~300 bux for cpu/mobo/ram, what should i get?

[amgkid]

I need to upgrade my sister's computer CHEAP
here's what she's running:
pII 233 on dell LX board
128 pc66(?) ram
13 gig 5400rpm hdd
matrox millenium II 8meg
creative voodoo 2

i'm thinking a cpu/mobo/ram upgrade is what she needs. she won't be playing games so video card is okay (it was my voodoo2 before). Is it a feasible project? I want to spend around 300 bux. Is this possible with a low end PIII? Or should I just flash the bios and put in a celery? Not sure how much I could do for 300, i know it's not a lot. Thanks.

 

[Buddha Bart]

Get a socket-A board and a Duron. And some new ram.. fudge you may need a new powersupply/case if your old one is weak/AT.

This gets tuff somtimes

If you have an AT case, just get her some Super Socket 7 setup.
If its ATX you can either go duron (may break budget) or BX+celeron.

bart

 

[amgkid]

oh I have an extra case with a 300watt athlon certified PSU. What is a good cheap KT133 board that's just stable? I don't need to o/c. thanks. how much ram is good enough for websurfing, word processing, maybe a little gaming on the side?

 

[AmdEmAll]

I would get a duron 600-800 and a Giga-Byte GA-7ZX-1 Socket A ATX motherboard. And get 128mb pc133 kingston or crucial memory.

 

[allan120]

I'd recommend a cheap 810i board w/ built in audio/video and a Celeron 600 or so, since you're not overclocking. You can sell the video cards and save yourself a ton of money since you can reuse the memory. Perhaps buy her a better monitor or a faster hard drive than you might have planned, since that would matter more in her case.

 

[RSI]

Your sister's computer? What does she do exactly? Unless she plays 3D games, that P2-233 is perfectly fine, as is the RAM, unless you want to go for PC100 or PC133, which really wouldn't do that much.

Unless she's running out of HD space, you should leave that too, or go for an equivalently-sized drive that has 7200rpm and a 2MB buffer.

Instead of the Millenium II and Voodoo II, you could go for a Voodoo III or maybe a GF2-MX?

I think I would just upgrade the HD and video, the RAM and CPU look fine to me, except maybe switch to PC100 and run at 2.5x100 (250MHz).

If you're looking for a more "serious" upgrade though, follow the others' advice.

-RSI

 

[Ornery]

Mega dittos RSI!

Otherwise you are really wasting $300.00. That thing was cutting edge not long ago. I can't believe she didn't expect to get more life out of it than that.

 

[Howard]

The most stable Socket-A motherboard is the MSI K7T Pro, hands down.