On a budget upgrade.

[AtomicX]

I'm running a AMD K6-2 450 with 320mb PC100 ram old FIC PA-20123 MB and a Voodoo2 12mb with Creative TNT2 Ultra 32mb.


I would just for now like to upgrade my Mother Board to something that i can expand with and a fairly cheap cpu, at least better than a 450 haha. AMD or Intel, I'm looking for the cheapest route with the most bang for the buck$.

the vid card i'll worrry about later, any suggestions?

 

[Vette73]

Best bang for your buck is to get a Shuttle MN31N

It has onboard video that is better then what you have now, add in a cheap Athlon XP (Like A 1700+) and you have cheap, fast, and stable.

 

[o1die]

Good suggestion. The shuttle board will run you about $75, and an xp1700 refurbished goes for only $30 at newegg when in stock. Add a stick of 256 megs of pc2700 for about $45 and a refurb 350 watt generic power supply (about $5 shipped, when available), and you have a cheap upgrade.

 

[Soapm]

I just bought and built a Shuttle MN31N for my daughter. I will admit that it was the easiest upgrade to date. My only problem is that I thought XP would load adequate drivers but after a bit I loaded the drivers from the Shuttle disk and never looked back.

 

[pspada]

If you happen to be near a Fry's, get the dealie of the week, an AMD OEM Athlon XP (1800+ through 2400+) with the ECS K7S5A Pro mobo for $100 or less.

 

[AtomicX]

ahh i wish, but i live in canada. Here's some of the sites I've been checking out, if u feel like check it out.

Just curious, would it better to get AMD or Intel MB with cheap cpu ofr down the road. Either or is no preference, MB is my main concern then the cpu etc.


http://www.tigerdirect.ca/

http://www.mydreamingpc.com/

http://www.ncix.com/

http://www.best4money.com/

http://www.maximillion.net/

all canadian prices

 

[Peter]

Your lowest cost option would be to keep everything but the mainboard and CPU, and go with an SDRAM supporting board like the ECS K7S5A, and a Duron 1200 or 1300. These CPUs run a 100 MHz front side bus, and let you reuse the PC100 RAM you have there. With an upgrade path to faster CPUs and DDR RAM, on the same board.
And that board also still supports your TNT2 graphics card.

Please mind: The one thing that you'll possibly have to upgrade whatever you choose is the power supply unit.

 

[AtomicX]

TY Peter, I was also looking into that (reusing my existing PC100-133 ram) and wasn't hoping to bottleneck my future solutions with the MB. If you have anymore suggestion please reply, and thx all for taking the time.:beer:

I currently have a 300W atx power supply(need a 350 to 400W?), and curious which option is better AMD/Intel for OC'ing?

 

[Peter]

You'll find that a DDR-or-SDR board like the K7S5A isn't much slower than pure DDR solutions. The only things you don't get is 166/200 MHz front side bus and 8x AGP. The latter isn't limiting you at all, nor does it cost any performance - and there is plenty of CPU headroom from a 1300/100 Duron to, say, a 2400/133 Athlon XP.
Starting out with 1300/100 Duron and your existing SDRAM and graphics card, and then gradually stepping up with faster graphics, DDR RAM, and a faster CPU - doesn't that sound like a plan?

 

[colonel]

get the Soltek board SL-400 for $70 good mobo and is cheap like the Shuttlhttp you can find it in http://www.ncix.com/

 

[AtomicX]

hmm sounds interesting, alot more clearer. If Iwent with the K7S5A and say a higher cpu. Should at least push me past this old 450 plus old PII 266 collecting dust.

I'm a gamer by choice, and i just dont have the funds for a "killer" pc at the moment but would like to just crank it up a notch. thx again peter, now im thoroughly contemplating here lol


also what sort of power supply would I b lookng at? I'm still using this 300w from my old PII and now my AMD 450, dam nthing is 6 yrs old.

 

[Peter]

You can't use a higher CPU with PC100 RAM, since everything above Duron 1300 uses a 133 MHz bus. Also, with a strong CPU you certainly won't get away with using that old and weak a power supply.

 

[AtomicX]

Good call, I've been reading up on the board and what cpu to use with my ram, yes sir your right about the FSB on the Duron 1.3 is the max i could go before uping my ram. Right on!


I could go the way of a barebones and pay a bit more, I'm not sure.

I found the ECS K7S5A PRO W/ Duron 1.3g for 150-60 CDN. same price each 68$

Also what about the Intel way? Also onboard Graphics?

Decisions......

thx for the 4-11 Peter, Much appreciated!

 

[Peter]

P4 platform processors are much more dependent on good RAM speed than Athlons. P4, or worse a P4 Celeron, combined with SDR RAM is going to stink, performance wise. Athlons are more intelligent in using their caches, you're not going to notice as much a speed loss with them as with P4s.

Integrated graphics ... there's another ECS board K7SOM+ (aka M810D) which, in its previous revision, also allowed either SDR or DDR RAM. However, integrated graphics works better the faster your RAM is, so with PC100 SDR RAM this is not going to be much fun either.

Go with the K7S5A - this lets you replace every single piece of your puzzle with something better, for a long time.

 

[fxsts]

I would recommend you getting Athlon XP 1700+ or 1800+ and running it on 100Mhz bus than getting a Duron.

 

[Vette73]

You did say "Bang for the buck" So kick the Sdram to the curb.

Gte a DDR board (Liek MN31N), Ram (look in hot deals for some cheap rebate ram), and a Athlon 1700+ or so.

This will allow support for future upgrades in memory, CPU's, and video cards. Spend a little now, save a lot later.

 

[Spike]

the K7S5A is a great route. I had one with a old Athon 1ghz and 512 pc-133 ram. Next thing I went to a 1.4ghz Athlon (still a t-Bird). Then I won a 1800+ and put that on with some new ram (512 DDR). This board was great as a step-by-step upgrading board.

The 300 watt might work (It did for me) but that was probably an exception to the rule rather than the rule itself. It's always nice to get some head room with a PSU, that way you know for sure that it will be enough.

If you want to do some gaming then in the near future you should upgrade the video. I have plenty of friends who are budget gamers (like me) and recently we have noticed cards like the GeForce4 Ti4200, the FX5200 and some of the ATI's (9500 and 9600) going for killer prices. I am a ATI fan but watch those geforce 4 and FX prices, they are not so bad, especially when you can get the 4200 for like $50.

I recently retired my K7S5A... but It will still serve me in a future server. One of the best boards I have owned

-spike

 

[AtomicX]

YA I've been looking at the Nforce Nvidia(video onboard??) stuff on the MB now, damn I guess I'm sounding totally old school on here( Coming from the good ole commadore days)


What i just did past mth was my buddy gave me his old MBcombo, (FIC PA-2013 100mhz fsb with a K6-2 450) I took my(PII266 w/Asus PL297MB) out and built it around my buds combo with a voodoo2 12mb which I'm presently on right now and old 4mb primary. Nice increase in gaming FPS, etc. from the PII266 to the AMD450.

Now I just got my hands on a Creative TNT2 Ultra 32mb AGP card(free thx to a great bud) and was going to use that for my Primary 2-d and 3-d for opengl and d3d, leave the Voodoo2 PCI for GLIDE if ever again.


I'l lwait till the new CPU come out and go from there before anything heavy!

but im seriously looking into the ECS board but what CPU!!!! Duron Athlon I'm kinda lost on which is which for bus speeds and workable on this MB.

Is this MB OC'able? if so which CPU to use. also a good vidcard to use on it?

 

[Spike]

this board does not really like to be overclocked, I never had any luck and the friends who had it did not do well either. As for what cpu's it works with... it can go up to 133 fsb (266 effective due to DDR). This means any of the durons (I believe) and any of the original Athlons and Athlon XP's with the palamino core will work on it. Anything above 133 bus (the T-bred and barton) will not work on this board.

That being said you can get a cheap xp1700-2400+ for this board, all of which will work on it. It can take DDR ram up to DDR266 (well, it can take higher, it just won't run at that speed) One nice thing about the board is that it can take a fsb 100 cpu and 133 DDR ram or SDRAM and you can run them independantly. ie, you can have the CPU at 100fsb and the ram at 133/266. This makes a nice option if you want to get a really cheap old Athlon Thunderbird (they go up to 1.4ghz)

I would find a soundcard as the onboard sound sucks, but the onboard lan works wonderfully. One thing should be noted, I got the first version of the K7S5A (old rev 1.0) when it came out, so my specs can be a bit off. For instance I hear the new board has USB 2.0 where mine did not. I am not sure if the sound was changed on the new version but mine sucked, get a cheap SBlive value for decent but not too pricey sound.

Oh, you can use pretty much any vid car with it, but the AGP only goes up to 4x. Also the slot is not a pro, so don't try to use those rare agp pro only vid cards. I ran an old Radeon LE up to a Radeon 8500 on the board with no problems. You can get a low price Radeon or a GeForce 4/FX for under $100 if you want a good budget cards, just stay away from the 7000 series Radeons and the MX versions of the GeForce, they are not worth the money as faster solutions can be found for less.

hope that helps

-spike

EDIT I am not so sure about the processor cores, all I know is it can take up to a 266fsb, so don't get anything with a 333 or 400fsb. Seems that there are T-bred cpu's that are at 266fsb so I assume they will work on the board

 

[AtomicX]

Yes thx a million Spike, alot of good info there chief. I love the price of the ECS MB but just can't make a decision on $ if to go for a but better MB for gaming +CPU and ram. All of my old parts i will use for future pcs to run in a network.

Is the ECS K7S5A a gaming MB?

For 160$ i could get the MB and 1.3duron, but say for 300$ i could get a Asus or abit Nvidia MB with 333fsb.

ahh man i can't decide!

 

[Peter]

How many other nice things do you get for the $140 difference? That should do for a really nice graphics card and a decent power supply. That's definitely way too much spent for the tiny performance delta between 133 and 166 MHz front side bus.

 

[AtomicX]

so 100/133 to to 266 fsb a good leap but 266 to 333 not a major concern
I just seeing a athlon 2500+ for 105CDN, just why im reconsidering. Get a Faster more exspensive MB Nforce i guess, and a cheap CPU with some ram. how much a TNT2 ultra AGP/Voodoo2 PCI bottleneck it or would it even work with a newest MB?

I just thinking, I could get the ECS K7S5AMB and a Duron1.3 or a diff what do u all think for the cpu at 100/133 bus 1st off?

Or

I could get a newer MB 333FSB with a 2500+ and 256-512ram for around 280-350+ CDN and take this MB/cpu and use later for a network with my old PII


YA both think the ECS K7S5A will do? but fro ma 450 to a duron or athlon at 100/133 fsb a big huge leap?

 

[vcarpio2]

How about ASRock boards? They're made by Asus. I built one for my son about a year ago and it's rock stable and installation was smooth (both HW and OS). A quick check on Pricewatch shows the P4 Via chipset based mobos start at $38. Wow, I got my son's for $70 on eBay when they weren't distributed in the US yet...

Also, I chose ASRock then because I wanted to use my old SDR RAM. I have since replaced them with DDR.

 

[pspada]

Avoid the Duron, you won't be happy. Instead get one of the low end Athlon XP chips, and underclock it (run it at 100fsb) until you can get new memory. Much more value, less to spend down the road.

 

[Peter]

What is being advertized as "FSB266" _is_ 133 MHz.