not a nerd]

And yes, btw, that setup will beat your old one.

[hockey man]

nForce3 and AGP is not the best options out there. This is what I would recommend:

CPU: Drop down to a AMD Sempron 64 2800+ (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104245) for $76. You won't really notice the difference over a 3000+.

MOBO: Get a nForce4-4X chipset like this GIGABYTE GA-K8NE (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128308) for $74. That gives you 3 RAM slots over 2. PCI Express over AGP 4X/8X, and SATA over IDE. You can still use your IDE HD as your primary, but if you want to get a new HD you can get a SATA one.

RAM: Yep, that Corsair stuff is a great deal ;) !

Video Card: With an PCI Express slot, look at this SAPPHIRE Radeon X550 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102626) for $71. She will be a little better than that 9600 Pro, plus she is cheaper!

So, that is a total of $297. A tad more than what you picked out; but newer, more upgradeable, and more efficient.

[saphalline]

I would probably go in a different direction for this hardware. What has been recommended isn't bad, but if you're gonna replace the core, you're basically building a whole new computer. Is that what you want to do?

There's nothing terribly wrong with what you have currently, and I will definitely digress when it comes to the "suckiness" of the Sempron64 for gaming. I think a lot of you get so caught up with the high-end that you don't pay attention to the low-end. Not only that, but what's happening here is not an upgrade it's a core replacement. If terrellc goes through with replacing the whole core on that old computer, what's left? That old mobo still has some upgrade potential, and what happens to all that old hardware? Sell it? That might just need to be done anyway to pay for the new PSU and probably another case fan or two! You guys know darn well that newer hardware of this magnitude will necessitate a new PSU, too! ATX 3.0 all the way for the latest mobo's. That old AthlonXP system is probably running on a 300-350W PSU, which isn't even enough for a new Sempron64 or Celeron D system.

Not to say that these suggestions for new hardware aren't good, they're just a bad idea for what was asked for. terrellc asked for ideas on upgrading that old computer up to the point where it can play the latest games. I didn't see anything about building yet another new computer! Here are my ideas:

Get the latest BIOS for that mobo (1007). Then get a Socket A Sempron 2400+ (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104210) for $81. Top it off with a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102477) for $131.

$212 total. This would bring that old computer up to a respectable level for gaming, and would allow it to play games such as Half Life 2, Doom 3, and Battlefield 2 quite easily. You'd also be replacing less parts and coming in under budget, which is always a good thing in my book. Or if you want to save up some more money, go ahead and perform a core replacement of that system.

That's my two cents...

[hockey man]

So, do you want to do a major upgarde? Or are you just looking to some basic stuff?

[terrellc]

Thanks everyone for the time you took to give me such great advice.

I think I will give it a little thought on whether or not to do a core replacement or just upgrade the PC (I have to wait until Tuesday to get anything moving at Newegg anyway:) At least now I have some great options both ways. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Terrell