Holy moly! How things have changed in 2 years

[Teatowel]

Hey people.

I haven't logged on to Anandtech for 2 years, and am lost in all the new hardware out now! I built a Athlon XP 1700, Abit KT7mb, 1gb PC3200 RAM and Radeon 8500 graphics 2 years ago, and that was a great system them! Any of this I can use in a new Athlon base system? Is the Radeon still a usable card nowadays?

Cheers

 

[LordPhoenix]

You can use the PC3200 ram for sure.

 

[bigal40]

i think you can use the ram(is it DDR?). That 8500 is outdated.

 

[Teatowel]

Having said that the last game I bought was Splinter Cell!

 

[yadda]

Welcome back Teatowel ;-)

I would recommend reading a lot of old articles here on Anandtech especially the recommended guides:

Like: Guides

I based my newest system I built 2 months on these systems.

Y

 

[Teatowel]

Cheers - have forgotten how the site is set up!

Nforce seem to have sorted themselves out - back in 02 they were pretty crap!

 

[MegaWorks]

get an nForce 2 board, and overclock that Athlon 1700+ to 2.0+ Ghz and you're fine.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
get an nForce 2 board, and overclock that Athlon 1700+ to 2.0+ Ghz and you're fine.

Unless it's a Palomino

 

[The J]

You can definately use you RAM, hard drives, and optical drives. You may be able to use that motherboard, but it depends on it's chipset and whether or not you still want an Athlon XP based system. You also would want to look for an updated BIOS if you haven't done so already to add support for newer processors.

 

[ponyo]

Radeon 8500 is still pretty decent. It's only slightly slower than Geforce4 Ti4200 and plenty people still game with that card.

 

[raildogg]

Originally posted by: Naustica
Radeon 8500 is still pretty decent. It's only slightly slower than Geforce4 Ti4200 and plenty people still game with that card.

:thumbsup:

I would recomment you getting a Radeon 9800 Pro, but if you dont game, the 8500 is great

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: Teatowel

Hey people.

I haven't logged on to Anandtech for 2 years, and am lost in all the new hardware out now! I built a Athlon XP 1700, Abit KT7mb, 1gb PC3200 RAM and Radeon 8500 graphics 2 years ago, and that was a great system them! Any of this I can use in a new Athlon base system? Is the Radeon still a usable card nowadays?

Cheers

LOL. I know how you feel. 2 years ago I built a P4 2.53 with 1 GB PC3200 and a Radeon 9700 Pro. Funny thing is, it still runs games just fine but thanks to these forums I felt a strong desire to move to an Athlon 64. With the 9700 Pro, my P4 system ran Doom 3 and Far Cry just fine at 1280x1024 but I wanted silky smooth gameplay at 1600x1200 so I threw a 6800 GT in it. Now I have absolutely no reason to upgrade but I'm going to anyway. I ordered the components to the A64 system just this morning. These forums are bad for your wallet!

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Naustica
Radeon 8500 is still pretty decent. It's only slightly slower than Geforce4 Ti4200 and plenty people still game with that card.


whats bad is where i live its still being sold for top whack in some "small" computer shops, (not comet or pc world or big superstores like that)

AIW 8500 128mb DDR goin for clsoe to £200