Upgrade on a budget - cpu or ram?

[MadDad]

Hello all. Try to make this long story short.
Current system:

ECS K7S5A
AMD Athlon 1.0ghz
256meg Crucial PC2100 ram
Windows XP Home
Hercules Kyro II Prophet 4500 TV out

Mostly used for surfing/email/gaming. Currently I'm laid off, looking to learn something while I look for another job. I can buy a student edition of either Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks. Leaning towards Inventor. These are both 3d solid-modeling programs (my background is in mechanical design using Autocad, up thru release 14). My current video card, the Prophet, will not run either Inventor or Solidworks, so the first thing on my list is upgrading my video card. Autodesk strongly suggests staying away from gaming cards, as do several forums I have looked at. So, I have narrowed my video card choice to one of these two cards:

3Dlabs Wildcat VP760 for 189.00 (from newegg) (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...=48&manufactory=1439&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1)
PNY NVidia Quadro4 550XGL for 115.00 (from microx-press) (http://www.emicrox.com/eShop/product.aspx?pid=944777)

The PNY card is recommended thru several Autodesk forum members, and the price is unbeatable (about 115.00 less than newegg). These cards are intended more for industrial 3D graphics processing than gaming, but I think it is safe to assume that most OpenGL games will run fine. The only thing I like better about the Wildcat is that it does score pretty decently on Autodesk's tests (http://www.autodesk.com/us/inventor/graphic_cards/chartsindex.htm)(as does the 550XGL), and has better support (website forum, where PNY has no such thing). But I'm not sure that justifies the extra 70 bucks.

This leads to my questions. I'm thinking of upgrading the CPU from 1.0 to something like an AthlonXP 2000+ for 60 bucks. Or would I see more performance from another stick of ram (about 48 bucks)?

Also, if I do upgrade the CPU, can I remove the heatsink/fan that I already have and use it on the new CPU, or is it best to buy new heatsink/fan, since it is attached to the CPU with the little sticky thing?

And just to make sure, AMD's CPUs are listed as 2000+ (266 FSB). ECS's website says the K7S5A will support up to 2600+ at 133mhz? What gives? Can I use a 266FSB CPU on my motherboard? AMD does not list the K7S5A as being a recommended mb for this CPU, nor most of the other AthlonXP's (http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/ResultsHandler/1,,30_118_3734_4348^7923~63674,00.html)

Thanks for all your help!

 

[LesPaul]

that 266 FSB is DDR (double-data rate), the actual clock rate is 133MHz, so yes, it will work together

For your uses, I'd say upgrading your memory would be the biggest benifit to you, as auto-cad and other graphics programs are very memory intensive. 512MB seems to be the standard these days anyways.

 

[EXman]

if you are on a budget I'd sell your 1ghz CPU on the FS/FT forum after buying another used CPU on this forum whatever you can find in your budget. as far as the vid card if you can afford it go for it. Ram is easy and pretty cheap so I'd also think about this if you can buy some used. Why used? I was out of a job for about 1 1/2 years and used parts were all I could justify.

so if you need to upgrade 2 out of 3 just get the card and then look out for a very good deal on a cpu or ram then upgrade that component But I'd say ram would have an edge for what you are doing.

 

[MadDad]

Thanks for the replies. I kinda figured that was the case with the 233 vs 133 since no one that I could find sells an Athlon 133FSB cpu, but had to ask to be sure.

Hate to repeat myself, but if I do upgrade the CPU, can I remove the heatsink/fan that I already have and use it on the new CPU, or is it best to buy new heatsink/fan, since it is attached to the CPU with the little sticky thing?

 

[EXman]

just keep the HS wipe it down with alcohol and reapply AS to it it should be just fine if it is a quality HS that is still rated to a higher Mhz. if you make a big jump you might want to look into a new one. depends on what you are getting and what HS you have now. sorry for the unclear answer but you need specifics for a correct answer.

 

[MadDad]

EXman, thanks. I'll check it out further. I think what I have should be ok. I've just never changed over a cpu with the heatsink glued directly to it, and didn't know if it was possible without breaking something. newbies! Who needs 'em?

 

[duragezic]

I would just get a retail version of whatever Athlon you decide to get. That way you know the HSF will be good enough, rather than risk overheating with a hSF not necessarily made for a much higher speed cpu. I would think my Taisol on my 1.2ghz Athlon would not suffice for a new athlon.

 

[dullard]

PNY 550XGL vs Wildcat VP870 The VP870 wins by 25% but the VP760 you are considering is a lower performing card than the VP870. (VP870 has double the memory, 14% more vertices per second, and 52% more AA samples per second when compared to the VP760 - so expect the VP760 to perform at least 25% slower than the PV870). If those are your two choices, I'd definately get the PNY 550XGL especially since it is much less expensive.

I run Solidworks 2001 (and Gambit a more obscure CAD type program) on occasion, and it does fine with any video card I've thrown at it (even elcheapo 5 year old cards). What I do is quite simple - but if you are just testing it out your stuff may be simple as well (I have no experience with Inventor though). So you may consider just getting a good gaming card since they should run most things you do just fine. Gaming performance is not as good as you'd think on these cards - expect a nice 30% drop or so over what they are capable of since they are not optimized for games.

Your CPU is also fine for the more simple tasks. But since a CPU upgrade is cheap and will help with gaming you might as well do it.

I'd definately get more memory - for gaming and for CAD. If you had to choose, get the memory first.

 

[MadDad]

Well, the VP870 at $599.00 sure as hell had better out-perform the 550XGL, which is half the price (looking at the prices when the article was created). I can get the VP870 for $317.00, but like I said, there is a budget to stick to. I could even get a VP990, which oughta blow everything out of the water, but it's only, oh, $680.00. As of now, I can get the 550XGL for 115 smackers.

The other thing I'm looking at is even though I get a card that isn't necessarily optimized for games, will it still be quicker than the card I have now (the Prophet)?

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: MadDad
Well, the VP870 at $599.00 sure as hell had better out-perform the 550XGL, which is half the price (looking at the prices when the article was created). I can get the VP870 for $317.00, but like I said, there is a budget to stick to. I could even get a VP990, which oughta blow everything out of the water, but it's only, oh, $680.00. As of now, I can get the 550XGL for 115 smackers.

I don't think I got my point across well. I never recommended the VP870. You asked for a comparison between the VP760 and the 550XGL. I've never seen a comparison of those two cards so I showed you the next best thing. I showed a comparison to the VP870 and then extrapolated back to get an estimate of the VP760 results - which should be slightly slower than the 550XGL results. Thus since the 550XGL is faster than the VP760 and cheaper, the 550XGL was my recommendation.

The 550XGL will do ok on games, but I think you won't be much impressed. If I remember right it is based on the GeForce4 MX 460 - but with workstation optimizations it'll probably run more like the GeForcee 4 MX 440. Your Prophet card is roughly the equivalent of a GeForce2 MX 400 (which isn't that much slower than a GeForce4 MX 440). Here is a comparison of the Geforce4 MX 460 and the Kyro II. It appears on that review of just a few games sometime the GeForce 4 MX 440 was equal to the Kyro II, sometimes it had a 50% boost, and sometimes it was double the speed. So yes it will likely be an improvement, but not really a dramatic improvement.