[wallijonn]

I'm surprised that you didn't upgrade when procs hit the 2G range. I usually tell people to wait until the proc doubles before buying.

That said, since I use all sorts of OSs I prefer Intel borads because MS must make their programs work on it. Linux will usually work on Intel mobos. I have been looking at the Intel Black Pearl i865P with DDR400 mem. (That's a nice rig you have there, Doug).

As for video boards - why "waste" $300 - $400 on the latest and greatest when so few games will come out for a year or two that will tax it or take advantage of all its features? When May and October roll around, those $300 video cards fall to $150.

PATA or SATA? SATA2 is just around the corner. I saw a 250 GB WD for $114 after rebates a few weeks ago. It was ATA (PATA). I paid $60 for a WD120JBB after rebate. Anytime it goes under $1/GB it is a bargain.

I prefer to buy a cpu in the $300 range. That would be about a 3.0G/800 right about now.

as for your 1.0 G, I have one too, and it is still faster than my 1.5G P4 in some things. Gaming? go W98SE and all should go well. 80GB WD should hold plenty of games.

as for PriceWatch, I have never had any problems with any of the vendors. I bought an Intel mobo that just didn't work right with my stuff and I got a full refund. But now I just wait for the bargains / rebates at my local stores. I would rather pick out a HD from a skid than have one go through the mail. I got my Pioneer A06 DVD burner for $115 after rebate at Fry's. That is cheaper than I found it on PriceWatch.com (at the time).

So all you would need is an Intel mobo, a 3.0G/800 and 512MB of DDR400 to get you up and running.

3.0G/800 Retail box. $218
Intel D865Perl $89
Crucial 512MB DDR400 PC3200 $112

that's $419 plus any shipping.

The Intel i875 is now at $130. That brings it up to $460.

Hell, now I'm thinking seriously of upgrading.

I don't do AMD. I don't overclock. Why bother overclocking and then having to buy a $50 heat sink? Just put the $50 into the next higher speed cpu.

 

[dhwilkin]

Anybody considering the AMD 64-bit CPUs might want to wait a bit, since last I read on AnandTech, they're going to introduce a new CPU socket design very soon.

 

[weems]

whats with the no overclocking wallijonn? i have never met or heard about somebody, ever, who bought a 50 dollar heatsink only to overclock to a processor that costs 50 more...

there are two reasons to overclock.
1. to make a budget processor perform much better then it should be. the most famous example right now is the 2.4/2.6 800 fsb p4's overclocking to a very stable 3+ with STOCK cooling. thats some serious performance, and some serious savings.

2. making the most high end possible machine. when you want your machine to perform better then the current stock best, the answer is overclocking with some very expensive cooling equipment (vapor phase or water cooling). i consider this to be stupid as hell, as pretty soon your uber high end machine will be out dated by better technologies, and you have to buy more stuff and overclock all over again just to keep it high end.

the only one i ever do is #1.

 

[bootman]

There is never a "good" time to upgrade.
Anything you buy will be faster and/or cheaper in 6 months.
You just upgrade when you need to.
(if you are a hard core gamer then that is every 6 months. )
I just built a amd64 +3000 system for a fellow headfier and he's happy as a clam.
The thing chews up photoshop filters faster than a 3 gig P4.

He's not a gamer but all he would need to game would be to upgrade the vid card.

Yes, AMD is going to resocket the chip but he's getting work done now.


zipzoomfly.com is also another good site to buy parts.
I also use newegg and they ship very fast.

 

[SumB]

AMD owns the high and low dollar segments. The Mobile Barton 2500+ is the best value going right now, yielding 2.55GHz average, and the Athlon 64 slays the P4 in anything but media encoding.

 

[CMacDaddy]

I dont know if you're only interested in building your own comp, but if not, dell small business has some great deals...

dell small business has the Dimension 4600 Performance Desktop P4-2.8Ghz HT-Technology/800Mhz bus, 256MB Dual Channel DDR 400/40GB HD, 48x CD, Word Perfect, XP Home $469 after $100 rebate, shipped free.

Click Customize It under 4600, P4-2.8Ghz/800 / XP Home / Basic Audio - Continue, $100 rebate/256/Dell 2 button Mouse/Productivity Pack/40GB Value HD/No Floppy/48xCD/Intel Extreme Graphics2/No speaker - Continue, 1 yr Basic Plan

Dell 17" LCD $220 instant discount, only +$200 with this desktop!


that'd be a nice setup when you combine it with what you already have... (floppy, video card, CDRW) Only thing to really upgrade is RAM and HD... You could put in a 120 or 80 gig HD for about $60 and get another 256 mb ram for $40. that makes it $669 (free shipping) + $100 upgrades = about $780 which is damn good price in my opinion...

If you're set on building it yourself you could probably beat that price without the 17 inch LCD monitor. P4's are the best buy out now, but be sure to get 800 fsb. Spend the money on a good well known motherboard because a ****ty one will make everything else on your machine ****ty.

For great prices, find exactly what you want and search for it at www.froogle.com and ebay.

www.techbargains.com and www.slickdeals.net are also great

 

[wallijonn]

weems,

I find that a lot of P4s don't over clock well.

If you can get it to oveclock at a "standard" frequency, great. But overclocking the front side bus at 107 MHz puts a strain on the rest of the busses, like the PCI which should be kept at as close to 33 MHz as possible (especially if you use adaptec scsi cards).

Overclocking the agp at 88 MHz was always a blast. I did it for years.

But when you start to overclock you may throw the PCI and mem buses out of whack. I killed a mem stick that way. I don't try to run PC133 mem at cas2 if it can only do cas3, for example. my 1g can run with cas2 in W98 but not W2000. I have to run that one memstick at cas3.

I think that running cas 3.5 PC2700 at cas 2.5 may work; but it may not work all the time.

I still have some P3 heatsinks that I paid $50, and which are now useless. I have over 2 dozen fans which I went through to get ones I consider quiet and have big flow through. I started with the $20 cheap cases and found something wrong with each one until I settled on the $100 cases. I must have gone through about 8 cases before I settled on Antec type cases.

I only buy retail cpus, not OEMs. Why? Becuase of the warranty. The difference in price between OEM and retail P4 CPUs are now under $20. Why bother? If you buy the OEM you have to buy a separate heatsink. Then you get into the possible problems where large heatsinks hit capacitors. I blew a mobo that way. I blew another because the heatsink fan drew more power than the fan header provided. The seller never mentioned it. He said that it was posted on his website. He actually had the nerve to sell me a $5 fan to hd power supply adapter.

I don't buy OEM HDs because a lot of them do not come with the software. You have to download it and then burn it. I want the software.

When I bought OEM soundcards the "real" manufacturer's drivers and apps did not always work.

If you buy a Compaq 3Com NIC, don't expect it to work in your system. You will have to download the Compaq 3Com drivers from the Compaq site.

So I buy the fastest memory, with the fastest cpu and don't overclock. I would rather pay $90 for an Intel board than $190 for an ASUS board that overclocks. I can put that extra $100 into the faster processor. My friend bought the ASUS P800 board and doesn't overclock. He paid close to $200 for it. I consider that a waste.

What I get in return is reliability and stability. (Same as he gets with his ASUS P800).

I started with AMD (K6). Remember the fiascos of years gone by? I still do not trust VIA drivers and chipsets to this day.

Linux has some slight problems with my SIS chipsets, but it works fine once it is up. SIS chipsets run just about everything at the same IRQ, but because it has wide bandwidth there are no problems. I don't have to reserve IRQ 5 for my soundcard, for instance, as I did on my ASUS i815E, or AMDs, to get the sounblaster card to work.

Last I heard Linux had problems with the nVidia sound chip. It may have been fixed by now.

If I had to build an AMD rig I would want a mobo with AMD chipsets in it. That's just me, because I had so many problems when putting in new releases of OSs, and even updates (like NT5 disk support in NT4).

So yes, you can save a lot of money if you overclock. But chances are that you will be paying a premium for that overclockable chip as it should be pre-tested.

Do AMDs still run hotter than P4s? I live in a hot climate, I don't want my air conditioning turning on more than it has to. And I shouldn't have to buy special quiet fans which have to move more air because the overclocking creates more heat.

There was a time when only certain memories would work with certain AMD based mobos. Is it still the same?

Power Supplies have probably standarised, but I remember when only the very best power supplies could be used on AMDs to get them to be stable. So the power supplies used to cost an extra $50 over P4 power supplies.

So what you came away with was an extra $100 for the motherborad, an extra $50 for the heatsink and an extra $50 for the power supply. I would take that $200 and just get the fastest P4 for the extra money.

I won't buy a cpu that is over $300. I try not to pay over $0.50 per GB of storage. I only buy crucial.com memory. I use name brand CDRs and DVDRs. No "one offs" for me.

I knew a guy who spent 6 months trying to get his k233 rig to work. I had my Celeron 300 running 450 stable in a few hours. I refuse to do the "VIA Shuffle" again.

So I have settled on Intel and Crucial. I am no longer possessed with trying to get 1 more fps out of my video card. I was even pissed off with nVidia's 53.03 W2K drivers - it had a problem which was fixed with the release of 53.04.

I installed the Red Faction (I) patch and it slowed down the game. I won't be putting it on my 1G machine, as it runs nice and smooth.

The latest Tomb Raider game needs DX9, but you have to turn off sound acceleration. Why bother? (Yes, it is a crap game, but it could just as easily been Halo which necessitated the same "fix").

 

[wallijonn]

Quote:

Originally posted by bootman There is never a "good" time to upgrade.

I have found that memory upgrades should occur in October, before the prices go up in November.

Have you priced PC133 memroy lately?

Video boards should be bought after the latest and greatest are release, usually in April and October.

The best time to buy a new mobo is 6 months after first coming out. This is usually around May. By then the bios has been sufficiently patched. You'll get about 1 year of usage then.

Prices usually go up before Christmas, so that is the worse time to buy any electronics. Better prices can be had near Presidents' Day.

 

[weems]

LOL! you live in a hot climate eh? well, i live in a cold climate (well cold in the winter that is). so i suppose that makes overclocking a bit easier for me.

amd's running hotter than p4's? yes thats true, they do. amd's certainly dont overclock as well as p4's, but when you run both stock i doubt there is very much of a difference temperature wise. certainly not enough of a difference to effect your air conditioning.

certain memories working with certain motherboards? that has always been true (even today it's true), with crappy motherboards designed for ALL processors. i have had problems like that with both p4 and amd. to avert that i will only buy ABit motherboards. no problems with abit.

it seems you have been into the computer scene for quite a while

but trust me, however crappy amd has been in the past, they are not like that anymore. sure they have their problems, but so does intel. they eache have their niche. i would buy either depending on my budget, the circumstance, and what i would be using them for.

try not to pay more than .50 per gig? sounds like me

[/rant]

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

But when you start to overclock you may throw the PCI and mem buses out of whack. I killed a mem stick that way. I don't try to run PC133 mem at cas2 if it can only do cas3, for example. my 1g can run with cas2 in W98 but not W2000. I have to run that one memstick at cas3.

Dont mobo's how give you the ability to increase the fsb independant of the pci/mem speed? I know mine does.

I run kingmaxx mem at cas2 no probs in winxp.

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ctn Dont mobo's how give you the ability to increase the fsb independant of the pci/mem speed? I know mine does.

Yes the recent Intel chipsets allow you to lock the AGP and PCI bus so FSB overclocks don't raise them.

 

[wallijonn]

they finally went asynchronous? man, it's about time.

weems,

I went through at least 3 Abit BX boards (capacitor popcorn-ing). Now ECS is making the ABit boards.

I went with ECS boards years ago. But mine use SIS chipsets. I stay away from raids. If I must use raid, I want it from an Intel chip. You couldn't give me SIIG and Promise "screwed me" when W2000 came out with SP3.

I won't buy Tyan or EPox boards because I had issues with them.

I want something stable and reliable and likely to have drivers when updates come out.

The AMD Optron 240 looks interesting, though.

 

[Ctn]

Abit used to be good back in the old celeron oc beat p3 days.

Now I prefer Asus boards.

 

[aphex944]

The easiest system install I've ever had was an Opteron 1.8ghz(144), and Asus nForce3 mobo. Smooth as silk, ran sooo good. Too bad socket 940 is already dead, blah!

 

[jjcapurro]

It's NEVER a good time to upgrade a PC... Buy a Mac. Be happy. hehe. One two three four, I declare a flame war.

-Jeremy