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Upgrade advice needed

K

kjacobs

Senior member
I have a K6-3+ 450 processor on a Asus P5A-B board. Trying to keep costs down. This is a second PC that the kids will use for school and internet (and some games-Star Wars, etc). I plan to install a wireless network to connect to my PC with AMD XP 1600. Both computers run W98 and will connect to DSL for internet. I built my PC and love the Antec cases, and it has an Epox 8KHA+ board.

From old PC to keep:
Hard drives
CD player
Voodoo 4500 video
Floppy
Memory?
Ensoniq Sound card is soundblaster compatible

- ECS K7S5A motherboard-can keep old memory (168 pin) but concerned about ease of installing the board after reading posts about bad docs, etc. Read that it may not like more than one stick of memory. Could get an Epox 8HKA+ for the same price but would need to upgrade memory to DDR. And I read that the Epox has a problem with Voodoo video cards.

- Antec SX630II case (300 w PS).

- AMD Duron 1.3 or XP 1600 (Is xp worth the difference?)


K7S5A is $56.00 at Newegg shipped
Antec case is $53.45 plus shipping at Provantage.com
Duron retail is $49.71 plus shipping at Provantage.com

Opinions?
 
The ECS K7S5A works fine with multiple DIMMs, just don't get generic anything. I have no idea about using multiple DIMMs outside of Samsung, Crucial, and Kinsgton. Give it a good PSU and memory and it'll love ya. As any such piece of hardware, just take normal precautions and you should be fine. I've made 4 PCs with it, my dad 13 now, and they all are puttin' along just fine.

The case you are getting is small Chieftec/Chenming Dragon, should you want one w/o a PSU sometime.

If the memory isn't PC133, spend $30 (Newegg) and get 256MB Crucial or ValueRAM (Kingston).

I'd recommend using that Ensoniq sound card...the K7S5A's sound the kind that made most people swear off integrated mobos a few years back 🙂

There's nothing wrong with Durons, but there is much more right with Athlons. If you're trying to keep costs down, more memory and less CPU will do better than the other way around.
 
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