Time to upgrade, your thoughts please

[Bluhjun]

Hi all, I'm new to the forums though I have been watching from the shadows for a little while.

I'd like some thoughts on my upgrade path, pros/cons that sort of thing.

My current system:

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe
P4 1.5 Willamette @ 1.7
1x512MB DDR 333
sound blaster live value
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro

Upgrade options: Feel free to add more to the list This system will be used primarily for Gaming. I'm also hoping that this upgrade(more than likely with a few more additions) will be viable for 1-2 years.

Games I play primarily: Aces High, FS2004, Diablo II, IL2 FB, WW2OL

1) P4 3.06 w/ hyperthreading + an extra 512MB DDR 333

2) Ditch the P4G8X, replace with an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, get a P4 2.4C (I don't mind overclocking) but no RAM

3) Possible switch to AMD: Barton 2500 looks good but will it overclock as well as the 2.4C? The upgrade path for the Barton looks a lot shorter but I could be wrong.


Something else to note, my current case is an old generic piece of crap, see link below.

My case woes

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: Bluhjun

My current system:

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe
P4 1.5 Willamette @ 1.7
1x512MB DDR 333
sound blaster live value
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro

Upgrade options: Feel free to add more to the list This system will be used primarily for Gaming. I'm also hoping that this upgrade(more than likely with a few more additions) will be viable for 1-2 years.

Games I play primarily: Aces High, FS2004, Diablo II, IL2 FB, WW2OL

1) P4 3.06 w/ hyperthreading + an extra 512MB DDR 333

2) Ditch the P4G8X, replace with an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, get a P4 2.4C (I don't mind overclocking) but no RAM

3) Possible switch to AMD: Barton 2500 looks good but will it overclock as well as the 2.4C? The upgrade path for the Barton looks a lot shorter but I could be wrong.

For Intel, yes, the Asus P4P800 non deluxe will work great with a 2.4c, and you can still use your pc2700 ram and use 3:2 memory ratio/divider when overclocking.

For AMD, yes the Barton 2500 Mobiles are the ones to get for 1.8 > 2.5 ghz overclocks. I'd go with an NFS-7 board.

Have fun.

 

[Bluhjun]

Thanks for you comments. So option 1 isn't appealing so far

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, but he's only going to end up with a couple of hundred extra mhz, if he tries to overclock a 2.4C with PC2700 ram.

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: Thor86

Originally posted by: Bluhjun

My current system:

ASUS P4G8X Deluxe
P4 1.5 Willamette @ 1.7
1x512MB DDR 333
sound blaster live value
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro

Upgrade options: Feel free to add more to the list This system will be used primarily for Gaming. I'm also hoping that this upgrade(more than likely with a few more additions) will be viable for 1-2 years.

Games I play primarily: Aces High, FS2004, Diablo II, IL2 FB, WW2OL

1) P4 3.06 w/ hyperthreading + an extra 512MB DDR 333

2) Ditch the P4G8X, replace with an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, get a P4 2.4C (I don't mind overclocking) but no RAM

3) Possible switch to AMD: Barton 2500 looks good but will it overclock as well as the 2.4C? The upgrade path for the Barton looks a lot shorter but I could be wrong.

For Intel, yes, the Asus P4P800 non deluxe will work great with a 2.4c, and you can still use your pc2700 ram and use 3:2 memory ratio/divider when overclocking.

For AMD, yes the Barton 2500 Mobiles are the ones to get for 1.8 > 2.5 ghz overclocks. I'd go with an NFS-7 board.

Have fun.

I agree with Thor's assessment. Unbiased, and very informative for both directions. And yes, option 1 probably isn't the best one of the bunch heh

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Yeah, but he's only going to end up with a couple of hundred extra mhz, if he tries to overclock a 2.4C with PC2700 ram.

Nah... that's what RAM dividers are for. It definately won't be as fast as if he used PC3200 or faster RAM, but it doesn't look like he's looking for the fastest thing available.

Option #1 is not an option =)

Option #2 is decent, but like I said, the performance won't be as good as if you had PC3200 RAM.

Option #3 is decent, but the PC2700 will hurt you there too (if you can't get RAM too) since the most popular thing to do with XP2500's is just set the FSB to 200 right away and then your RAM would be running async, which is bad for performance on an Athlon XP system. If you decide to go with this one... you might consider getting an XP2500 Mobile processor for about $25 more since it has unlocked multipliers. You could leave the FSB at 333 and just increase the multiplier to try to get a better overclock.

You can't really go wrong with #2 or #3. You'll notice a significant increase in performance over your 1.7 Ghz Willamette no matter which you choose. I'd have to say #2 would probably be your best bet since it will deal with your old RAM better than an overclocked XP2500 will. However, if going with an XP2500 based system allows you to get PC3200 RAM, I think that would be the way to go.

By the way... one man's junk is another man's treasure... don't throw your old stuff away or shove it in the corner of the basement... sell it on the FS/FT forums or on eBay and use the money to help pay for the new parts.

As far as the case goes... the case doesn't really matter a whole lot... but the power supply will. By the looks of what you have/will have, an Antec True Power 330 should get the job done... or an Antec SL350... or if you're paranoid about power requirements and HAVE to have more than you really need, an Antec True Power 380.

Take a look at what I have here. All that is being powered by an Antec SL350 power supply that came in my Antec Performance II Workstation Tower. I've even added a 3rd hard drive (Western Digital 7200 RPM 160 GB Caviar) to test it and format it and didn't have any problems. By some people's claims, I need a 400 watt power supply. I prefer quality over quantity.

On a side note, I have another Antec Performance II Workstation Tower with the same SL350 power supply for sale if you're interested. If you're interested PM me.

 

[Bluhjun]

Yeah, but he's only going to end up with a couple of hundred extra mhz, if he tries to overclock a 2.4C with PC2700 ram.

To be honest I would be expecting a huge leap in performance going from a 1.5GHz Willamette to a 2.4C so that would probably keep me satisfied for awhile at stock speeds.

I can upgrade to PC3200 or greater later on down the road and it'd probably be cheaper too with DDR2 on its way (hopefully) right?

One more thing, with 1 stick of PC2700, how much will performance suffer? I was thinking of getting a stick of PC3200 but I'm not sure if that would work to enable HyperThreading or work at all.

Even if it didn't enable HT, 1GB would still be pretty useful *if* the system would be stable using different RAM modules.

Edit: Jeeze I type slow 2 new posts

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Bluhjun

Yeah, but he's only going to end up with a couple of hundred extra mhz, if he tries to overclock a 2.4C with PC2700 ram.

To be honest I would be expecting a huge leap in performance going from a 1.5GHz Willamette to a 2.4C so that would probably keep me satisfied for awhile at stock speeds.

I can upgrade to PC3200 or greater later on down the road and it'd probably be cheaper too with DDR2 on its way (hopefully) right?

One more thing, with 1 stick of PC2700, how much will performance suffer? I was thinking of getting a stick of PC3200 but I'm not sure if that would work to enable HyperThreading or work at all.

Even if it didn't enable HT, 1GB would still be pretty useful *if* the system would be stable using different RAM modules.

The RAM has nothing to do with Hyper Threading. If you had one stick of PC2700, that would hurt performance quite a bit. The reason the 800 Mhz bus P4's perform as well as they do is because of the dual memory channel motherboards that go with them. To use dual memory channels you need 2 sticks of RAM. Based on the games you play, you probably don't need 1 GB of RAM... I bet you could upgrade to 2 sticks of 256 MB PC3200 RAM and be just fine.

 

[Bluhjun]

Great! think I'll go with your suggestion 2x256 PC3200. Thanks for the explanation on HT and dual channel memory.:beer:

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Bluhjun
Great! think I'll go with your suggestion 2x256 PC3200. Thanks for the explanation on HT and dual channel memory.:beer:

For a better understanding of both HT and dual channel RAM, check the AnandTech FAQ

 

[Bluhjun]

Thanks Jeff I'm down to option #2. I won't be throwing anything away but I live in the Caribbean (not in the U.S. / U.K. / French / Dutch territories either) so that complicates things a bit.

About my case, what I'm concerned about is that the PSU extractor fan inside the case is situated halfway across the HS fan because my case has to have the PSU mounted vertically. I don't know how much of a problem this is.

Edit: BTW my PSU is a 400W CompUSA "brand" the gold one with the 2 fans lol thought it looked cool. Bought it long before I found out that not all components from CPUs to PSUs are created equal, although I haven't had any problems with it so far.

 

[myocardia]

Bluhjun, just buy an Asus P4P800 non-deluxe, or an Abit IC7 non-Max, and a 2.4C. You'll only be able to get it to 250fsb with the ram you have, but a 3.0ghz P4C is going to make you smile for days, if not much longer. If you ever decide that 3.0 isn't fast enough, buy some Geil PC3200, which is good, fast ram for a P4-based system, and you should be able to hit 3.2ghz at the minimum with either of those motherboards and 3.5-3.6ghz if you get a good 2.4C.

 

[Bluhjun]

3.0GHz is more than enough. So just to reiterate, stick with my single 512MB PC2700 module get a P4P800 non deluxe or IC7 non max and get a 2.4C? If that's the case then that's what I'll do, I can always get better/faster RAM later on.