Upgrade advice needed

[Atuin]

Hello...
I'm looking to (Finally!) upgrade my main system board. I'm looking for advice on the best options available. Cost is a factor, and I'm trying to see what kind of bang I can get for my buck.
I have:
AMD K6-2 400
192MB PC100 SDRAM
Maxtor 30GB ATA66

modem, video card, NIC are PCI and would be moved onto the new board.

The machine is used for a lot - general office, image editing, analog video capture and editing, some gaming. It is also the 'server' in an internet connection sharing setup (using sygate).

I think that's all the relevant information. Please let me know if more is needed.
TIA for the help!

 

[yeuemmaimai]

ECS K7S5A with AMD 1.4G heatsink and fan $190 delivered from newegg. 512MB DDR $85 delivered from memoryonly Case: get that locally.

Total upgrade $275 plus case or if you have ATX with at least 300W you do not need a new case then.

 

[coolzz]

I would get the epox 8k7a+ with 1.4 Athlon plus 2x256 ddr pc2100 ram from www.crucial.com (which they have 15% discount until end of October on top of their good price). 😉

 

[TonyB]

Asus P4B motherboard $145
P4 1.7GHz CPU socket 478 $145

you get to use your old ram and old case/power supply. The P4B has an auxiliary connector that accepts the normal 4pin power thingy that we all are acustomed to.

 

[Athlon4all]

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Don't go SDRAM+P4! It may perform even worse that your K6-2😉. Seriously, don't go SDR+P4, it will perform much worse than a Athlon 1.4+K7S5A and 1.4Athlon+K7s5A would cost less than a 1.7P4+P4B, and if u wish you could stick with your SDRAM on K7S5A too (it has DDR and SDR DIMM's), but I'd recommend getting DDR. PC100 would be a huge bottleneck (On both Athlon and 845/P4). You in all likely hood would need at least a new ps, maybe a new case if it's not ATX. A K7S5A costs $65, plus $140 for Athlon 1.4 Retail, and if u want DDR, $40 for 256MB PC2100.

 

[Tominator]

Reading all your uses, I'd be going Intel...unless you just like troubleshooting problems.....😉

 

[Pabster]

TonyB wrote:

"Asus P4B motherboard $145
P4 1.7GHz CPU socket 478 $145

you get to use your old ram and old case/power supply. The P4B has an auxiliary connector that accepts the normal 4pin power thingy that we all are acustomed to."

Where can you find a Socket 478 1.7GHz Pentium 4 for only $145? Cheapest on PriceWatch is $194, from a questionable vendor.

Second, the P4B is an i845 solution. It couples P4 with ancient, slow PC133 SDRAM. That's a terrible choice, even for an "upgrade" from an old K6-2 400.

I'll agree with the first reply -- ECS K7S5A, with the venerable 1.4GHz Thunderbird, and 512MB Crucial PC2100. You just simply cannot get more performance for so little money. It's the best deal (price/performance) going right now.

 

[yeuemmaimai]

SiS 735 has very FEW problems compared to VIA. SiS 735 was the reason i switched from Intel to AMD...finally AMD has got a world class performance chipset and a great price without the VIA issues. 🙂