Upgrade Critique Please

[Poontos]

Going from:

Antec SX1040
Athlon 1400 T-bird @ 1.53Ghz
Epox 8KHA+
Crucial 512MB PC2100 DDR
WD 80GB 8MB 7200RPM
Asus V7100 32MB GeForce2MX
Windows 2000 Professional & Win98SE (for the odd game) & FreeBSD4.7


Going to something along the lines of:

Antec Sonata Mid Tower Case (black) w/ 380W PSU info $149
Pentium 4 2.4C GHz w/ Hyper-Threading Technology Retail $266
Western Digital 80GB w/ 8MB cache more info $124
Western Digital 80GB w/ 8MB cache (from pc above)
OCZ Technology 512MB PC3500 EL-DDR Enhanced Latency info $229
ASUS P4P800-DLX Intel 865PE, 800MHz Dual DDR400 more info $200
Panasonic 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive (Black) OEM $16
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (from previous PC)

One of the following video cards:

ASUS V9180TD GeForce4 MX440-8X 64MB DDR dual display more info $97
MSI GeForce4 Ti4200-VTD8X 128MB DDR VIVO more info $176
ATI Radeon 9200 128MB DDR $167
Sapphire Radeon 9100 128MB DDR Retail $110

And if I sell my Dell 21" for $400, I might replace with one of the following?

Acer 17" AL716 LCD 1280x1024@75Hz, 0.264mm dp $535
Envision 17" LCD $555
LG FLATRON 786LS 17" TFT more info $589
NEC LCD1700V 17" White/Black more info $648
Samsung SyncMaster 170N Black 17" *after $50 mail-in-rebate more $565
Samsung SyncMaster 171N 17" Black *after $50 mail-in-rebate more $555
Samsung SyncMaster 171S 17" Silver *after $50 mail-in-rebate more $565
Viewsonic Q170 17" LCD more info $555
Viewsonic VG700 17" TFT more info $639

CDN Prices BTW. Me lives in Ontario.

Requirements/Guidlines:
1.) I am on a tight budget.
2.) I do not game much at all. Maybe once every couple of months.
3.) I watch the odd DVD.
4.) Was thinking of utilizing the RAID 1 with the mobo. How much of a performance hit?
5.) My previous system was ROCK SOLID, and I expect nothing less from a new P4 system.
6.) I may install WinXP Pro, but that's not really much of an issue.

Any assistance and experiences would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[DaveSimmons]

Why spend all the money if not gaming? What do you need the speed for?

- a dual-channel motherboard needs 2 matched sticks of DDR to run at full speed
- are you planning to overclock? If not, why the PC3500 instead of PC3200?

- for video cards, since you're a non-ghamer get the ati 9100, not the mx or 9200. If you prefer nvidia, get the ti4200 since the mx cards are broken-legged sloths. Or find a used geforce 3 (any model).

 

[Jeff7181]

Instead of getting a 2nd WD800JB, why not go for a raptor? It will be faster than if you put those two WD800JB's in RAID 0 (where it counts anyway... seek time)... but you need either a motherboard that has a SATA controller on it, or a separate SATA controller card.
If you need the extra space though, Best Buy has the ED800JB on sale for $60 after rebates this week.

As far as the video card, I would go with maybe a 9600 non-pro, or even a pro for a few bucks more... should be around $175 for the Pro. 9600 non-pro would probably suit you better though... it would have enough power to play a game if you want to... but won't set you back more than $150. It's also DX9 compliant, so you can even check out the new games, even though they won't run amazingly fast.

I don't think RAID 1 is useful unless you have very sensative data on yoru computer that you can't afford to loose. (RAID 1 is mirroring... if you meant RAID 0, striping, which improves speed, I still stand by my previous statement that a Raptor would "feel" faster because of it's lower seek times.)

- a dual-channel motherboard needs 2 matched sticks of DDR to run at full speed

That's what they'd like you to believe... but it's completely unnecessary to buy "matched pairs" unless you're overclocking and going for that last 1 Mhz.

 

[DaveSimmons]

That's what they'd like you to believe... but it's completely unnecessary to buy "matched pairs" unless you're overclocking and going for that last 1 Mhz.

True, I meant matched in size and speed not one of those overpriced "TwinX" packages. I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that Poontos was planning to buy 1 x 512 stick instead of 2 x 256 MB.

 

[MDE]

If you're on a tight budget consider a $85 Athlon XP 2500+ and $80-85 Epox nForce2 motherboard
EDIT: those prices are US dollars

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress
If you're on a tight budget consider a $85 Athlon XP 2500+ and $80-85 Epox nForce2 motherboard
EDIT: those prices are US dollars

Good point, or even a 2400+, and he can use his existing PC2100 DDR. At stock speed the P4 2.4C is roughly a 2700+ so it would be saving a mooseload of money without giving up much speed.

 

[Tab]

Stay far away from OCZ they are absolutle crap when it comes to memory.

 

[Poontos]

Thanks for all the input guys!

What kind of memory would you recommend for this motherboard? I need 512MB.

I am on a tight budget, but I want to keep it for a few years like I have with my previous system. Things like my case, motherboard, memory (except that memory technology changes often, so it is difficult to keep for as long) and such are items that I never cut corners on.

The "Going from" system has been sold and is out of my possession, so the only extra parts left over: HD, sound card, monitor, and KB/Mouse.

With regards to the raptor and RAID: I guess that I could just make a simple backup of my system state and data files onto my 80GB HD and use the 36GB raptor - if I were to get it - and use it as my main system drive. Assuming that I did not understand RAID, thank you for the refresher on the different types of RAID. 😀 I wanted to utilize RAID 1 because I have data that cannot be lost and would be too cumbersome to backup on CD-R's, and I do not have the spare cash right now to buy a DVD-R R/W, in addition to the much quicker access time a HD acquires.

Regards & Thank you.

 

[Poontos]

Bump

 

[Jeff7181]

Like someone else said... a completely separate hard drive would be the easiest way to do it. However, the BEST way is probably with a tape drive, where the media isn't as expensive, and you can have 2 - 3 backup sets so if you accidently back up your hard drive after something has gone wrong, you're not screwed, you just loose a day or two of stuff.