Upgrading Classic Athlon (Slot A) System

[darshahlu]

Hey guys. My first post here--so hello Anandtech community.

OK, on to my question now:

Basically, I'm finally taking my Athlon Slot A motherboard / CPU / RAM off the shelf and building a system out of it. Why? Because I want to play Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 with my roommate and he has a Mac. (We can't find the Mac version of Baldur's Gate 1/2 ANYWHERE!)

So the plan is I build a system out of this old hardware and we'll be in multiplayer RPG heaven... But first, I need some parts: graphics card, hard drive, and PSU/Case. My question for you guys is: what is the best graphics card can/should I put in my system? The motherboard is an Asus K7M and supports AGP 2x/4x. Particularly, the cards I've been looking at are the Radeon 7000, Radeon 7000VE, Radeon 9000 Mobile, Geforce2MX400, and Geforce2MX4000 (found here at newegg). Of these, can you make a recommendation?

Also, if you know of any good websites that have old computer parts pass on the information. And I've been keeping an eye on ebay Slot A Athlon offerings. If I'm going through all this effort of building a "new" system, I might as well throw in a faster CPU. So if anyone has a Slot A processor they want to get rid of, let me know.

I want to do this as cheaply as possible; my budget is, say, 150 bucks (for graphics, hard drive, PSU/Case, CPU/RAM upgrades--the whole lot). I think thats easily attainable...

Thats it for now, Thanks.

Darshan.

 

[LtPage1]

I think you should check out the For Sale/For Trade section and find some decent used stuff.

 

[darshahlu]

Thanks for the quick reply. I already posted a classified in there (and used the search button).

Thanks.

Darshan

 

[alimoalem]

Googer has a thread where people tried making a better system than 2 dells and an eMachines...one was $300, the other two were $500 and $550 budgets. i'd check out the $300 one and see what you can do with the parts listed there

 

[kmrivers]

check out the for/sale trade section. you may be able to find some vintage pieces there.

also, it seems a company called MacPlay handles Baldurs Gate for mac. Here

MacPlay Baldurs Gate 2 site

it seems you can buy from them too. click the games button and you will see it in the list.

if you are still all about upgrading this dinosaur, make sure you evaluate all options available. in general it costs you more to upgrade older computers because there is less demand and vendors can charge what they want. A 512MB stick of PC133 is more expensive than a 512Mb stick of PC3200 DDR, not by much but when you look at perfomance it is not contest.

Good luck to you! and welcome to the forums :beer:, hope you arent underage.

edited for spelling.

 

[imported_rod]

If you want older stuff cheap, it might be cheaper to go into a 2nd-hand-parts shop. But their stock changes so quickly that they rarely put it up on their website.

RoD

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: alimoalem
Googer has a thread where people tried making a better system than 2 dells and an eMachines...one was $300, the other two were $500 and $550 budgets. i'd check out the $300 one and see what you can do with the parts listed there

I sure did.

I would start with one of These in socket 754 with ATI or nVIDIA onboard Video. They are respectable performers and leave you room for upgrading. If your Budget Allows, the $79 socket 939 ASUS with nVIDIA 6150 chipset is probably the best overall budget bet.

Before you start, Choose your operating system

 

[MurdarMachene]

Get an Elsa Gladiac 920 Geforce 3, or a ti4600. those both kick ass.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: MurdarMachene
Get an Elsa Gladiac 920 Geforce 3, or a ti4600. those both kick ass.

For fourty dollars you can get an X300 or 6200TC. Why would you want a five year old out dated display adapter?

 

[darshahlu]

Thanks for the reply kmrivers. I've actually gone to macplay a while back when we were searching for this game. I just checked it out now and same thing as before: they only sale the expansion, not the full game. In fact, my buddy ordered baldurs gate 2 from some online site and they sent him the expansion. Funny thing--can't find the game anywhere... Thanks though.

And you are right about upgrading. I've noticed the prices for pc100 ram seem a little steep. I may just leave the ram where its at (I think 256mb) because of the cost. Althon Slot A CPUs are pretty cheap though. I could spend 30 bucks or so to gain 150% performance boost, a pretty good value. I may just do that if I can snag a deal on ebay.

And I'm not underage--so cheers! (insert beer here)

D

 

[darshahlu]

Know of any online second hand computer stores?

Darshan

 

[darshahlu]

Thanks for the advice, however the inspiration for this build was that I have a bare-bones system system sitting on a shelf. I've got the motherboard, ram, and cpu already--just need the periphals and a case/PSU.

Can you make a recommendation as to what video card to match with my existing system? Its 500MHz Athlon (I may upgrade to 800Mhz or so if I find it cheap), 256 PC100 RAM, Asus K7M motherboard. I'd like to get the fastest card I can get (AGP2x/4x supported) that is inexpensive.

My budget for the whole thing $150 (HD, PSU/Case, Video Card, possible RAM/CPU upgrade)

Thanks

Darshan

 

[darshahlu]

Will that work with AGP 2x/4x?

Why would I want an outdated display adapter? One, its cheap. Two, I don't plan to play any new games--just Baldurs Gate 1, 2; Icewind Dale 1, 2.

Darshan

 

[Nick5324]

For a case, pick up one of these <--- credit to AMDmaddness for this deal.

Free shipping this week, good deal for $20. They also have it in white if you don't want a black case. You could also pick up a 350W house brand PSU for Free after rebate (~$30), although I don't know that I would trust it. If there are any left, and there is a store near you, they have a 80GB HDD for $80, less 3 rebates totaling $70. If you are like me and hate rebates, you could just pick up an 80GB drive for about $50 at newegg (or ZZF).

SVC has this for $20 plus shipping (probably ~$8). Yeah, it's purple, but no one will see it inside the case. Not a beast of a PSU by any means, but should be more than enough for your build, and Fortrons are good quality PSU's. You could throw the P4 HSF out the window, and then use the 92mm to 80mm adapter to put the case fan in your new case.

For a video card, maybe just a Geforce 6200. They will be listed as a AGP 4x/8x card, but I'm pretty sure they will work in a 2x/4x AGP slot. Maybe a FX5200 would be ok too, or a Radeon 9250.

Edit: This board uses the AMD Irongate northbridge, which I think didn't like some nVidia cards, and forces AGP 1x. It might be easier to just get an ATi card to avoid the BS. Then again, it has been awhile, I'm probably forgetting some important details.

 

[darshahlu]

Nice find! I'll buy it: its the cheapest case and w/ free shipping!

Darshan

 

[kmrivers]

i imagine you checked ebay for baldurs gate? there seem to be quite a few mac version up there. i dont know much about the game. so i dont know which ones are expansions.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Nick5324
For a case, pick up one of these <--- credit to AMDmaddness for this deal.

Free shipping this week, good deal for $20. They also have it in white if you don't want a black case. You could also pick up a 350W house brand PSU for Free after rebate (~$30), although I don't know that I would trust it. If there are any left, and there is a store near you, they have a 80GB HDD for $80, less 3 rebates totaling $70. If you are like me and hate rebates, you could just pick up an 80GB drive for about $50 at newegg (or ZZF).

SVC has this for $20 plus shipping (probably ~$8). Yeah, it's purple, but no one will see it inside the case. Not a beast of a PSU by any means, but should be more than enough for your build, and Fortrons are good quality PSU's. You could throw the P4 HSF out the window, and then use the 92mm to 80mm adapter to put the case fan in your new case.

For a video card, maybe just a Geforce 6200. They will be listed as a AGP 4x/8x card, but I'm pretty sure they will work in a 2x/4x AGP slot. Maybe a FX5200 would be ok too, or a Radeon 9250.

Edit: This board uses the AMD Irongate northbridge, which I think didn't like some nVidia cards, and forces AGP 1x. It might be easier to just get an ATi card to avoid the BS. Then again, it has been awhile, I'm probably forgetting some important details.

An AMD bare bones kit is probably the best cost effective solution. With bare bones kits, you get the case, power supply, motherboard, and usualy some kind of video for about $100. All that is needed is a Hard Drive, Optical Drive, CPU, and RAM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...eValue=0&Submit=Property&SubCategory=3


With a $130 price tag, Socket 939, PCI-express, and 1000MHz Hypertransport; This is proably your best bet:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856110043

Add a socket 939 CPU for $135
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537

Add 1GB of RAM for $66.50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440

And the total price comes to $333.50. I bet you could lower this if you shopped around.

 

[darshahlu]

Shiesty! There it is in all its glory: Baldurs Gate 2 for the Mac. Hmm, I think I'm still goin to build this system. Macs suck anyway...
D

 

[darshahlu]

Can you guys make some recommendations as to where to shop? I'm gonna check out all the clearence sections of the best online stores...
Thanks

Oh btw, I found an 800Mhz Athlon Slot A + 128PC100 RAM combo for 25 bucks on ebay...not bad?

D

EDIT:

So this is what I'm thinking so far:
GF4 Ti4200 20.00 on ebay here
Slot A 800Mhz + 128Megs Ram 25.00 on ebay here

15 - 20.00 case; 25.00 - 35.00 psu; 40.00 hard drive

thats well inside my 150.00 budget and leaves me with an 800mhz pretty-capable machine.

One question--will the AGP 8x GF4Ti4200 work in my AGP 1x/2x ASUS K7M mobo?

 

[Nick5324]

Originally posted by: darshahlu
Can you guys make some recommendations as to where to shop? I'm gonna check out all the clearence sections of the best online stores...
Thanks

Oh btw, I found an 800Mhz Athlon Slot A + 128PC100 RAM combo for 25 bucks on ebay...not bad?

D

Best places to shop online, althogh I doubt you'll find a lot of older hardware.

SVC

Newegg

ZZF

Directron

MWave

Monarch

ClubIT

TankGuys

 

[darshahlu]

 

[darshahlu]

Well, I've done a little research. Here are my findings:

My motherboard is an AGP2.0 spec meaning that it runs at 1.5V.

The Geforce 4ti4200 is AGP3.0 becuase it is an 8x card:

AGP 3.0 is keyed like a 1.5V AGP 2.0 slot, but it only uses 0.8V of power. It supports 8X, 4X, 2X and 1X speeds."

Apparently if the card itself can run at 1.5V, I can put it in any speed AGP slot. The incompatibities arise from the various voltages of the AGP specifications (3.3, 1.5, .8), not the speed.

Also:

The good news is that almost all 4x AGP cards support 1.5V. For convenience here is a rough list of graphic card types that are almost always compatible.

* Geforce2, Geforce2 MX, Geforce2 MX200/MX400
* Geforce2 ultra/Pro/GTS/Ti
* Geforce3/Ti200/Ti500
* Geforce4-ALL
* ATI Radeon DDR
* ATI Radeon 7000/7200/7500/8500/8500LE/9000/9500/9700
* ATI ALL-IN-WONDER Radeon/ALL

So, the question is...does that card support 1.5v?

AGP 3.0 also defines an 0.8-volt signaling voltage. Luckily, the AGP 3.0 specification allows for AGP 3.0 video cards to use standard 1.5-volt AGP slots. Of course, you?ll still need a motherboard with AGP 3.0 compliant AGP slots to take advantage of the extra power of this new specification.

Should work right?

Darshan

Resources:
http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/10,63.html
http://www.totalsem.com/techforum/techfiles/index.php?book=031029agp
http://www.motherboards.org/files/techspecs/agp20.pdf
http://www.intel.com/technology/agp/downloads/Spec_1_0_final_Sep10.pdf
http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html

 

[darshahlu]

Actually, I found out that this card is the AGP4x version. That means its AGP2.0 spec, like my motherboard--so no compatibility issues afterall. I wonder why my mobo is 2.0 but can only run at 1x/2x speeds...

Oh, and I bought the card. 26 bucks total for geforce4 ti4200--not bad eh?

D

 

[formulav8]

I have a GF4 Ti4200 128MB AGP 4x that would be great for that system. I also have a 700/750mhz Slot "A" cpu's and sdram and such to. If your interested, just shoot me a email

PS: I have a Radeon 32MB AIW AGP card. Play games and watch tv and such


Jason

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: formulav8
I have a GF4 Ti4200 128MB AGP 4x that would be great for that system. I also have a 700/750mhz Slot "A" cpu's and sdram and such to. If your interested, just shoot me a email

PS: I have a Radeon 32MB AIW AGP card. Play games and watch tv and such


Jason

The 4200 is selling for .99¢ on ebay.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=Ti4200+nvidia