Need Suggestions for CPU/Mobo Upgrade under $150

[petepham]

I am looking to upgrade to a CPU/Mobo hopefully under $150. I will keep the following in my system:

384 PC133 SDRAM
Creative 52X CDRom
Maxtor 30G 7200 HD
Geforce2 MX 32mb (original)
AOpen Yamaha Chipset Sound Card
3Com NIC --- *ISA* (willing to replace w/ cheap PCI NIC)
Generic Case w/ 250W Powersupply

Any suggestions? I am hoping that I can use AMD processors with the 250W Power supply.

 

[ctucker]

You can get an ECS K7S5A motherboard for $52 (or near) at outpost.com
You can get an AMD XP 1800+ for $99 + $6.95 shipping at http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=1641

I know this goes a bit over your price range, but the ECS motherboard includes onboard NIC, so that should help. I also understand that this board will work with all of the XP's and upcoming XP's plus the upcoming thoroughbreds, so it's very upgradable. I'd recommend you upgrade your vid card sometime too.

 

[Windogg]

Depends on how many DIMMs your RAM comes in. The ECS is decent but only comes with 2 168pin DIMM slots which means if you have 3 x 128MB, you can only use 256MB of your RAM. Plus the ECS can be picky about power supplies. Tack on a TBird or XP and you could be asking for trouble.

Instead go with a nice KT133A based mobo like the Soltek SL-75KAV for $67 @ Newegg, Shuttle AK12 for $49 (after $5 discount with Duron purchase), or the Abit KT7A for $83 also from NewEgg. Both have a ISA slot for your NIC. They also have 3 DIMM slots for your memory. Then drop in a nice Morgan-based Duron. The 1Ghz retail pack with heatsink/fan goes for $53, 1.2Ghz retail for $69, or 1.3Ghz for $82.

Hope this helps.

Windogg

 

[tenoc]

The K7S5A will be unhappy with a 250W psu. 🙁

 

[kehi]

I second that. SPend some extra cash and get at least a 350W psu. Hope this helps

 

[petepham]

I am looking at a KT133A solution and an Athlon XP 1800+. Will my 250W PS be sufficient?

 

[jcmkk]

Yea, 250W should be sufficient with a KT133A. PSU requirements didn't seem to be that high until DDR showed up.

 

[Athlon4all]

<< Yea, 250W should be sufficient with a KT133A. PSU requirements didn't seem to be that high until DDR showed up. >>

I wouldn't say that. If anything, DDR is less powe dependant and SDR because it operates at 2.5v while SDRAM is 3.3v.

I think that with your configuration, a XP 1800+ should be able to manage ok. Just, don't expect to add any drives or upgeade the video card.

I would not recommend K7S5A without a top quality PS, so I don't think that's an option. I'd say IWill KK266+ bvut it runs around $100. I honestly don't know much about KT133A Mobo's except the 3 most popular were KK266, Asus A7V133 and Abit KT7A. I would avoid KT7A because of the issues that different revisions have with Athlon XP's. Good luck!! I would also, consider like Windogg did, maybe getting a Morgan 1GHz or so. That would let you get a KK266+, and the Morgan, while won't quite be quite as fast as the XP 1800+, even if you oc'ed it to 266fsb, but you should consider that. Good luck!!!