is A7S333/2000+XP/DDR333 good upgrade choice?

[JasperCat]

I am considering a CPU/MB/CASE/Memory upgrade :

1st off I am wondering whether this motherboard would take advantage of DDR333 or is DDR266
good enough? Anything wrong with this MB choice?

Asus A7S333 SKT A :

And here is my budget upgrade plan :

What I want :

$200 AMD ATHLON XP 2000+ 1.67GHZ SOCKET-A RETAIL
$ 90 Asus A7S333 SKT A
$160 512MB PC2700/333 DDR 333 ( DDR 266 would be $120 )
$ 40 Case : CodeGen 6039L with USB - Crome ( 300w PS )
OR
$80 Case : Enermax Mid Tower

$ 90 install
----
$580 total + tax

What I have :

Dell XPS P3 1gz ( will be able to sell on ebay for >$100
just sold my old P3-600 for $130 )
100mhz FrontSideBus SE-BX ? motherboard
640 MB 100 SDRAM

I would be keeping my Geforce 3-64MB for now and wait for GF4-4400 price to drop more.

1. So - anyone out there with a simliar AMD setup ?
2. Anyone that play games/flight sims?
3. Will I get a big jump in performance over my old MB/P3-1gz ?
4. Does AMD CPU outperform a P4 at the same clockspeed?
5. Have I left a CPU upgrade path with the AMD motherboard above?
6. Ease of upgrade - I want to bring this box home from the retailer
and plug my usb cable modem back in and have it work from the get go.
Is this upgrade a no brainer for a good computer store?

Really appreciate your tips, experiences, thoughts - I only
get once chance at an upgrade or my wife will kill me.

Thanks,
Myles

 

[mechBgon]

Here are some thoughts:

The present AthlonXP processors don't seem to benefit a whole lot from the jump from DDR266 to DDR333, at least not in the reviews I've seen. That's making a long story short, but I would say get DDR266 and save the money toward your new video card later, or the next-faster CPU.

Flight sims use a lot of CPU power to do the simulation, which results in low framerates because the CPU is often the bottleneck. Your GF3 Ti500 is probably twiddling its thumbs, waiting for the 1GHz P3 to give it something to do. Getting a faster CPU will probably bring your minimum framerates up a lot even with your GF3. If your framerate stays the same in a given scene regardless of what screen resolution you're using, you know your CPU is the bottleneck.

The XP2000+ runs at a clock speed of 1670MHz and is faster than a comparably-clocked Pentium4 in most applications, although there are some areas where P4's paired up with RAMBUS memory are very fast, usually involving steady streams of data to be processed. The AthlonXP is particularly good at floating-point calculations, which would make it very effective in the simulation area.

The SiS745 chipset used in the A7S333 will support AMD's next series of AthlonXPs, which use a cooler-running core code-named "Thoroughbred" The Thoroughbred-core AthlonXP is coming onto the market shortly and is recognized by ".13-micron technology" (the present Palomino-core AthlonXP uses .18-micron).

There is another generation of AthlonXPs set around the end of this year codenamed "Barton," which will feature more level-2 cache (512kb) but I don't know if the SiS745 chipset will support that. I'm guessing it will, because AMD would be dumb to make Bartons that didn't work with the current motherboards, at least with an updated BIOS. The SiS745 chipset gives a good tradeoff of price/performance.

Regarding the case and power supply, you will want good ventilation and a good-quality power supply for stability. This is one area where it's hard to tell what you're getting from a local shop... kind of like getting your oil changed on your car. What brand of oil did they use? I'd take a good-quality 300W power supply over a mediocre 400W power supply, but for my own system I'd insist on a name-brand 400W PSU. If you are interested in building your own system at all, this is one area where you benefit: you know what you got. You could also find better buys on the parts. The CPU and motherboard cost less online and you'd save the labor too. But there goes the ease-of-upgrade factor out the window. :Q


edited: because I goofed on several things

 

[Binky]

This board is stable but the performance is dissapointing. My K7S5A scored better on many tests. The bios is also immature and needs some work.

Save your cash on the DDR333. The asyncronous bus feature of this board doesn't seem to work. My PC2100 ram boots fine at an indicated 133/166mhz cpu/memory bus. If it were really running at 333mhz, it wouldn't boot. Performance tests are lower than at a 133/133 syncronus bus.

 

[JasperCat]

Thanks for the info...

sounds like I should go with the DDR266 and put the $40 difference
into the better case/ps.

I am alittle green to upgrades of this sort ( I have only swapped in a CPU and video cards )
- assuming I have the store do the upgrade from my old to new, is
this upgrade just a matter of moving the hard drives, cd rom, floppy, and other
cards over to the new mb? Meaning there will be no reinstall of
software or OS?

Looking for ease of getting my usb connected cable modem back up
and running ( and a phoneline network ).

Thanks,
Myles

 

[JediJeb]

When changing motherboards, and especially going from Intel to AMD, you will need to reinstall the operating system so that you get rid of the drivers for the old hardware. If not Windows will most likely give you problems with instability. The shop doing your build should be able to do the reinstall of the software. As long as you copy down all of your network settings before hand the cable modem and networking shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Binky]

My advice to people with your level of experience would be to seriously consider buying a prebuilt system. You have a Dell already, and I assume you were happy with it. The deals that you can get on Dell's these days make it difficult to advise a home built system unless you are an experienced computer builder.

Watch a shopping site like techbargains.com for a week or so before making your decision. You may just pick up a nice P4-1.8 or 2.0 for less than $600-$700. Throw your GF3 in it and you'll have a pretty nice system.

 

[JasperCat]

Thanks for you help. I have talked with a computer shop retailer and now realize
that an OS install is likely. I guess this is not a biggie, I can probably handled a
broadband connection reinstall. A few reasons I am shying away from a new pre-built
are 1. cost and 2. I have 2 pc networked both running W98SE. I know it is an old OS,
but my simple phoneline network cards do not support XP and it has worked well
for sharing the broadband connection.

I have reinstalled my network many times so the only real obstacle I am pondering
is the broadband reinstall.

Anyone if you have any more tips or ideas let me know.

Thanks,
Myles

 

[mechBgon]

Some more details about your broadband layout? Presumably you have a cable or DSL modem. Does one PC connect to the cable/DSL modem using an Ethernet card, and then use Internet Connection Sharing to share it to the other PC, via the phoneline networking card? If so, it should be smooth. The cable/dsl modem negotiates with the provider to get itself hooked up to their network, and your Ethernet card simply asks the cable/dsl modem for an IP address and boom, you should be in business.

Where things could conceivably be messed up is if you change Ethernet cards. Each one has a unique MAC address hard-coded into it, and I've heard that some cable companies note the MAC address and use it to associate your computer with your account. When I got ATT Broadband recently, they put an icon on my desktop which the installer said was for "in case you switch computers or something." I presume it has something to do with the MAC address issue, and I think they count the number of MAC addresses to know how many IP's to bill me for.

Since my connection is split using a Linksys cable/dsl router, the cable modem only sees the Linksys' IP address, and ATT hasn't answered my question about whether I'm obligated to pay extra to hook up more computers, so I'm letting the matter lie.

 

[yata]

Try building one from scratch; start anew. It is not hard at all. Just be careful at certain parts: mounting the mobo, the cpu onto the mobo, then clipping the heatsink on (do not forget the thermal pad or grease!), wiring the power and reset leads correctly.

The rest is just straightforward. AT, hardocp, or tom's have some picture guide.

 

[1luckymf]

Hey JasperCat, You wouldn't happen to be from Indiana would you? Just curious

 

[JasperCat]

No ethernet card to deal with ( and the rebuild won't have one either ) - just an external cable modem
and a USB ethernet connecter. The more I look into this the more I think it is no biggie for the reinstall.

Going with a clean OS install should be the way to go - especially since I only care to load back a few of
the original Dell software - MS Office, explorer, and then my sims and games. Should be a pretty
lean sim/game machine.

Myles