Wan upgrade...but.

[Wind]

Running Duron 800@994 now. Wan to upgrade to Athlon 1 Ghz. Performance increase noticeable? If not, at wht Athlon/XP speed will the performance noticeable ?

Currently runnning 98SE. Wan to upgrade to Win2k or XP. Any idea which one is better. I was looking at speed, stability, support/ compatibility w/ other s/ware (eg. games).

Current spec.
Duron800@994| Asus A7V133| 256 PC1500 RAM| 400W PSU| 64MB GF2MX| SB Live| 8.4 BG HDD| Sony CRX120E CDRW|

Major use : Gaming, Surfing, Office application, Playing MP3, Watch VCD.

Some opinion appreciated. Thx.

 

[Mitzi]

Hi Wind.

I don't own a Duron so cannot really comment on how much of an improvement you would feel by moving to a 1Ghz Athlon but I upgraded my Pentium III 850 with 384Mb PC100 to a Athlon Thunderbird 1.4@1.53 with 512Mb DDR ram and noticed very little improvement in anything other than Diablo II but I think thats because I'm still using a G400 MAX which is holding the machine back.

As a rule of thumb I usually only upgrade when I can nearly double my processing power, I got the Athlon because I came into a bit of spare cash at the time. I would suggest possibly considering at least an Athlon XP 1700, my friend upgraded his Pentium 3 500 to one and noticed a very significant speed increase.

As for the OS I would say either XP or Win2K would suit you fine, there really is very little to choose between the two. I would personally learn towards 2000 because its a little more mature than XP but its only a matter of time before XP catches up. I've had no problems with either Win2K or XP when it comes to speed/stability or compatibility either.

 

[Mats]

Here's my 50c.

Dual boot 98SE/2000, that way you can troubleshoot any problems you may have (hardware or software related).

If the Athlon 1 Ghz is free, why not. Otherwise stay with the Duron. Save the money for your next m/b or something.

 

[Mitzi]

If the Athlon 1 Ghz is free, why not. Otherwise stay with the Duron. Save the money for your next m/b or something.

The Athlon is free? If its free then you may as well get it. I've just read the original post again and cannot see where Wind said that the chip was free.

 

[Wind]

Well, it's not free. Just to check u guys opinion on this. The 1 Ghz AXIA can be O/Ced to 1.3-1.45 Ghz. I believe performance increment could be noticeable.

About tht dual boot...how u guys do it. I believe u need 2 partition right ? More details on this please.

My current setup allow me to upgrade to XP no probs. Currently cash tight...just thinkin of max my return.

 

[pay]

Go with XP, its so much faster than any previous OS

 

[microAmp]

<< Go with XP, its so much faster than any previous OS >>


Yup, XP is now the way to go, Xp 1600+ 1.4 GHz can be bought for @110-120, plus you'll get some SSE on that over the TBIRD

 

[Mitzi]

Wind,

If you want to Dual boot between Win98 and 2000/XP its very easy to setup. Just install Windows 98 first and then install Windows 2000 (or XP) onto another partition/drive - the setup program will see the existing Windows 98 installation and set everything up for you automatically.

I still don't think getting a 1Ghz Athlon is a very good idea. You never know you might get a dud which can only overclock to 1.1 or something and then you'll be pretty gutted! If cash is a bit tight now, I'd say leave the upgrade for a little while and get something better when you can afford it, instead of skimping on a 1Ghz processor.

 

[Wind]

OK. On the CPU...the next upgrade will be XP.

OS...w/ Win XP, few q's
1. Can I still play some old games ?
2. Installation....clean/ upgrade...which is better ?
3. Again, the most important element are speed, stability & compatibility w/ older s/ware.

Thx.

 

[DaveK]

1. Yup, most games will work in XP just fine. In fact, it has better legacy support than Win2k

2. Clean install is much better. You won't have all that extra junk laying around.

3. If upgrading from win98, you'll definitely notice the stability improvement. Speed is around the same, and compatibility is very good.

DaveK

 

[Magicthyse]

Stung by the mega-overclockers on this board, I have OC'd my Duron 950 by... a... whole... er... 19Mhz!

😀

But surely it's a better bet to buy an Athlon XP (substitute whatever number you feel you like here)
I think it will help in games? The extra cache/etc having a noticeable difference? Not much else anywhere else... If you check out my 'My Rigs' honestly I can't consciously notice a difference between my 4200rpm or whatever drive with 256MB of RAM on my VAIO P3 450 notebook to the Duron on my desktop for general Office stuff, DVD, MP3, etc. The Macs feel slightly slower if that makes you feel any better, but they look nicer and work easier so I'll forgive them.

And as for the upgrade, W2K for now I think. I'm not a huge fan of XP yet. It's got a lot of new nice features, but nothing you can't add on with third party products (and done less half-heartedly at that) onto W2K.