Is my 1.4 T-Bird out dated?

[Nocturnal]

I currently have this setup:

1.4 GHZ T-Bird Athlon
1 GIG of Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM non-ecc non-registered
IBM 60GXP 60 GIG HDD
ASUS A7N266-e nForce1 motherboard
Radeon 9800XT Pro 256mb video card
nForce onboard sound

I feel my system is pretty slow! Do you think it's time for an upgrade? I was thinking I just need a better processor and MAYBE an upgrade for my motherboard.

I was thinking a 2500 XP Barton Athlon and an ASUS A7N8X-e Deluxe motherboard.

Is my current setup kinda outdated/slow?

 

[silverpig]

Your system is perfectly fine man. Of course upgrading will give you a speed boost, but you're not lacking very hard. You still have a pc which will cream the crap out of most of them out there.

I just went from a 1800+ to a 2500+ at 3200+ speeds and from a KT333 to the A7N8X deluxe board. Sure it's nice, but I'm kind of kicking myself for not waiting just a little longer now that the A64 3000+ is out.

Of course, if you got a little cash for xmas and want to upgrade, then what you suggest is a good move for sure.

 

[silverpig]

Oh, and the 2500+ runs on a 333 FSB so you'd need PC2700 DDR to make full use out of it, PC3200 if you realistically want to hit 3200+ speeds.

 

[Xernex]

With such a nice vid card its a shame to see such a old CPU holding it back, I think a nice A64 3000+ should cure that though. But seriously if you have the cash for it, id do it, I think you will see a pretty big increase.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
I currently have this setup:

1.4 GHZ T-Bird Athlon
1 GIG of Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM non-ecc non-registered
IBM 60GXP 60 GIG HDD
ASUS A7N266-e nForce1 motherboard
Radeon 9800XT Pro 256mb video card
nForce onboard sound

I feel my system is pretty slow! Do you think it's time for an upgrade? I was thinking I just need a better processor and MAYBE an upgrade for my motherboard.

I was thinking a 2500 XP Barton Athlon and an ASUS A7N8X-e Deluxe motherboard.

Is my current setup kinda outdated/slow?

that upgrade seems good. reuse your ram.

 

[Megatomic]

You could always get a faster AthlonXP, say a 2100+. That would speed you up a little and not cost a lot of money.

 

[Bonesdad]

Do you have a budget? You can get a new Mobo and CPU for about $175. The Barton 2500+ and a new NF2 mobo. Nice upgrade for not very much. Reuse the RAM and all else. It will be a nice kick and tide you over till u want to get the A64.

 

[BFG10K]

It's time to upgrade, especially if you play games.

 

[Pistolero]

I have a 1.4 t-bird and I want an AMD upgrade.
I'm waiting for socket 939 which will come out around the time HL2 and Doom3 come out.

However, if I were going to upgrade now I'd get a A64 3000+ with a VIA chipset motherboard.
Better A64 chipsets are coming in less than a month I'd say. Waiting is just no fun, but you'll be glad you did.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Oh, and the 2500+ runs on a 333 FSB so you'd need PC2700 DDR to make full use out of it, PC3200 if you realistically want to hit 3200+ speeds.

Silverpig is correct, so the best you're looking at is 2400+, which is still almost a 50% speed boost, all for $70 or so.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: silverpig
Oh, and the 2500+ runs on a 333 FSB so you'd need PC2700 DDR to make full use out of it, PC3200 if you realistically want to hit 3200+ speeds.

Silverpig is correct, so the best you're looking at is 2400+, which is still almost a 50% speed boost, all for $70 or so.

Along with SSE, data prefetch, and it's cooler running, well worth the money.

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: silverpig
Oh, and the 2500+ runs on a 333 FSB so you'd need PC2700 DDR to make full use out of it, PC3200 if you realistically want to hit 3200+ speeds.

Silverpig is correct, so the best you're looking at is 2400+, which is still almost a 50% speed boost, all for $70 or so.

Along with SSE, data prefetch, and it's cooler running, well worth the money.

y spend more money on faster ram when he already spent so much on pc2100?? you guys heard of async?? its not so bad

 

[Nocturnal]

I'm willing to give up my PC2100 and move onto PC3200 DDR memory.

 

[blodhi74]

went from 1.4 TB with 9700 PRO to Barton 2500+ and an nForce2 board and it unleasehed the true power of the Vid card ... Q3 scores went from 90 FPS to 272 ..... 3DMark 2001 from 9520 to 14728 and all games like UT MOHAA are smooth on 1280*1024 with 6X AA and 16X Aniso .... all that on a budget

 

[EeyoreX]

Personally, I think you answered the question yourself. I upgrade my computer only when it is too slow to do what I want to do. You said yours felt slow, so it's time to upgrade.

\Dan

 

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: blodhi74
went from 1.4 TB with 9700 PRO to Barton 2500+ and an nForce2 board and it unleasehed the true power of the Vid card ... Q3 scores went from 90 FPS to 272 ..... 3DMark 2001 from 9520 to 14728 and all games like UT MOHAA are smooth on 1280*1024 with 6X AA and 16X Aniso .... all that on a budget

Yeah just upgrading to the nForce 2 chipset gives a big boost alone!

 

[JBT]

yikes you havea 9800 XT and a 1.4 T-Bird sorry dude if u were willing to spend like 500 bucks on a vid card you should definatly upgrade the rest. If u have a little bit I would go for an A64 the new 3000+'s are well worth the money I think though u will need ram, mobo and the proc .... so it might not if u are a nit tight just grab a 2400XP and OC it a little bit and you will easily notice the speed in games I felt alot of speed increase when I finally dropped hte old T-Bird and got my XP was well worth the 60 bucks spent for a chip that can get to 2.4 farily easy.

That crucial PC2100 stuff ussually OC's well I run mine at 362 DDR so you can probably expect similar results this is with vdimm of 2.8 though for timmings I have it at 2.5, 2,2,11 on my n force 2

 

[Super6]

I could be wrong but I think your current MB tops out at a 2100 Palomino.

Super6

 

[ViRGE]

No, BIOS 1004 added support for the 2400/2600, and 1005.003 added support for the rest of the 266fsb line(Thorton and the new Durons).

 

[cronos]

I would rather have *more* computers than have just one at the bleeding edge of technology (speed, features, etc). I only use them for work and experimenting OS anyway (I *very* rarely play games) so 1.46 GHz (Athlon XP 1700+) is more than enough to me for my main system.

In addition to the main system I still have a Duron 900, a Celeron 766, and soon a PIII 550, so their total speed is about >3.5 GHz. The total $$$ investment is probably the same with catching up and switch to one 3+ GHz cpu and the most sophisticated graphics card (don't forget I still have to maintain and feed them all with video cards, RAM, harddrives, etc), but with this setup I've got four boxes to play with...

If you feel that it's very slow, why don't you do a clean re-install of your operating system, you would be surprised at how quick everything is all of the sudden..

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
I currently have this setup:

1.4 GHZ T-Bird Athlon
1 GIG of Crucial PC2100 DDR SDRAM non-ecc non-registered
IBM 60GXP 60 GIG HDD
ASUS A7N266-e nForce1 motherboard
Radeon 9800XT Pro 256mb video card
nForce onboard sound

I feel my system is pretty slow! Do you think it's time for an upgrade? I was thinking I just need a better processor and MAYBE an upgrade for my motherboard.

I was thinking a 2500 XP Barton Athlon and an ASUS A7N8X-e Deluxe motherboard.

Is my current setup kinda outdated/slow?

Depends, do you think it's slow? Hell, i thought my system was slow... it was a 1600XP with 1gig of ram, and 8500LE. I was using it on my Sony GDM-FW900 monitor, a 24" monitor, and i was playing in resolution of 1920x1200 and higher, and it was SLOOOOOOW.

I built a new system, 2500XP OCed well over 3200XP speed, using the same videocard for the moment until i get a chance to pick up a 9800XT as well... but i've decided to play games recently on my 1800FP, using my old system, and EVERYTHING is running just fine. KOTOR, Simpsons Hit and Run, Legacy of Kain: Defiance, whatever i throw at it seems to be running great.

 

[magomago]

If you really feel as if your system is that slow, then I would go and try for a A64 3000+ where you will "feel" the most difference

Or if you just don't ahve the money, just switch the 1.4Ghz Tbird with a 2400+ (IE: use same ram), but later down that road get a A64
Either way to get the benefits of sse for windows wouldn't he have to reinstall? I remember reading that Windows itself install with sse instructions assuming the processor supports it, and a Tbird doesn't have them which means that to get the boost the 2400+ offers it would be wise to reinstall

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: saxguy
I would rather have *more* computers than have just one at the bleeding edge of technology (speed, features, etc). I only use them for work and experimenting OS anyway (I *very* rarely play games) so 1.46 GHz (Athlon XP 1700+) is more than enough to me for my main system.

In addition to the main system I still have a Duron 900, a Celeron 766, and soon a PIII 550, so their total speed is about >3.5 GHz. The total $$$ investment is probably the same with catching up and switch to one 3+ GHz cpu and the most sophisticated graphics card (don't forget I still have to maintain and feed them all with video cards, RAM, harddrives, etc), but with this setup I've got four boxes to play with...

That's completely the opposite for me. I have 2 systems, one with an LCD for browsing, the other with a 24" monitor for gaming. That's all i need. And i use multiple OSes too. It's easier to use multiple HDDs/partitions, or even use VM software. Heck, anybody who uses 4 systems to play with 4 different OS is insane IMO. I would just VM them on a single machine, or two. Who has all the space for 4 systems.

 

[drag]

I don't know. If all you do with the 1.4 is email/surf/play some games. Then it isn't a big deal. But if you want to upgrade, I suppose now is a OK time.

Not the greatest, I personally would like to wait for the AMD64 bit stuff to fall down in price, but if a 200 dollar CPU is in your budget then a Athlon64 3000+ would be in order.

Other then the cpu price the only thing I worry about is the upgradability of the motherboard. I generally want to shoot for a motherboard that will last at least 2 generations of CPU's. Something that will support a high bus speed or has good new features like PCI-X and SATA. Even if your not going to need them right now.

For instance my current system uses a k7s5a with a 1700+ that I overclock occasionally up to around 1900+ - 2000+ territory. I started off with a 1.13 thunderbird in this system. So now I have a reasonably fast computer. But in about 6-7 months I'll definately be due for a upgrade, especially since I am getting into all this multimedia stuff and need the high-cpu power for decoding and encoding streams.


Also think about what your going to do with your old setup. It would be a shame to throw away that 1.4ghz cpu, or let it rot on a shelf somewhere.

It would make a great server machine and something to screw around with. A interesting concept I've been thinking about is setting up my computer as not only a file server, but a multimedia server. Like get a TV card, a mpeg card, a large/fast HD, stick a DVD drive in it and stuff like that. Then set up streaming audio and video signals that I can tap into when I want to watch a movie or listen to music. Then I can do high-cpu stuff like play games without any loss in quality of sound or picture.

 

[RandalLovelace]

You system is newer than mine...lol