CPU upgrade, or SCSI upgrade?

[GoldenBear]

Right now I'm running a Celeron 400 @ 450, 256mg memory, a GF2 GTS, with a 7200 RPM Maxtor 13gb Hard Drive.

I really don't play a whole lot of games, but I do run a lot of applications and multitask quite often. So I wanted to do an upgrade that'd improve my performance, and was going to upgrade to SCSI or upgrade my CPU. I figure the prices would end up to be the same because I'd end up selling the parts I replaced, and that shouldn't leave a big difference with either option.

 

[Spook]

Most definitely.... A CPU upgrade... You need more CPU for you system, SCSI although nice is an expensive toy... And an expensive habit to maintain...

 

[BurnItDwn]

CPU imo too ...

scsi would help with load times of software and such ... but most 7200rpm ata 66 drives are pretty fast ... Since drives have had UDMA ... the HD load when accessing Hard drives has decreased a great deal ... a SCSI drive would drain a little bit less CPU then Ide ... its not as big a difference as it used to be. If you are gonna go scsi ... and you want a noticable improvement in speed ... you would want go to with Ultra 160 (which is the current level of SCSI technology) .. which is a damn fast interface ... but not necessary for everyone ... also ... you are looking at a minimum of around 200 bucks for just the u160 drive alone. I know adaptors are quite expensive.

I also know that usually SCSI Seek times are better then IDE too ... which may be really important to you.

i understand that you can get SCSI2 drives and adaptors for pretty cheap. I have a few 9.1gb Seagate elite-9s in my box (when i was experimenting with scsi stuff) and they are decent and reliable, they are also quite loud and not very fast.


i have a maxtor 13GB in my second box ... and while its not as fast as my IDE drives in this system (IBM deskstar 20gb ... or RAIded 5400rpm 30gb maxtors) .. it is definatly fast enough to get the job done ...

Depending on your Mobo i'd go for a Celeron II or get the real cumine ... (celeron 2 if you are using ram that wont clock higher then 100 ... 566's usually overclock nicely to 850) ... or if you plan on selling your mobo .. then of course go with AMD ... but then you'd probably be stuck buying some pc133 ram unless you already have that (lots of 8ns stick will work ok at 133 cas 3 ... not all though)

 

[rhinox99]

Definitely get a new cpu if you want to see a speed boost in most of your apps. Scsi hard drives seem very expensive for the performance gain that you get.

 

[MrCraphead]

new CPU, definately.

 

[Hecky]

Depending on your mobo, in order to upgrade your Celeron, you may have to invest in a new mainboard as well...and then in order to use a faster FSB, you may have to invest in new RAM, and so on and on. One way to rationalize this process is to acknowledge your GF2GTS is certainly currently limited by your CPU...and maybe by your AGP bus as well. Trouble with upgrading is that one thing leads to another...and more $$$.
As a confirmed SCSI junkie, I'd advise you stay away from SCSI if you can resist. Current drives are twice as expensive as comparable EIDE drives, cables are expensive, CD-ROMs/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD are more expensive than their IDE counterparts,host adapters are more expensive than a lot of drives, some mobo bios conflict with adapter bios, termination configuration can be a real puzzle. And after all is said and done, you'll see very, very little improvement in day to day performance over a modern UDMA 66/100 EIDE drive. The trouble with SCSI is that after you sink $400 or so into a high-performance adapter, you feel obligated to continue to buy expensive SCSI peripherals and storage to hook up to it. You can buy a bare bones new machine with a capable mobo and fast processor for less than you can spend on a high end Adaptec host. Good luck either way.

 

[damien6]

<< I do run a lot of applications and multitask quite often >>



SCSI!! Everyone agrees that the scsi are expensive but for what you want to do, you'll see the most performance benefit of the two. Got to warn you though, buying outdated scsi drives because of the savings is counter productive (they're often slower/louder unlike newer drives) and could be waste of $$.

 

[Radboy]

fwiw, compared to upgrading from 7200rpm IDE/ATA to 10Krpm LVD SCSI, i was relatively disappointed in my CPU upgrade - (C300a @464 to P3-700 @938). The upgrade to SCSI had great 'Wow factor' .. while the CPU upgrade was rather disappointing.

But it depends what you do w/ your PC. If all you do is email, surf the web, &amp; word processing, you're wasting your time upgrading .. either to SCSI or a faster CPU.

Enterprise-class perf can be had for $89 (LVD/U2W controller, free shipping, comes w/ all the cables &amp; terminators you'll need) and $219 (IBM Ultrastar 36LZX - 9GB is more than enuf space to dual-boot W9x &amp; W2K, all your apps, &amp; prolly even a Linux distro or two - Use IDE drives for basic storage needs).

Curious how many of those recommending the CPU upgrade have ever actually upgraded to a SCSI boot drive? Would be hard to give reliable advice on the Q if someone has never upgraded to SCSI .. no?