Low budget upgrade and DDR vs. SDRAM

[GnatGoSplat]

I have 2 old Slot1 machines that I have allowed to get pretty outdated, but that's mainly because they've been plenty fast enough for what my wife and I need them for. One has an Abit SH6 mobo and the other has an Abit BH6 mobo. Both have Celeron 300A CPU's overclocked to 4.5x100FSB (450MHz) and 512MB of SDRAM.

Anyway, I've considered upgrading one just so it's a bit snappier when I resample huge pics in Photoshop, and upgrading the other so my wife and I can occasionally play some of the newer games.

My thoughts on the 1st machine (no game play on this one, mostly web and manipulating photos):
- Upgrade budget around $100.
- Abit BL7 motherboard. This is a Socket 478, 845-chipset board that supports old PC133 SDRAM.
- P4-based Intel Celeron processor around 1.7GHz.

My thoughts on the 2nd machine (basic web and occasional game usage):
- Upgrade budget around $150.
- ECS K7S5A SiS® 735 SOCKET A MOTHERBOARD
- AMD XP1600+ CPU
- ATI 9700 video card or GeForce4 TI4200 if I can find one <$100.

My choice on motherboards allows me to keep my 512MB of SDRAM.
Changing motherboards is no big deal to me, so I figure if DDR eventually becomes cheap like SDRAM, I can just swap the motherboard.
However, since PC133 is worth half of DDR, I could always sell my 512MB PC133 and buy 256MB DDR and break even. Would I get better overall performance by using a DDR-based motherboard and 256MB of DDR as opposed to 512MB of PC133? Or is it better to have more RAM than faster RAM?
Also, on the 1st machine, I mainly only run business apps, web stuff, etc. I could probably upgrade to a 1.2GHz P3-based Celeron with a slocket. Is there any reason why that would be better route than a P4-based Celeron 1.7GHz? I'm considering the P4-based Celeron simply because it's really not hardly any higher in price than a slightly slower MHz P3-based.

I really want to keep my upgrade budget low. One of my diehard gamer friends thinks I'm nuts for even considering to stick with "old tech" (PC133 and older chipsets) but honestly, my Celerons running @450MHz are just fine. I don't care about having the latest and greatest. I'm just looking for a little boost on one, and ability to play newer games on the other.

 

[bgeh]

if possible get amd on your first machine or get ddr for the intel.
this is because the celeron 1.7 is based on the p4 architecture.
the p4 architecture needs a lot of bandwidth which the sdram can't provide

 

[Zelly]

- ATI 9700 video card or GeForce4 TI4200 if I can find one <$100

You won't find one of the 9700's for under $225 and the TI4200's run about $150. I would look into a Radon 8500 or a 9000 you can grab them for under $100 and they will be more than enough to handle the gaming you will be doing.

 

[PCHPlayer]

Be careful with the K7S5A (I have one). It needs a good power supply, at least 300 watts.

 

[Soulkeeper]

someone i know has a K7S5A and it just started frying cpu's
it is very cheap and a risk
i guess i have nothing against the sis 735 chipset tho

i wouldn't touch the P4 celeron
and if yur gonna try to get a top end vid card and skimp on everything else yur not balancing things
you won't be able to use the vid card to it's full potential

sometimes you can find good deals on computer parts in the refurbished area on newegg i would check that out if i was you
i saw some kt333 motherboards there for under 40 bucks the other day

 

[Peter]

K7S5A a risk? Nah. It's only that cheap stuff attracts more cheap stuff - and with power supplies in particular, cheap DOES mean risky. That's also what gets your boards damaged and CPUs toasted, mostly. If the input voltages go out of whack, the mainboard can do little to save your stuff.

 

[GnatGoSplat]

Oops, if the ATI 9700 is that expensive, I must have meant 9000. My friend sent me a link for one around $60-70 at Newegg. I forgot the # since that email is on my home machine, but I know it started with 9.
I have seen Geforce4 TI4200's w/64MB for less than $100 on the Hot Deals forum though.

I did notice on one review that a mobo w/256MB DDR performed a bit better than one with 512MB PC133, so I might end up going that route.

 

[mechBgon]

If the Ti4200 video card costs $90, I don't see how you expect to get a K7S5A, a 1600+ and a suitable heatsink (not to mention power supply) for the remaining $60. Or am I missing something?

I second the motion to steer clear of the laughable Celeron 1.7GHz entirely. Get a real Pentium4 1.6A or 1.8A if you are getting Intel for that system, and get an i845E, i845G, i845PE or i845GE board and DDR memory so it realizes its potential fairly well (truly maxing its performance would call for RDRAM). A retail-boxed 1.8A, an i845PE board from MSI, a Sparkle Power 350W PSU and 512Mb of Crucial PC2700 are about $460 (memory from Crucial, other stuff from online vendor).

Or if you're considering AMD, I've been really happy with my A7N266-VM's and Crucial PC2100 DDR: Turbo and the "kids" (19 A7N266-VM systems). The board, 512Mb of Crucial PC2100, a Sparkle Power 350W power supply and a retail-boxed AthlonXP 1700+ will set you back $335 shipped (memory direct from Crucial, everything else from Newegg or other online vendor).

If you want to re-use your PC133 (assuming your 512Mb is in fact PC133 and not PC100), then consider a KM266-based board like the Biostar M7VIG, which has both DDR and SDR memory slots (2 of each type). You can run an AthlonXP or Duron in that board. Still a good idea to pick up a nice strong PSU with any modern system. Since the RAM is a large chunk of the previous two suggestions, pricewise, this would really cut down the impact. A M7VIG, a retail 1700+ and a PSU would set you back about $175.

 

[Ketchup]

OK, here comes my 2 cents:

The ECS K7S5A has been a good motherboard for me. I built a system using the motherboard for my mother. It has a Duron 800 and a 250-watt P.S. and she loves it, and it has been running strong for a year.

Since your budget is pretty tight, you should probably go with AMD for both systems. The AMD XP1600 is only $54 at Newegg, and with the ECS K7S5A, you can pair it with SDRAM which is cheap as dirt right now.

Whatever you do, please don't waste your money on a Celeron. The XP1600 is half the price of the Celeron 1.7, and is MUCH faster. Also, SDRAM will choke a Celeron, as it is designed to run on 4 times the bandwidth regular SDRAM provides.

For your gaming system, a Radeon 8500LE is a great card for a great price. I had one for a while, and it did very well once ATI released some decent drivers for it. You can find a new one for $72. This is an excellent choice from a price/performance standpoint. The 9700 and ti4200 are great cards, but I don't see how you can afford them with the budget you have stated.

 

[Vette73]

Friedns don't let friends get P4 celerons.

Make your first system a Athlon XP 1500, 1600, or go to the FS forum and try to find a 1.1ghz or faster Duron

AMD chips do OK with Sdram, but Intel needs at least DDR.

May cost a little now but in the long run will do better

 

[Soulkeeper]

K7S5A is a risk

 

[touchmyichi]

i'd just go a kt333 mobo, those are pretty well priced. Check newegg.com. Then get 256 pc 2100 ddr for 50 and 50 for your processor.

 

[Jhhnn]

Whoa, take it easy....

You don't have to go wild or spend much $$ at all to get what you want. Both boards are very upgradeable. Using fcpga coppermine celerons of 1gig or so on slotkets and Radeon 9000 vidcards will get you where you want to go, cheap and easy. Might need to flash the bios, then just install the new parts. No reloading the OS, fighting with drivers, nada. Strictly PnP.

With doubling the processor speed and the late model vidcard, the difference is remarkable, and could carry you for quite a while. Save your money to build something really fast down the road.....

I've done well using the generic "super slotket III" for this- they're readily available and seem to do the job.

Both machines can be upgraded this way for ~$160-$175 each. Going in the directions you've stated would be on the order of at least twice as much, realistically, and you won't see twice the money's worth in terms of performance with what you're doing. Not to mention the amount of work and the possibility of needing new psu's, particularly on any AMD solution.

As has been stated, the P4 based celerons are, uhh, not really much of an upgrade path. The radically different architecture of the P4 demands large cache and memory bandwidth, you'll have neither.

Just one old guy's pov...