PC Upgrades

[UD_Delt]

Well my PC completely died on me last night. I get no response now when trying to turn it on as if it wasn't even plugged in (I did check). I'm assuming that would mean a power supply problem. But rather than just replacing the power supply I figure this is a good time to do some upgrades.

Current system:

Cheap ECS motherboard (forget the exact model)
AMD 2500+ Barton
512 mb PC 2700 & 512 mb PC 3200
Radeon 9600 Pro
80GB & 60GB harddrives
32x CD-Rom
32x4x8 CD Burner
Soundblaster Live

At this point I'm thinking Motherboard, Processor, and possibly fixing the mismatched ram would be the best use of money but it's been a while since I've looked into mobo's and procs to know what is the best bang for the buck.

Any thoughts on how best to spend $300-$400 on upgrades?

[Soukyan]

Get a decent ASUS or MSI mobo and bump up to a faster AMD proc. Matching the memory would be good idea too with the new mobo. If you have "computer shows" in your area, that's usually a good place to find great prices on mobo/proc combos.

[UD_Delt]

Anyone have an opinion on PCI-e vs. AGP for gaming? It would involve buying a new video card as well but if PCI-e is going to be the future of the next year or two then it's something to consider for a current upgrade.

And is there a difference between socket 939 and 754? It seems they both support the Athlon 64 right?

[Murgos]

PCI-e moves more bits than AGP so it will replace AGP (already is, almost all new boards have PCI-e).


Socket 754 doesn't support Athlon X2's or FX's and the price difference is minimal.

[Miguel]

You could do it very nicely for a few hundred more:

Motherboard: CHAINTECH VNF4/Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra - $85
Memory: Corsair 512MB PC3200 (CMX512-3200C2PT) - Two of them for 1GB total: $133
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Retail (90nm): $190
Video: eVGA Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 PCI E: $169

Total $575

This would be a kickass rig for under $600, and you can reuse your other stuff too.

[Murgos]

I wouldn't get a new video card with less than 256.  YMMV.

[MrHat]

Why?

[schild]

Whenever you build your new computer - don't forget Das Keyboard (Actual product link).

[Sky]

Why?

It's the sweet spot. 512MB too much, excepting maybe Doom3. But I've seen the difference between my rig and the eqholic's, I built the same machine but he only wanted a 128MB card, vs my 256MB. He's had to run several games with slightly lower texture options, just more room for them on my card.

Most recently, being able to run Thief 3's uncompressed textures without a performance hit.

[Fabricated]

I put together a rig with an Athlon 64 3800+, an ASUS mobo, and a GeForce 7800GTX, and it only came out to ~$1200. My mind is blown. This is less than what it cost to build my current rig.

[Murgos]

Why?

Texture sizes & quanity, they are increasing.  Within a year I wouldn't be surprised to find 128mb cards will be limited to 'medium quality' graphics settings.

[Miasma]

Why?

Texture sizes & quanity, they are increasing.  Within a year I wouldn't be surprised to find 128mb cards will be limited to 'medium quality' graphics settings.

The next version of Windows is also going to want a 256MB card to run the interface with all the bells and whistles.  That's 256MB just for the damn operating system.

Of course I imagine the "bells and whistles" will consist of very annoying animations that I will instantly turn off - as I already do with XP.

[Trippy]

Anyone have an opinion on PCI-e vs. AGP for gaming? It would involve buying a new video card as well but if PCI-e is going to be the future of the next year or two then it's something to consider for a current upgrade.

An x16 PCI Express slot theoretically offers double the bandwidth of AGP x8 but at the moment no card can even take advantage of AGP x8 (i.e. performance difference between AGP x4 and x8 is negligible) so that's really not an important consideration right now. What does matter is that the latest and greatest GPUs are arriving in PCI-e form first and then later migrating to AGP, if at all (e.g. NVIDIA has said that the 7800 GTX is not going to be available in AGP form). If you plan on keeping this system around for a while and upgrading the components sometime in the future it's better to go with PCI-e since you'll have more options compared to AGP.

And is there a difference between socket 939 and 754? It seems they both support the Athlon 64 right?

AMD considers the socket 754 their "budget" platform with the Sempron and lower end Athlon 64s sharing that socket. It's better to go with a Socket 939 motherboard if you want to have more CPU upgrade options in the future (just like PCI-e vs AGP).

[Trippy]

The next version of Windows is also going to want a 256MB card to run the interface with all the bells and whistles.  That's 256MB just for the damn operating system.

Microsoft is recommending only 128 MB to run in "Aero Glass" mode (all the bells and whistles turned on) though some places are saying you'll need 256 MB if you want to run at resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or greater.

[UD_Delt]

Well after spec'ing out a new mobo, cpu, case, video card, and memory it came out to a decent bit more than I wanted to spend. So, for the time being I think I'm just going to replace the power supply and possibly spend money on buying 2 x 1gb dimms to replace my ram.

I don't see the sense in getting less than a socket 939 mobo w/ PCI-e at this point after doing a bit of reading but that just requires too many components right now.

I ordered http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153006 which seems like a sufficient short term replacement.

[Murgos]

Power Supply's often go bad from having to convert a poor AC signal into DC.  Might I suggest one of these as extra insurance?

I just got mine and am happy with it.  It will shut your computer down gracefully incase of extended power failure and has some decent monitoring software.

[Yegolev]

Power Supply's often go bad from having to convert a poor AC signal into DC.  Might I suggest one of these as extra insurance?

Uh, hey... I can't find my floppy with the controlling software for my CyberPower.  Any chance you could send the install files to me?  We can discuss transmission methods.

[Sky]

Might I suggest one of these as extra insurance?

Pfft, I've got one of these. ;)

Got it cheap, it's covering my pc and tv. I can't believe I just waved a battery backup peen!

[MrHat]

Might I suggest one of these as extra insurance?

Pfft, I've got one of these. ;)

Got it cheap, it's covering my pc and tv. I can't believe I just waved a battery backup peen!

What's the noise output on something like that?

[Bunk]

I'm still running AGP as I have no interest in upgrading my mobo any tiime soon. Upgraded last night from an FX5600 to a 6600GT 128MB, for $210.00 Cdn.

I am a very happy guy. Unfortunately, I discovered that my cheap Dell 17" (got it for $50 when Dell gave my sister 2 of them for no good reason) only does 72Mhz at 1280x960. So I'll be looking at new monitors next...

[stray]

Have you tested that 6600 with anything 3D intensive yet? Do you play BF2 or EQ2? I was going to get a 256 last night, but decided to wait.

[Bunk]

Going to reload HL2 and maybe Doom3 this weekend.

So far, I've played Kotor 2 - smooth with everything cranked except 16x AA. That caused some stutter so I dropped to 8x.

Also cranked up everything in WoW, and I must say its much prettier. Haven't done any framerate tests or anything yet.

[Krakrok]

The 6600 is alright but it still chokes on stuff and I don't even play any of the new games like Doom3 or EQ2 etc. It chokes in Planetside in big battles and it chokes in Guild Wars PvP if I turn the graphics up from minimum.

[stray]

Well, I ended up getting a 6600 GT OC (from BFG) over the weekend. For the price/class, this thing is more I could ask for. It runs everything I have on high (HL2/Guild Wars) without problems. EQ2 is still midrange, and BF2 upper mid, but it's much better than what I had.

[Hanzii]

Might I suggest one of these as extra insurance?

Pfft, I've got one of these. ;)

Got it cheap, it's covering my pc and tv. I can't believe I just waved a battery backup peen!

I'm curious - why do you need it?
I review hardware. A lot of the companies I deal with have these, and I look at the press releases and go "...why?!" Is power that unreliable in the US?
I've experienced one major blackout in the last 5 years (3 hours plus) and I dunno 2-3 small ones (less than 30 minutes) nothing I'd waste money insuring against... I loose more data, by the pc crashing than that.
So I'm curious, why do people buy these?

[Murgos]

My power flickers once in a while during an electrical storm, a $30 dollar UPS is a small price to pay to avoid the potential harddrive destruction of an unexpected shutdown during a write.

[Hanzii]

My power flickers once in a while during an electrical storm, a $30 dollar UPS is a small price to pay to avoid the potential harddrive destruction of an unexpected shutdown during a write.

And that's a real concern backed by statistics? I've never heard of anybody ever losing a harddrive to power failure. I've never worked in a comapny with any sort of surge protection or UPS (and I work in publishing - everything worth anything is digital). I'm not being snarky here, I've just never heard of it being a concern over here, so I'm wondering whether the manufacturers of those devices has kickass marketing or the rest of the world is stuck with shitty grids.

[stray]

Same here. I've been using cheapo power strips for years myself.

[Sky]

I'm curious - why do you need it?

I don't, really. My last UPS died, and someone I knew had this one for sale dirt cheap.

I guess your power is much better than ours, which tends to go out for hours and sometimes days, depending on the weather and season. It's better in my ghetto apartment than my old house, but I'm not trusting my a/v gear to a naked electrical line. I've seen too much gear get taken out in lightning storms.

We use them at work to bridge the time between a power outtage and getting the generator running, for the most part. I'd say we use them partly for surge/brown protection (we haven't had our alloted contracted voltage at the building head....ever...I forget what reason the maintenance guy told me, but I could find out if you're interested...probably 'because the power company can') and partly for emergency outtage.

[Hanzii]

I'm curious - why do you need it?

I don't, really. My last UPS died, and someone I knew had this one for sale dirt cheap.

I guess your power is much better than ours,

It must be. Sounds horrible... if a public library need a generator - only places here with a generator are hospitals, national broadcasting and probably a few important government facilities (and research companies with freezers and whatnot, that will cause billions in losses if thawed) - but a library?

But of course our power companies used to be nationalized and still adheres to heavy regulation (while making a profit). Yay capitalism...

[Sky]

Do you have folks like Enron? Remember when a huge swath of northeast america went dark a while ago?

But really, the stuff I'm talking about is normal seasonal damage from downed lines (lightning or snow/ice damage) or direct lightning strikes, mostly. Do we /need/ power backup at the library? No. It's just convenient for the patrons to be able to check out their books even if the power goes out, and the staff doesn't have to do extra paperwork. A luxury, really (the emergency power part, anyway, the surge/brown protection is pretty important).

It's normal in the country outside the city limits to lose power at least once a month in the winter for a few hours. Last winter, my mother didn't have power for four days....had to run a generator just to keep the pipes from freezing.

[Jimbo]

I am building this machine...

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe

Asus 6600 GT 128mb graphic cards x2

AMD 64 3500

dvd burner

western digital raptor 36 gigs 10k rpm

had one glich...didn't read on the web site what ram was compatable with the mother board and had to return 2 sticks of 1gig ram from mushkin.  Went with Corsair 1 gig sticks (x2).

Newegg rocks!

[Strazos]

Um...36gb HDD?

If I remember correctly, the Raptor is SCSI, but still...

[Trippy]

Asus 6600 GT 128mb graphic cards x2

Why not go with the 6800 GT if you are going to spend that kind of money? It's cheaper, has 256 MB standard, offers comparable performance to the 6600 GT in SLI mode (some games it's a little slower, some games it's a little faster) and you don't have to hassle with the driver issues.

If I remember correctly, the Raptor is SCSI, but still...

It's not.

Edit: fixed typo

[Murgos]

My power flickers once in a while during an electrical storm, a $30 dollar UPS is a small price to pay to avoid the potential harddrive destruction of an unexpected shutdown during a write.

And that's a real concern backed by statistics? I've never heard of anybody ever losing a harddrive to power failure. I've never worked in a comapny with any sort of surge protection or UPS (and I work in publishing - everything worth anything is digital). I'm not being snarky here, I've just never heard of it being a concern over here, so I'm wondering whether the manufacturers of those devices has kickass marketing or the rest of the world is stuck with shitty grids.

Yes.  I lost a hard drive to a power flicker about 2 years ago.  Power was off for all of about a half second, hard drive was toast.  It took a LOT of time and effort to replace stuff and so $30 bucks for a UPS is a reasonable purchase.