Cheap Upgrade

[cjbruin09]

My roommate has had his computer for 5 years now, and has finally decided he has enough money to upgrade. He basically uses it for internet, word processing, occassional lab work (he's a evolutionary biology post-doc), and light gaming (last game he was into was Warcraft 2.) Also, his current PC is an old Dell, so I have to redo everything. His budget is about $500.

How does this sound for a full upgrade?
A64 3000+ Venice $156
Chaintech VNF4 $90
Seagate 7200.7 160 Gb $85 (Wait for better deal at Fry's)
Sapphire X300 SE 256 Mb $65
1 Gb (2x512Mb) Corsair 3200 $85
SLK3000B $45 (I have a 350W Antec PSU for him)

Total: $525

He has an old HDD that I will use as extra storage, as well as 2 CDRW's.

Anyone suggest any changes, or other comments?

Thanks.

 

[RobCur]

5yrs??? jesus man i upgrade at least once a year and in most cases every 6 months

 

[flatblastard]

I would change that motherboard to an MSI RS480M2-IL and take the x300se vid card off the list because the integrated video on that mobo is probably better than that half-height sapphire card. Use the on-board graphics for now, and then upgrade to a better video card later when needed. Everything else on your list looks good though. Also, make sure to get a set of 512MB sticks of RAM. That's 2 sticks of 512MB for a total of 1GB, for dual channel.

 

[cjbruin09]

 

[cjbruin09]

sorry about the blank post... hit reply when i didnt mean it, my bad

is the onboard video on that MSI board really better than an X300SE 256 Mb? The Anand review of the 128Mb version looked decent. It would definitely be good though, cuz it would save me about $60, which I am sure he will love.

Thoughts on this?

 

[flatblastard]

Well, if you insist on going by the benchmarks, then I suppose you might want to read this review of the radeon xpress 200 chipset. It's not a review of the mobo I suggested, but a reference version instead. If you look at the pages with the graphs, you will notice that the x300se is better in only the most modern games like Doom 3, Half Life 2, Far Cry, etc....but if you look even closer at the game your friend likes to play, the xpress 200 graphics are better. Check out page 19 of that review I linked above and you will see that the integrated xpress 200 graphics are 10 fps better in Warcraft III, which is newer than the game you mentioned as being the latest that your friend plays. I would guess that both the x300se and xpress 200 are pretty equal when it comes to real world performance.

 

[cjbruin09]

Yea, they look pretty similar. I didn't notice that it was an xpress 200. I want to get him a semi-decent card so he could at least try some of the new games, even if on lower settings. If he really likes them he could go out and get a better card. If not, then he will have enough graphics power to do whatever else he wants to do. It seems that both of these would allow him that. How is it working with a microATX board? It looks like it has everything the Chaintech board has. Is it just tighter? Does that lead any issues?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Ditch the chaintech and go with an ASUS or Gigabyte

 

[flatblastard]

Originally posted by: cjbruin09
Yea, they look pretty similar. I didn't notice that it was an xpress 200. I want to get him a semi-decent card so he could at least try some of the new games, even if on lower settings. If he really likes them he could go out and get a better card. If not, then he will have enough graphics power to do whatever else he wants to do. It seems that both of these would allow him that. How is it working with a microATX board? It looks like it has everything the Chaintech board has. Is it just tighter? Does that lead any issues?

Yeah, it's a bit tighter fit with mATX, but in this case I think the rs480m2-il has a pretty decent layout, with plenty of room for a high end video card. Also, the northbridge chipset uses passive cooling so theres no chipset fan to get in the way.
The Chaintech board might have a few extra feartures that the MSI does not have, such as 3.0Gb/s (sata II) support, which only matters if you intend to hook up a native SATA II hard drive. There are a few other things not worth mentioning.....

Here is a review of the msi rs480m2-il from ExtemeTech. It's not very extensive, but still worth a look. He disables the on board graphics during testing which was a mistake IMO, as that is what makes this board such a good deal.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

256MB of RAM on an x300 is useless. The x300 won't be able to use all the memory anyways, so save a couple of bucks and get a 128MB version. Or you could go AGP.

 

[KoolDrew]

Looks good :thumbsup:

 

[RaiderJ]

I'd go with integrated graphics as well. It's not like you couldn't upgrade down the road. Probably would be fine with a non-Venice core CPU to save some bucks.

 

[ssvegeta1010]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
256MB of RAM on an x300 is useless. The x300 won't be able to use all the memory anyways, so save a couple of bucks and get a 128MB version. Or you could go AGP.

Yeah, if you still go with the X300 then go for a 128MB version. You'll save money. It might even be faster than the 256MB version due to higher quality (faster) memory, and the full 256MB is never used anyway.

 

[cjbruin09]

My thoughts on the venice core is that he could upgrade to 2 Gb or RAM if needed, by just adding 2 more 512 Mb sticks without performance loss. He says some of his lab stuff is memory intensive, but I don't know how intensive. I will defintely be going with the integrated graphics, which brings my total down to $475. Are there any other places I could save any money?

 

[flatblastard]

Stay with the venice core if there is any chance he will be adding more memory later.

The only way I can see you saving more money with that budget would be to shop around different places. Check with monarchcomputer, newegg, zipzoomfly, etc and compare their prices with your local retailers.