Help me stretch my current setup

[shelaby]

Hey guys,

I have had this setup for ~6-7 years and have slowly been upgrading it. I do not want to do a complete system rebuild because I have no reason to. I would, however, like to stretch this out for another few years. I am hoping you guys will be able to tell me what I can do to make this system top of its line.

Mobo- DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU - Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.4 w/ stock HSF
Video - ATI radeon x800
Ram - 3gb, 2x1gb + 2x512mb
HD - samsung 1tb, Seagate 400gb

Win7 x86

I guess I am asking... what are the best components I can get with this board? (CPU/video mainly) I know i can only go to 4gb on the memory.

I have been out of the loop for a long time and am in need of your expertise AAT =)

TIA


::EDIT::

Thanks for all your help guys! This is why I have been a member here since 2002 =)

I contacted xpage and am getting his old opty 165 +2x1gb patriot ram

I will continue my search next for an upgraded video card and will look into SSD

 

[Bartman39]

If you just have to stay with the 939 platform then find an Opteron 165 or 170 cpu which most would overclock quite well also they are dual core which will make a big difference in your apps... Also you can upgrade to an HD series AMD video card as they should be backwards compatible with the PCIe on your board (something like a 4XXX series or even a 5XXX series...? The latter will get you into DX11 if the buss supports it...?)... Also if you add a SATA adapter card you should be able to get the benifits of an SSD...? I dont think your onboard SATA would support one but dont know for sure...? Of course getting another 2X1gig to make 4gb will help as well but I thought most of those boards would not support 4 sticks...? I see your running it now or assume so...?


What you have is a bit older so others may have more info about what I suggested if things will work or not...? Good early platform just very outdated... You can get alot faster and newer for cheaper than the cost of upgrading what you have... Plus be alot more reliable, that MB should be getting pretty weak in the caps being OC`d for this length of time so dont be surprised if it "shits the bed"... Best of luck though...

 

[shelaby]

Awesome thanks Bartman!

 

[Lordhumungus]

All sound advice from Bartman, but I believe that the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and the Athlon FX 60 are technically the fastest CPUs you can get for the platform, although the Opterons he mentioned do overclock nicely if you are open to that. There would also be serious cost associated with either CPU as they are the last stop for the platform. Also, I believe that any of the above solutions will still be a rather large bottleneck for any modern GPU that you choose.

I think you should seriously consider a very budget minded total upgrade. I know you said you want to stick with the platform, but it is definitely getting to the point where it is cost prohibitive. If you sell off what you currently have, and then add that total to the price you were willing to pay to upgrade, you aren't far off from a low end Sandy Bridge or high end Core 2 upgrade path especially if you can find something used that hasn't been beaten to hell. If you are an AMD fan, there are plenty of solid options there as well, although I am personally less versed in their current offerings.

Edit: To give you some idea of the cost/benefit, I actually sold off my DFI LANPARTY mobo, RAM, and Athlon X2 4800+ about 2 years ago and it completely covered the cost of a brand new C2D E8400, mobo and RAM.

 

[Blastman]

Bart pretty well covered all the bases.

That system is getting pretty long in the tooth so you'll have to consider if you want to put much more $ in it. I was using a Celeron-T @1.54 up until early last year. It only had 512MB of ram and I could no longer even surf the web without going over that and hitting the page file. It just wasn't worth my while to try and get more SDRAM or try and upgrade that old platform -- and the larger SDRAM sticks were also rare and expensive. Since you already have 3.0GB your doing good in the memory area. My old platform was also only AGP and IDE so that limited any upgrade path and I didn't want to throw any money into these dead end technologies.

If your MB supports a dual core processor and you can get one used cheap, that might be about as good as an upgrade as any to keep that system going for a while longer.

When I ran my old Quickbasic simulations, they would tie up my Celeron-T so bad I couldn't even surf the web half decently with them running. Now I can run these QB programs and surf the web like they're not even there. Going from a single CPU Celeron-T to an i3-530 with 4 logical processors (when I upgraded last year) was a revelation in multitasking ability and performance. Any dual core CPU would be a huge upgrade from a single core CPU in that regard.

 

[Ken g6]

Win7 x86

Is your Win7 version an OEM version? If so, it may be tied to your motherboard. (I hate that!)

One other thing no one else has brought up so far: You have four SATA ports, so you might consider adding a small SSD for temp, swap, and commonly-accessed files.

 

[shelaby]

Thanks for all your help guys, I am going to get a dual core CPU first and then look to upgrade my video card because there are some decent cheap options out there. I know this board has a couple more years in it.

Win7 is not OEM so that shouldnt be a problem. I am still waiting for SSD costs to come down. Do people use these for their windows partitions for faster boot times or what?

 

[Bartman39]

I use mine for booting for the most part but of course store everything on a 1tb Samsung F3 drive but it also has an OS on it just as a backup more or less... You will be amazed though as to the difference in booting and opening programs so if you really want a big change then after the cpu upgrade the for sure do the SSD next... Video card prices fall faster than SSD prices and like I said you really only need a 60-80gig SSD its mainly for the OS...:thumbsup:

Did you contact that guy I linked for you with the Opty 165...? He is about 3 hours or so from me on the other side of Houston...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, Opteron 165, or Athlon 64 X2 4800+ would be your best bet to upgrade. Then something like a HD4850, or 5770. 3GB of RAM is IMHO enough, I wouldn't waste more money on DDR1, unless you get some really cheap.

One of my buddies upraded from a P3 1Ghz rig to an Athlon64 X2 4800+ S939 rig with 4x512MB DDR RAM, and an X1300 Pro video card. Now he can watch full-screen Hulu and stuff. I'm thinking of getting him a Zacate rig, it would be slightly slower in terms of CPU, but much better on power consumption, and all he does is web browse and watch videos online.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I honestly think you would be better served by just upgrading your platform.

An ASRock M3A770DE + Athlon II X3 + 4GB of memory + Radeon 5770 1GB will run you about $280 and it'd be a FREAKING HUGE upgrade.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I honestly think you would be better served by just upgrading your platform.

An ASRock M3A770DE + Athlon II X3 + 4GB of memory + Radeon 5770 1GB will run you about $280 and it'd be a FREAKING HUGE upgrade.

Or just get a Zacate mini-ITX. Although, with an X800 card, OP might be a gamer. In that case, wait for LLano. (You can still get a mini-ITX though).

 

[infoiltrator]

SSD needs SATA 3 to be faster than current HDD's.
Basically a $60-70 mb, oem Athlon II X4 635 at $80-90, 4 gb DDR3 1333 Ram at $40 or less. GeForce GT 430's have been $60-70 with $20-40 rebates. (= Radeon HD 4670 I believe). combo deals could reduce those prices.
There is a new customer discount on newegg too.
Asrock M3A770DE ATX $65 Shipped
Biostar A880G+ mATX 2X ddr3 $55 Shipped
Athlon II X2 255 about $55
G'Skill ram Ripjaws 4GB (2X2) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) F3 12800CL9GBRL $$45.99
Sale gets to $34 sometimes
Asus ENGT 430/DI/1GB/DDR3 GT 430 $60 +$6 SHIP_$20 Rebate [ forgot to check if this is 64 bit or 128, get one 128, 1 gb DDR3 = 512 mg DDR5 IN PERFORMANCE; EXAMPLE ONLY]

 

[betasub]

SSD needs SATA 3 to be faster than current HDD's.

LOL wut?

How is SATA3 a requirement for SSD super-fast access times? And most HDD barely push the transfer limits of the original SATA interface, let alone SATA2 or 3.

 

[formulav8]

SSD needs SATA 3 to be faster than current HDD's.

Current average sequential reads on the mid/high-end ssd's fully pegs sata2 to its limit of around 230-240ish or so MB/s. The fastest HD out in terms of sequential transfer is pretty much my Samsung F3 1TB drive. The peak transfer is 150 MB/s and the minimum transfer is 80 MB/s. It averages 122 MB/s. So just in sequential read transfers the SSD is literally double what my hd is.

A huge difference of ssd's over regular hd's is smaller-ish random Read/Writes. Thats where a ssd makes a huge difference over regular hd's. It greatly shows in bootup and application loading.

Anyways, just thought I would mention.

 

[CTho9305]

Or just get a Zacate mini-ITX. Although, with an X800 card, OP might be a gamer. In that case, wait for LLano. (You can still get a mini-ITX though).

A 2.4 GHz Athlon 64 is probably going to be dramatically faster than a Zacate-based system for non-threaded workloads.

 

[shelaby]

I use mine for booting for the most part but of course store everything on a 1tb Samsung F3 drive but it also has an OS on it just as a backup more or less... You will be amazed though as to the difference in booting and opening programs so if you really want a big change then after the cpu upgrade the for sure do the SSD next... Video card prices fall faster than SSD prices and like I said you really only need a 60-80gig SSD its mainly for the OS...:thumbsup:

Did you contact that guy I linked for you with the Opty 165...? He is about 3 hours or so from me on the other side of Houston...

yup I did, thanks!

 

[shelaby]

Maybe I am being stubborn because I know about my current hardware. I have been out of the loop for a long time and I know it takes a lot of time to understand current hardware and combinations and stuff. I used to tinker/game a lot more than I do now (mostly console stuff now) Just want to be able to watch some HD stuff every now and then and light gaming. If i can get any combination of opty +- hd4/5xxx +- 2x1gb ram for ~100-125$ I will be more than set

 

[Lordhumungus]

Something else to note is that you may have to do a BIOS update on your motherboard to get it to recognize the dual core processor properly. This of course depends on its age and BIOS revision.

 

[Bartman39]

Something else to note is that you may have to do a BIOS update on your motherboard to get it to recognize the dual core processor properly. This of course depends on its age and BIOS revision.

The NF4 ultra came with the bios for a dual core A64 cpu or the Opteron dual core (think that all NF4 chipsets supported dual core cpu`s)... Also did a bit more research on the SATA controller onboard and it should work with the 1st generation SSD drives but not a for sure thing so still might need a controller card...

 

[rbk123]

Add one of the Kingston V100+ 96 GB SSD's for $110 or so after rebate. That plus a dual X2 would add some serious length to your performance and you can continue to leverage the SSD afterwards. A Sata2 SSD blows anything non-SSD out of the water so you will see a substantial performance increase. Load all your OS and apps on it.

 

[Lordhumungus]

The NF4 ultra came with the bios for a dual core A64 cpu or the Opteron dual core (think that all NF4 chipsets supported dual core cpu`s)... Also did a bit more research on the SATA controller onboard and it should work with the 1st generation SSD drives but not a for sure thing so still might need a controller card...

Yeah, I think all NF4 chipsets support dual core, but I bought a DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR on launch and had to update the BIOS. It recognized the processor enough to get setup, but not 100% correctly.

 

[shelaby]

Something else to note is that you may have to do a BIOS update on your motherboard to get it to recognize the dual core processor properly. This of course depends on its age and BIOS revision.

Yea I read up on that. I have the latest bios that DFI put out for this board so I believe I am all set

 

[Xpage]

Hey guys,

I have had this setup for ~6-7 years and have slowly been upgrading it. I do not want to do a complete system rebuild because I have no reason to. I would, however, like to stretch this out for another few years. I am hoping you guys will be able to tell me what I can do to make this system top of its line.

Mobo- DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU - Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.4 w/ stock HSF
Video - ATI radeon x800
Ram - 3gb, 2x1gb + 2x512mb
HD - samsung 1tb, Seagate 400gb

Win7 x86

I guess I am asking... what are the best components I can get with this board? (CPU/video mainly) I know i can only go to 4gb on the memory.

I have been out of the loop for a long time and am in need of your expertise AAT =)

TIA


::EDIT::

Thanks for all your help guys! This is why I have been a member here since 2002 =)

I contacted xpage and am getting his old opty 165 +2x1gb patriot ram

I will continue my search next for an upgraded video card and will look into SSD

LOL. i was gonna recommend if you saw my stuff for sale, then i realized you did. I think you could hit 3ghz with a bit of voltage on my CPU, it's real good and with your MB you should be able too as that is better than what I had.

I'd go for a SSD too, that makes life much nicer, I've seen on slickdeals a 64GB kingston for sale for about $1 a GB after rebate at least twice now. It'd be good for a boot drive plus 1-2 games that you play the most.


Also for the E-350, an athlon 64 dual core owns it, since I have one for my HTPC (I really should make a post about my new rigs with pics), and with netflix it stutters now and then on High definiton video, due to CPU, and that is with a 10% OC on the CPU and a 190% OC on the GPU too. Netflix is CPU bound by Silverlight 4 until SL5 comes out. I'm thinking maybe I should have waited till llano came out but the delays are endless and now mobile is first and then desktop is in July 1st? No idea when low power stuff will come out, so i bought myself an E-350. Putting win 7 on it took a long while, it would have been a much better system if it was on 32nm, instead of 40nm, I'm hoping the 28nm version will kick ass, when it gets released next year.