Tax return + Upgrade needed + Clueless = Help needed!

[evilsaint]

Well, while waiting for my tax return to come this year, i'm already planning the deduction of about half of it from my bank account as soon as it arrives, though I need a little help from anybody who is willing on deciding just what to deduct those funds to purchase

Step back momentarily for a bit of history : Since her first startup about 2 1/2 years ago, my baby Redeye (specs below) has positively torn sh!t up :

18K+ score in 3DMark2001 non-OC'd "out-of-the-box" (Was a high-score at the time) - a cake-walk.
Running around the IronForge AH in WoW @ 7pm on a weeknight with the visuals turned up - 50FPS.
Rendering complex 3DSMax movies - Like a ninja.
14 Firefox windows open, iTunes blaring, Azureus with 8 torrents going sucking up memory, installing Quake 4, and still flitting around without the slightest delay - done

Alas, i'm starting to realize that Redeye just can't always hack it anymore with all these newfangled games and apps coming out... even after a formatting of both drives, a fresh XP Pro install, and a re-tweaking/slight overclocking. She deserves better...

Anyways, i'll dispense with the sappiness and cut to the chase : I need to find out which upgrades will help benefit the most, but I still have no clue despite the myriad of upgrading articles i've gone through in the last two hours. To clarify, the gains that i'd like to see most are A : Added FPS and moreso, a dissapearance of the jitters in some of the newer uber-graphics-intensive games out there, B : to speed up loading and installation times of games and apps, and C : to help out video rendering times in 3DSMax7. Some added HD space wouldn't be bad either... All those Nip/Tuck episodes need to go somewhere

Redeye's current configuation :

Asus A7N8X Deluxe (NForce2 Chipset, 333/400 FSB)
Athlon XP 2500+ Barton Core (333Mhz FSB, extra L1/L2 cache)
512MB Corsair TwinX Dual-channel PC2700 DDR
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (AGP 8X)
PCI SB Audigy
WD 80&120 SE's (7.2K, 8MB Cache) running @ UDMA5
Plextor PlexWriter 48/24/48A and a Sony 16x DVD drive
Plenty of proper case ventilation and 430W of clean power (Thermaltake makes great PSU's; who woulda thunk it?)
XP Pro SP2 trimmed down to run with as little excess crap in the background as possible.

I've narrowed it down to a few upgrade options that i've already priced out, but feel free to point out which choices seem best, or to suggest alternatives if you know of them. I really haven't kept up with the newer technology much at all since I built this system, so i'm pretty far out of the loop, but nonetheless i've ranked my choices top to bottom.

Lastly, no matter what, i'll be buying at least one SATA drive and a PCI controller for it, as I don't really trust the on-board one given it's age, and as it doesn't support SATA300. A PCI controller would be faster than an onboard one anyways, right? And how much of an advantage does SATA300 have over SATA150?

1. 2GB Corsair TwinX Matched-pair Dual-channel PC3200 DDR - $198 total
2. WD Raptor 74GB 10K 8MB SATA150 to replace my main HD - $180 + S/H
3. An AGP videocard with 256MB memory and at least a 400-450mhz bus (Really need help on this front... cheaper-brand X700/X800?)
4. WD Caviar SE16 320GB 7.2K 16MB SATA300 to replace my main HD - $150 + S/H
5. Sempron processor, or maybe an XP3200, or an XP3000 w/ the Barton Core (Probably wouldn't be very cost-efficient?)

Anyways, i'll stop jabbering and hope that you guys can make sense of what might be best for my baby... many thanks in advance, especially to the people who've actually read all the way through this

 

[kmrivers]

personally. i would sell of the base of that unit. motherboard, cpu, ram and take that box into the next realm. Athlon 64, PCi-X, DDR-400 etc. If your next upgrade will be 2 1/2 years from now this would be well worth it.

however your choices seem to be good if you just want to refresh a few things. To me it seems a bit pricy for such an old computer. With the prices you have listed you are well on your way to a brand new machine. How much are you looking to spend exactly?

Maybe something like this:
Athlon X2 3800+
DFI or ePox board would give you some overclocking
1GB dual channel DDR 400
PCI-ex 6600GT or equivelent ATI - maybe something faster depending on your needs.
As many hard drives as you want to through in there. With the remaining buget.

You could sell the other parts and put it towards that as well.

So the question is: Do you want to move into the future? Or make and old friend new? Good luck!

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: kmrivers
personally. i would sell of the base of that unit. motherboard, cpu, ram and take that box into the next realm. Athlon 64, PCi-X, DDR-400 etc. If your next upgrade will be 2 1/2 years from now this would be well worth it.

however your choices seem to be good if you just want to refresh a few things. To me it seems a bit pricy for such an old computer. With the prices you have listed you are well on your way to a brand new machine. How much are you looking to spend exactly?

Maybe something like this:
Athlon X2 3800+
DFI or ePox board would give you some overclocking
1GB dual channel DDR 400
PCI-ex 6600GT or equivelent ATI - maybe something faster depending on your needs.
As many hard drives as you want to through in there. With the remaining buget.

You could sell the other parts and put it towards that as well.

So the question is: Do you want to move into the future? Or make and old friend new? Good luck!

thats what id do

there a very very nice gains in speed (especially games) to be had just by moving to Athlon 64.

avoid skt 754, thats not really going anywhere, skt939 will be a good bet, though theres socket AM2 right round the corner (see front page on Anandtech.com)

kmrivers has the right idea, though id plug for 2Gigs of ram since its soo cheap. dont let people put you off with crap about timings being slower with 2gig.....the size more than makes up for it, especially in games like BF2, and with Athlon 64's built in memory controller its hardly an issue anyway.

6600GT isnt really too much of a step up from his 9700 though. look for used 6800GTs (agp) and or used/new X800 series cards on AGP

for PCI-E the 6800GS is awesome, or you could push the boat further and get a 7800GT which have some very good prices now

 

[Bobthelost]

I've narrowed it down to a few upgrade options that i've already priced out, but feel free to point out which choices seem best, or to suggest alternatives if you know of them. I really haven't kept up with the newer technology much at all since I built this system, so i'm pretty far out of the loop, but nonetheless i've ranked my choices top to bottom.

Lastly, no matter what, i'll be buying at least one SATA drive and a PCI controller for it, as I don't really trust the on-board one given it's age, and as it doesn't support SATA300. A PCI controller would be faster than an onboard one anyways, right? And how much of an advantage does SATA300 have over SATA150?

1. 2GB Corsair TwinX Matched-pair Dual-channel PC3200 DDR - $198 total
2. WD Raptor 74GB 10K 8MB SATA150 to replace my main HD - $180 + S/H
3. An AGP videocard with 256MB memory and at least a 400-450mhz bus (Really need help on this front... cheaper-brand X700/X800?)
4. WD Caviar SE16 320GB 7.2K 16MB SATA300 to replace my main HD - $150 + S/H
5. Sempron processor, or maybe an XP3200, or an XP3000 w/ the Barton Core (Probably wouldn't be very cost-efficient?)

Anyways, i'll stop jabbering and hope that you guys can make sense of what might be best for my baby... many thanks in advance, especially to the people who've actually read all the way through this

Don't worry about SATA 300 it's a pink elephant. All SATA 300 drives are compatible with SATA 150 hardware, there is no performance hit doing it that way it's mostly marketing bullshit. If you want a faster drive than you have at the moment then by all means get a SATA drive, but the raptor is not a good value for money choice, you'll still end up with a faster drive if you get a Hitachi 7k250 deskstar or even better a WD4000KD which is damned near as fast as the raptor and has 400gb of room on it. PCI would not be faster than onboard.

The fastest SATA drive there is uses the SATA 150 interface

For improved gaming get 2x1gb of budget RAM it'd be rather stupid for you to spend the extra money on shiny RAM when the same money would make a massive difference for the graphics card.

754 is an excellent budget pruchase, i would stick with it and a higher end GPU for gaming, even a semperon would be faster than your barton and for games it's not the CPU that matters, graphics card is king.

 

[evilsaint]

Wow, I have to really say thanks for the quick informative replies; my tax return may still be a week away from my checking account, but at this rate i'll probably be ready to order the instant it does come in Additionally, I duly appreciate the advice on upgrading to a new MoBo and Athlon 64 (believe me, i'd love to), but TBH, it's just not in the budget right now. Plus, i'd like to upgrade this machine and keep it for run of the mill gaming and general purposes, and then maybe build a real speed demon sometime in future. For reference, my budget's only about $700, and i'd like to keep some of it left over.

Well, on the HD front, I think i'm set. Either the WD4000KD if I decide to not get a VCard now, or the WD3200KS if I do get a VCard now. What can I say, i'm a WD wh0r3

Also, correct me if i'm mistaken, but when it comes to the RAM, the TwinX 2gb is only $15-35 more than the equivalent Mushkin/GeiL/etc so I can't really see a point in *not* ponying up the little bit extra. Is there a better, cheaper, dual-channel 2gb pair out there that would be worth putting the extra cash towards a new VCard or something? I've done some pretty extensive searching and not been able to find much that looked like it could compare...

Lastly, on the Video Card front, are the newer NVidia cards really that much better, or is it still akin to the whole AMD/Intel thing? To me the specs still compare up about the same, but the prices are still a bit higher for the NVidia cards... I did find a great deal ($120 or so) on a 256M AGP X700, which seems to be the most prudent VC buy, but is it worth the extra cash now for 16 pipelines vs. 8, or should I just wait until I get a MoBo with PCI-X slots?

 

[evilsaint]

Oh yeah, last ???, which of the NVidia cards have 16 pipelines? I can't find tech-specs for them anywhere...

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

What verison of 3DS Max are you running.

 

[Fern]

Hi evilsaint and Welcome to the Forums!

To clarify, the gains that i'd like to see most are A : Added FPS and moreso, a dissapearance of the jitters in some of the newer uber-graphics-intensive games out there, B : to speed up loading and installation times of games and apps, and C : to help out video rendering times in 3DSMax7

AGP is being phased out for PCI-e, so you make must a choice - either upgrade this platform one more time or switch-out mobo, cpu to get to the PCIe platform.

A newer gfx card will help significantly in meeting objectives (except for #3 which I know very little about. Others will have to comment there)

As you can see, I'm on the same platform as you. A card like the 6800GT (or 6800GS) with 256MB of vid ram will speed up the FPS big time and the 256MB of ram will ease/eliminate those jitters.

Go to at least 1gig of ram. I haven't found that faster or slower ram (timings) impact gamimg much, if any. But I documented quite a bit of improvement in games' loading times etc by increasing ram from 512MB to 1gig (but doesnt impact frames per sec.). 2gigs? Don't know if its going to be helpful in gaming, but some say BF2 benefits from it. Don't know personally as I don't play it.

I don't see where the new HDDs will improve anything. A 7400rpm HDD is perfectly fine IMHO.

A cpu boost? Prolly won't help much in gaming, but may with the other objectives. Look for a mobile Barton. You'll be able to get to or past the speeds of the XP3200 and use a FSB of 200/400mhz. The mobiles are great OCers too and your mobo is perfectly suited to use one. Prolly find a good used on the FS/FT here for $60-75 (my guess).

Otherwise, go for a a64 3200 (socket 939) and a mobo with PCIe. Depending on your budget, the move to PCIe opens up additional options for a gfx card.

Fern

 

[evilsaint]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
What verison of 3DS Max are you running.

The newest... 7 I think? BTW, love your Username Chocobo

 

[evilsaint]

TTT. Buku thanks for all the rest of the help, but i'm still lacking on the video card info front... I found an actual ATI X700 Pro 256MB AGP for only $170 (free shipping too), and it seems to be the most power for the price bracket that i'm looking in (>$200), but what exactly on the Nvidia front would compare?

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: evilsaint
TTT. Buku thanks for all the rest of the help, but i'm still lacking on the video card info front... I found an actual ATI X700 Pro 256MB AGP for only $170 (free shipping too), and it seems to be the most power for the price bracket that i'm looking in (>$200), but what exactly on the Nvidia front would compare?

Thats a ripoff. There are better solutions than that

 

[AliasX]

I got OCZ 2gb dual channel PC3200 DDR400

 

[evilsaint]

Originally posted by: jlbenedict

Originally posted by: evilsaint
TTT. Buku thanks for all the rest of the help, but i'm still lacking on the video card info front... I found an actual ATI X700 Pro 256MB AGP for only $170 (free shipping too), and it seems to be the most power for the price bracket that i'm looking in (>$200), but what exactly on the Nvidia front would compare?

Thats a ripoff. There are better solutions than that

Would you mind elaborating? I've yet to find any good comparison articles on mid-range AGP cards...

 

[evilsaint]

w00t! CompUSA has X850 Pro AGP's for $200 until the 18th, so I think I found my VCard too. Any other suggestions on either saving money on the memory w/o sacrificing quality, or on equivalent NVidia cards for ~ t3h same price?

 

[Fern]

Try to look at pricing for the nVidia 6800GS

All last month Microcenter (IIRC) had the X850XT on sale for $200 as well.

nVidia is bring out the 7800GS (AGP) this month also.

Fern