I need additional mobo, cpu, ram options for under $150.

[mellondust]

I'm looking into the athlon 64 3400+ mobo combo from newegg for $99 with 512mb cheap ram and cheap heat sink.

Is there anything better that this out there in this price range?

I have to stay under $150 total, and would like to go cheaper if possible. This will be running winxp AND win98 so it must be compatible with win98. I would even go with a sempron or p4 configuration if they are quite abit cheaper. This deal seems pretty good.

If it matters, the system will be using a gf4 ti4200 as the video card.

Thanks

 

[mellondust]

bump

 

[Juno]

i'm curious, why win98?

 

[mellondust]

I've got some old games that I like that only work (or work better) on windows 98. Alot of them don't have winxp patches so I have to play them on win98. This will be the computer my wife and son use and will be running win xp most of the time. I will have two different hard drives to boot from, one with xp and one with win98. When I want to play some win98 games I will use that computer. I will be upgrading to some kind of core 2 duo configuration when they become more available in a few months. I have some CAD software and other newer games I am planning to run on that and I don't think win98 will work with that kind of hardware.

 

[Lord Evermore]

There appear to be Win98 drivers available for both the nforce3 and the K8M800 chipsets used on the boards in the combo. nvidia does not support Win98 with the nforce4 or 5. I don't think you're really going to get a much better deal for chipsets that old.

Why bother building a new machine now if you're going to buy another in a few months? Do you expect to see those Win98 games get that huge a performance jump over your current machine?

I'd say stick with what you have now, and then just use that machine for your Win98 games after that, or use the new one if everything works in Win98.

If you simply must build a new machine, just go with the cheapest you can get. It's all going to be fine as far as your Win98 stuff (check which components are used and check that they have Win98 drivers). A hundred bucks for an Athlon 64 3400+ and mainboard isn't bad, even if it's Socket754.

 

[mayest]

Have you considered building something more powerful and then using MS Virtual PC? Virtual PC is now FREE, and on a Core 2 Duo it would probably run Win 98 faster than the hardware you are considering. I don't know if Virtual PC will support the graphics requirements of your games, though. You'd want to look into that.

 

[mellondust]

Thanks for the input.

I do want to upgrade to a somewhat decent pc as a second because I want to have a friend over to play counterstrike. The current computer I have bogs down from time to time. I figure I can get a cheap decent pc for win98 games and still play some newer games on a lan with it.

Thanks again for the responses, I think I will probably get the nforce 3 mobo combo.

 

[Lord Evermore]

One part of my brain is fighting with the other over whether to get that combo myself, just for a cheap-ass second computer for TV recording. But my next upgrade will be moving my XP 2800+ to that job anyway, so even though 99 bucks is dirt cheap for much higher performance, I shouldn't spend the money.