Another rookie asking - what should I get?

[Felecha]

I've been wondering how long my good old rig would last. I've been real happy with it - a custom built from a local shop

ABIT KT7RAID
Athlon 900 TBird
768 RAM
2 IBM Deskstar 75GXP's
Matrox G400
52x LG CD-ROM
I've added a new DVD RW recently.

One of the IBM hard drives just died the other day (lucky it was not the OS drive), and I've been wondering for a while when one or the other or both would go - there's been so much about the 75GXP being flakey.

So I am replacing the dead one with a Seagate 80GB, and will move everything over from the old IBM and use the old IBM as my second drive for now, but I gotta wonder - even though I'm not unhappy yet with the power of this old thing, maybe with just a little investment I could step up significantly. I was thinking that if I got a new motherboard and a new processor, everything else could stay the same (after the new hard drive). The tower is good, I expect (Inwin Q500A ATX Full Tower 300 it says on the work order), and the power supply and NIC and floppy and soundcard and modem are fine with me.

So --- one of the most popular questions here, "Please, can someone advise me what I should get?"

Thanks

I don't do gaming, but I am a developer with .Net and .Net is big, so I do want some power, I would just settle for a little less than the best, I guess. I spent a little more than average for this one and the bigger money served me well, so I would invest again for a long run.

 

[erorr404]

if you get a new motherboard, i dont know if your old RAM will still be supported. the new RAM standard for desktops is 184 pin PC-XXXX. if you have a lot of money to spend, then i would recommend getting one of the new dual core processors like Intel Pentium D series or AMD Athlon64 X2 series (i've heard the Athlon X2 is better). if your budget is smaller, then i would recommend a P4 with HT (hyper threading). i would also recommend to have at least 1 GB of PC3200 RAM. hope this helps.

 

[erorr404]

bump.
this shouldn't be on page 4.

 

[natto fire]

You are pretty much at a brick wall here. It sounds like your uses are more CPU/RAM limited. It would not be economical to upgrade your CPU as you would want one that supports DDR, which would require a new mobo + DDR RAM (at least that is fairly cheap ) Simply adding more ram might be a fairly good slap-patch, but you are more than likely hitting memory bandwidth problems, not capacity.

Depending on your budget, there are some great DDR socket A combos that can be had for very cheap. 1 GB of PC3200(fairly futureproof stuff) is running about $80.

You are definitely on the right track not trusting that 'deathstar' 75GXP, terrible drives and they deserve the nickname IMHO.

Edit: re-read your post, you can do the upgrades you mentioned, but you will not be able to keep the ram. (Assuming it is SDR)

 

[Felecha]

When I did my RAM upgrade I went to Crucial so I did again and checked the KT7RAID - it takes 168 pin PC133's. So that's something I had forgotten about - computers do need RAM.

So - motherboard brand? Processor suggestions? I do have some money, looking at it as the long view, but I would look for one or two notches below the biggest and fastest

 

[PokerGuy]

I've had good luck with the gigabyte motherboards. Not great if you want to overclock etc, but rock solid and they work. I'd consider the gigabyte GA-K8N-Ultra-9, it's a very solid mobo IMO. Pair it up with a Venice or San Diego core AMD 3400+ processor and some PC3200 memory (1 gig is plenty), and you've got yourself a solid new workstation that should meet your needs for a good long time.

 

[Felecha]

OK, anyone else? Can i presume that the tower will fit the motherboard no problem? The holes will all line up where I expect (this will be my first build, as you can see)