Next upgrade path / advice please

[bernse]

Towards the end of this month, I will have finally some fundage freed up to upgrade my system (IE- The wife might let me). I would like some advice as to what I should get. I am leaning towards new mobo/processor, but some advice with speed and such would be appreciated. System is as follows:

Epox BX3 Mobo
P3-500 (100mhz)
64MB PC100 RAM x2
128MB PC133 RAM
GM Prophet II MX (retail)
SB Live! Value
Fireball CX 13GB HD
LS 120 Superfloppy
LinkSys PCI netcard (ADSL)
KDS 19" monitor
Intelli-eye mouse
19" case w/250W PS (I think)

Thats about it. This system (except the vid card) is about 1-1/2 years old, and still plays most games I own at pretty much full detail 1024x768x16 at very good to excellent framerates. I know that this is going to not be so for much longer though. Budget will be approx $800 to $1000 US (or around $1000-1400 CDN - give or take.. I live in Canada) I know its hard to fortune tell, but if anyone here "in the know" has an idea as to what CPU prices will be around then, that would help for speculating.

Thanks!

Eric

 

[interchange]

Definitely, the CPU is your problem with this system. Even though scaling at higher resolutions is more graphics card dependent, this system is still fine for playing games and will be for a long time. To me, there's no difference between 100 and 50 fps. What you really want is a snappy system that loads programs quickly. To accomplish that, you need a better processor and clock speed. Personally, making the jump from 366 to even 400 when experimenting with the overclocking of my celerons really caught my attention when loading windows.

To squeeze some more performance out of that thing, I would remove the PC 100 DIMMs and see how far that 500 will get you. Generally speaking, 128MB of RAM is not going to be slower than 256MB. If you can get the processor up another 50MHz, it's most likely more than worth it to ditch that RAM.

In addition to the processor, you might wanna pop in a 7200 RPM HDD. For load times, that also makes an enormous difference.

 

[xtreme2k]

I would remove the PC 100 DIMMs and see how far that 500 will get you. Generally speaking, 128MB of RAM is not going to be slower than 256MB. If you can get the processor up another 50MHz, it's most likely more than worth it to ditch that RAM.

i totally disagree the above line if you are running win2000
if running win2000, the extra 128MB RAM HELPS MORE THAN an extra 50MHz from the CPU


your CPU actually seems to be acceptable running most stuff... and i can say that overclocking the cpu to 560MHZ/112 should NOT FORCE YOU TO DROP YOUR PC100 (most PC100 does 124MHz)

your Hard disk seems a bit slow to me
Quantum FB CX is a 5400rpm drive as far as i know

consider an IBM 75GXP 30G and THAT will give you a CONSIDERABLE increase in performance since hard disk performance is a VERY important factor in most home machines. US$800 seems to be a good amount so actually RAID is not impossible (2* 15G IBM is only a US$60 more than a single 30G)

overall i would recommend this upgrade
Tbird 850
Asus A7v
IBM 75GXP 15G *2 (in raid 0)
Iwill SideRaid100

this upgrade will make sure your systems bootup and run ANY apps kicking fast

if you prefer intel
i would use a
P3/700E
Abit CUSL2/CUBX (if your current motherboard doesnt support coppermine)

 

[interchange]

. I completely forgot to add that Win2K footnote. I meant to, honest...

Anyway, I agree on the whole with xtreme2k, but I honestly believe that experimentation is the key.

P.S. Try fooling with CAS latency, BIOS shadowing, virtual memory, and make sure that all drives are operating in DMA mode.

If you need help with anything, post it here.

 

[xtreme2k]

 

[xtreme2k]

CAS Lantency should be set to 2 if possible
Shadowing should be disabled
Virtual Memory should be a specfic size rather than a variable size (i recommend 384MB for a 256MB system on win9x/2k system)
drivers - make sure they are updated
drives should be SCSI if you have the $ and are defragged at least once a month

 

[bernse]

I use Win98SE.. forgot to mention that. Sorry!

Keep it coming guys, I really appreciate the input.

Eric

 

[xtreme2k]

well it is better to have 256MB than have 128MB regardless of operating system

keep the 256MB in even with 98se

 

[Prodigy^]

definitely go for a 128 Mb stick of RAM, it'll speed up loading of everything, and cause MUCH less swapfile usage....

please trust me, a PIII 500 is a fine CPU, no need to upgrade that yet

 

[Relf Lauren]

Save the money, spend it on your wife, and life a happier life

But seriously, I personally think your computer is fine, but if you need to upgrade, get a faster processor!

Relf Lauren

 

[bernse]

I have had a few people now saw my system is still more than adequate for the time being. I guess it still is pretty good too, since I can play Elite Force at 1280x1024x16 and quite fast. So, the next question is, and I hope I don't sound like a broken record, is how long until you think I will -need- to upgrade it? I do like to play the newer games, and I will certainly be buying Halo and TF2 when they come out.

Next spring until a rebuild perhaps?

 

[Noriaki]

I think i'd upgrade the hard drive...but that's about it. That system is fine mostly....your CPU will probably be the next thing that needs to go, but for now it's OK, especially if it's a coppermine, even if it's not, it's still fast enough for a while yet.

I would not use IDE RAID...software based and munches the CPU cycles, it improves hard drive performance, but takes CPU time.
But that's me, maybe you'd need the extra hard drive performance more.

If you are really itching to upgrade get an Adaptec 19160 or 29160N and a Quantum 10k II .

 

[AMB]

I think that you should get a new hard drive,

 

[bernse]

Costco has a good deal on a Maxtor 30GB DiamondMax (I think) 7200RPM UDMA66 (which is what my mobo has). Would the consensus be that is a good step up?

Eric