Upgrade Help Please

[WhiteKnight]

I'm looking to upgrade from a 1.4 GHz T-Bird running on an Iwill KK266-R with 512 MB RAM to something more current. I'm planning on replacing the processor, mobo, and RAM, but I'm going to keep my RAID5 setup that runs on a PCI Raid card. The new mobo does not need to have onboard RAID.

It's been a while since I was up to date on the current offerings, and I'm a little lost as to the state of the industry now. I am willing to spend some money, but I don't need the absolute latest and greatest. (i.e. processors that are marginally better than the next speed down but cost twice as much) Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[WhiteKnight]

^

 

[JSSheridan]

Epox 8RDA+ or an Abit NF7-S. Both boards use nVidia's nForce2 chipset and are stable as well as good performers. Pick up a pair of 256 or 512MB sticks of memory depending on what you need. Corsair's low latency memory gives you best performance at a bit more expense, but other names such as Mushkin, Kingston, and Samsung have good products. Pick up whatever processor you want. The 2100+ 1.73GHz model is priced well right now though. Good luck. Peace.

 

[Cerb]

All Newegg:
Epox 8RDA+: $92
Kingston HyperX PC2700 CL2 2-2-2-5-1T 512MB: $76.50
(might want to get 2 of them for 1GB and dual-channel use)
2400+ retail: $104
2600+ (333) retail: $155

Nforce2 is the platform to get. The Epox 8RDA+ has shown itself to be stable, a good overclocker, and has room for any heatsink you want to use.
Kingston HyperX and Corsair XMS are the best memory sticks you can get for the money.
2400+ is the best price/performance on the processors, though you might want to get faster. If you're "willing to spend some money", it's the place to start. By the 2700+ the price nearly doubles. If you want a Barton, go for the 2800+, as the 2500+ is slower than the 2400+, and benchmarks are all over (the Bartons have larger cache, so do better where the P4 normally dominates, but they run at slower speeds, so are lesser in calculation intensive stuff). The 2600+ is the best way to go for the 166MHz FSB

 

[WhiteKnight]

I realize that this must be a stupid question for all of you, but what's the difference between a Barton and a Tbred? The last time I was up on proccessor news it was before the MP came out and it was just the Tbred and the Duron.

 

[Cerb]

Thunderbird: old Athlon
Spitfire: old Duron
Morgan: newer Duron
Palomino: newer Athlon (Athlon XP and MP)
Thuroughbred(sp): Athlon XP that runs cooler and hits higher clock speeds. 256KB L2 cache.
Barton: Athlon XP that runs cooler and hits slightly lesser speeds compared to the TBred above. 512KB L2 cache...competes with the P4 better in areas where the P4 normally dominates (file compression and such), and as such, is rated higher than the clock speed would indicate.
2.23GHz: Tbred 2800+
2.16GHz: Barton 3000+
2.08GHz: Barton 2800+
2.08GHz: Tbred 2600+
2.0GHz: Tbred 2400+
1.83GHz: Barton 2500+
1.8GHz: Tbred 2200+

The barton does better here and there, but in calculation intensive stuff, falls behind, because in those cases the higher clock speeds help the Tbred more. The 2500+ just plain doesn't cut it. With the others, things aren't so bad, AMD just got generous with the ratings.

 

[WhiteKnight]

Thanks, Cerb, that clears it up.