System upgrade advice please

[veggz]

What's up guys, I'm new to the forums and I was wondering whether anyone could give some insight into upgrades or overclocking options for my system. It's a Dell from a few years back so it kinda sucks but I don't have the money to buy a completely new system yet, maybe just select parts. I use it mainly for basic tasks, and the occasional audio editing and gaming, though I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer. Here are the specs:

PIII 1.0 Ghz processor
256MB SDRAM
(Don't know what kind of motherboard.. would replacing it make a significant performance difference?)
20GB Western Digital HD 2MB cache (primary)
80GB Western Digital HD 8MB cache (slave, use for music/movie storage)
48x/12x/48x Generic brand CD-RW burner
8x/4x/8x burner included with system
Creative Audigy Sound Card
GeForce FX5200 (don't know brand was kinda clueless when I purchased this one)
Windows XP Pro

ok well thanks in advance.. hopefully I will become more educated so I can make these decisions for myself in the future. any feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

[boggsie]

Well, if you perform a serious upgrade, you are probably going to loose the Dell case. Perhaps not, but it is something to consider.

IMHO, your components are satisfactory; not great, but not worth pitching.

Your best bet is a Motherboard, CPU and RAM bundle from somewhere like Fry's or Newegg.

Another option worth considering is watching the For Sale/Trade forum(s) and post a WTB thread with the type of system components you want and the price you are willing to pay. Here on Anandtech, there are a number of enthusiasts that stay on the front edge of hardware purchases. Somebody who fits this description, may be ready to go for a new combination, but need to sell their existing stuff, before they upgrade. You can probably get a very nice P4 or A64 system for a reasonable price.

 

[techwanabe]

Well, I've had some experience trying to upgrade my mom and sisters Dells and quickly found out that your options are limited with Dell. (yep, I have one in my sig too - curses! )

The motherboard and case on Dells are proprietary so you can't toss in a new motherboard and plug the case and PS into it or visa versa. I realized that when I bought my newest computer so I have only myself to blame a few years down the road, but the the $$, I a very good deal.

With Dells, the motherboards probably don't have the tweaking options you need for overclocking either. And IIRC, the Pentium III isn't very friendly to overclock. Probably your best option is to reuse as many parts as possible and build a new machine from scratch based on an AMD platform. Or look for a good Dell deal etc - I haven't seen any really good deals from Dell since last Oct/Nov when they were offering free 19" Flat Panel LCD upgrades etc.

If you build, you're probably going to have to buy a new case/PS, motherboard, CPU and DDR memory - then you can probably re-use the HD, CD, video card, floppy, CRT, Speakers etc. Basically it's going to between $350 and $400 if you go with an Athlon 2500+ Barton or similar platform with 512 mb memory - which would be a nice upgrade.

 

[DaveSimmons]

That's actually a decent system, I was using something similar up until a year ago.

Another 256 MB of PC133 RAM would speed up most tasks, especially some newer games.

Your motherboard probably is a i815 chipset that will accept a maxium of 512 MB RAM, and it has no problem using cheap "high density" PC133.

A good graphics card upgrade for gaming would be a used geforce 4 ti4200.

The FS/T forum here is a good place to buy either.

Of course a full upgrade to an A64 2800+ or faster would be much, much better, but that's going to cost over $600 since you need CPU, mobo, RAM, case/power, and a good video card.

 

[veggz]

Thanks a lot guys, when I get a chance I will look into these upgrades. Was actually just checking out some case deals on newegg that look pretty good. Yeah, I figured Dell would screw me like that too bad I was even more ignorant when I bought this system back then than I am now. I'll probably end up upgrading most of the main components I probably should wait a little bit though being that I just purchased an ipod

 

[imported_Fitz]

Originally posted by: veggz
What's up guys, I'm new to the forums and I was wondering whether anyone could give some insight into upgrades or overclocking options for my system. It's a Dell from a few years back so it kinda sucks but I don't have the money to buy a completely new system yet, maybe just select parts. I use it mainly for basic tasks, and the occasional audio editing and gaming, though I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer. Here are the specs:

PIII 1.0 Ghz processor
256MB SDRAM
(Don't know what kind of motherboard.. would replacing it make a significant performance difference?)
20GB Western Digital HD 2MB cache (primary)
80GB Western Digital HD 8MB cache (slave, use for music/movie storage)
48x/12x/48x Generic brand CD-RW burner
8x/4x/8x burner included with system
Creative Audigy Sound Card
GeForce FX5200 (don't know brand was kinda clueless when I purchased this one)
Windows XP Pro

ok well thanks in advance.. hopefully I will become more educated so I can make these decisions for myself in the future. any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Switching your slave drive 80 gig to master will speed up your system since you have 8 cache ,depending on your MB you could speed up FSB speed a few clicks at a time,

 

[live2game]

Don't get a Geforce 4 ti4200 like Dave Simmons said because FX5200 is better

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: live2game
Don't get a Geforce 4 ti4200 like Dave Simmons said because FX5200 is better

Huh? I thought most of the Nvidia FX line were a more like a step sideways rather than up from the GF4 line. That is what drove people to the Radeon line of cards like 9600, 9700, and 9800 since the FX line was such a disappoinment.

Anyway, if he has the FX5200, he can get by without buying a video card since it will probably do for light casual gaming needs, esp if saving $$ is the goal.