Should I upgrade or No?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
C

cscottm90

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2007
9
0
0
I was thinking about upgrading some of the parts in my system, but wasn't sure if its worth the money or not.

My current system:

2- 1 gig DDR 400mhz sticks
Intel 6300 C2D
AIW 8500 AGP
Sata II 500 gig (using as Sata
Sata II 400 Gig (Using as Sata)
Some cheap ECS motherboard (can't remember the exact model at the moment)
Pioneer 16x DL dvd burner


What I was thinking to doing to:

2 - 1 gig DDR-2 800mhz sticks
Same processor, HD's & Dvd drive
New pci-e video card (not exactly sure which one yet)

Fairly cheap, but decent motherboard that might be able to overclock but haven't decided if I want to OC


My problem/question is on how much of a difference in speed or performance would I see in:

Going from DDR to DDR 2 ram and actually being able to use the drive as SATA II

For the video card, I was thinking of one costing around $100.

 
aigomorla

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
21,052
3,533
126
Originally posted by: cscottm90
I was thinking about upgrading some of the parts in my system, but wasn't sure if its worth the money or not.

My current system:

2- 1 gig DDR 400mhz sticks
Intel 6300 C2D
AIW 8500 AGP
Sata II 500 gig (using as Sata
Sata II 400 Gig (Using as Sata)
Some cheap ECS motherboard (can't remember the exact model at the moment)
Pioneer 16x DL dvd burner


What I was thinking to doing to:

2 - 1 gig DDR-2 800mhz sticks
Same processor, HD's & Dvd drive
New pci-e video card (not exactly sure which one yet)

Fairly cheap, but decent motherboard that might be able to overclock but haven't decided if I want to OC


My problem/question is on how much of a difference in speed or performance would I see in:

Going from DDR to DDR 2 ram and actually being able to use the drive as SATA II

For the video card, I was thinking of one costing around $100.
Click to expand...


id actually think of replacing that board with it. That ECS has the be the most craptasic board ive ever used. I got one free from fry,s it ended up going right on fleabay.


also correct me if im wrong, is that the VIA chipset? I think it plays funny with ram higher then DDR533 at 2gigs. However im not too sure, you should ask a fellow member. I remember that stupid thing wouldnt boot up with 667mhz 2gig ram.
 
Rottie

Rottie

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2002
4,795
2
81
upgrade to Radeon X1950XT/Pro AGP card if you plan to keep same ECS motherboard. Oh by the way you will need a bigger powerful PSU (450w and up) to work with X1950XT/Pro card
 
C

cscottm90

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2007
9
0
0
It was the free one from Fry's. I can actually say that it has been working fine for the most part I think the Pro800V-M2 or something like that. If I was to get faster ram, I would probably get another board that could handle the full speed of it.

If I was to just keep what I have, I would probably get a more decent agp video card.

The one thing I forgot to add was that I wanted to be able to do just about anything from playing games to video editing

[/quote]


id actually think of replacing that board with it. That ECS has the be the most craptasic board ive ever used. I got one free from fry,s it ended up going right on fleabay.


also correct me if im wrong, is that the VIA chipset? I think it plays funny with ram higher then DDR533 at 2gigs. However im not too sure, you should ask a fellow member. I remember that stupid thing wouldnt boot up with 667mhz 2gig ram.[/quote]

 
Rottie

Rottie

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2002
4,795
2
81
my trusty ECS mobo runs perfectly with Maya 3ds max Adobe CS2 they run super fast like C2D :)
 
N

nyker96

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2005
5,630
2
81
sure I think you can benefit from an upgrade , take a new pci-e board like DS3//p5n-e and combo it with 2x1gb DDR2 and a decent g-card like 8800 and you got a kickass upgrade.
 
C

cscottm90

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2007
9
0
0
Now from the looks of it, it looks like the motherboard is $150 & the video card is around $400. The problem is that I don't want to spend that much. I figured I want to spend around $300 for board, memory & video card.

The least I want to do is upgrade my AGP card, but willing to upgrade to PCI-E & DDR2, if I would notice a good difference for the $300.
 
Phynaz

Phynaz

Lifer
Mar 13, 2006
10,140
819
126
Nobody has yet asked you the key question:

What do you do with this computer?
 
shady28

shady28

Platinum Member
Apr 11, 2004
2,520
397
126

I hate to tell you, but with the exception of your video card you won't notice much difference.

There's a review of an asrock 4coredual at the below link, a board that uses pci-e with the same chipset as you currently have. It sounds like you have an agp only box atm.

http://www.pro-clockers.com/review.php?id=207

You can see by the review, and comparison to some DDR2 only 965 chipset boards, the difference between DDR400 and DDR667 on a normal Intel chipset is 0 - 10%, *all else being equal*.

With a $300 budget, what you're looks for is a pretty tall order. There are three ways to go about it :

1 - Get a good 'normal' C2D mobo and with integrated graphics on the mobo, and use the integrated graphics. Pop for 2GB of DDR2 - 800 RAM. Suggest getting a mobo that uses the X3000 integrated video - it's a lot faster than the older integrated graphics. This means a G965 chipset. Cost is about $90-100 for mobo, $140 for 2 Gig of DDR2 800 RAM.

2 - Snag a mobo like the ASRock that supports DDR 400 and PCI-e x16 graphics. The ASRock is about $60, then you can stick a $200 PCI-e video card on it and for about $260 you've taken care of the slowest part of your box and can go to DDR2 whenever you feel the need.

3 - Pop for a good AGP card. There are still good AGP performers under $200 out there.


IMHO, I think option 1 or 3 is best. The 8500 is a really old card, I'm pretty sure the X3000 will match up against it well, and you'll be ready for a PCI-e card as soon as cash allows (and most anything over $60 or so on PCI-e will be faster than the 8500).

 
C

cscottm90

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2007
9
0
0
At the moment I'm pretty much just surfing the web, but pretty soon I want do some video editing & play some of today's game (WOW, Flight Sim X, etc) I wanted to try to make something or upgrade the parts that needed to be upgraded.
Originally posted by: Phynaz
Nobody has yet asked you the key question:

What do you do with this computer?
Click to expand...

 
myocardia

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
C

cscottm90

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2007
9
0
0
That in a way is what I wanted to hear. I didn't want to really spend any money if I wasn't going to see in a way, a major performance increase (for the money). I would agree that at least I need to upgrade my video card & have a couple that I am looking at


Originally posted by: shady28

I hate to tell you, but with the exception of your video card you won't notice much difference.
Click to expand...
 
aigomorla

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
21,052
3,533
126
hey op, theres another thread on this subject matter floating around. You should do a search on the board.

The op of that thread replaced his ram to DDR2 and saw almost no benifit.

Your board which has agp, and ddr2, does not have a native ddr2 controler like all the new c2d boards are, so a ram upgrade wont be very much noticible, unless you double the amount of ram your installing.


Just play with the board until it either dies, or you get bored of it. Then replace your board. As of this point a AGP upgrade is not worth it. Unless you can get a cheap ATi 850. When i say cheap i mean sub 75 dollars also.


Either way i see it, any upgrade on that system without replaceing the board would be bleeding money.
 
C

cscottm90

Junior Member
Mar 19, 2007
9
0
0
From the sounds of it, besides replacing the video card, I would probably not see a difference if I was to switch to DDR2 or goto PCI-E. So I will be go about just replacing the video card to a more newer model.

Thanks everyone
 
Rottie

Rottie

Diamond Member
Feb 10, 2002
4,795
2
81
ATI Radeon X1950XT/Pro AGP card is the fast card than X850 if you want a fast AGP card.
 
myocardia

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Originally posted by: Rottie
you are talking about AM2 cpu but mine is socket 939 cpu.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and "upgrading" to DDR2 only cost the AM2 cpu's between 0 & 5% performance, at the same speeds as a Skt. 939 chip. Here's another comparison for you: the E6600 destroying the FX-60 & the FX-62. Note that the FX-60 is Skt. 939, but is 200 Mhz faster per core than your 4800, and the FX-62 is 2.8 Ghz per core.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom