What should I get with 400$

[downhiller80]

A hard disk I RMA'd has just been declared DOA and I've had £250 credited to my account (about 400$)

What should I buy? Will I notice more by getting a super-dooper graphics card or a Duron +mobo?

System is:

Inwin 500
AMD K6-2 450
Asus P5A
128Mb generic PC100

Voodoo3 3000
Belinea 103040 17"
Miro studio DC10+

promise 66 fasttrak
2 of seagate barracuda 7200rpm 28.5Gb 512k in RAID 0
1 of IBM 34GXP 27Gb for backup!
Iomega ZIP drive
4x DVD drive
HP 9100 8x 4x 32x CD drive

Sound blaster platinum
Videologic digitheatre
Logitech formula force
Logitech cordless pro mouse & keyboard
HP 710C
Agfa 1212u scanner

Win 2000 pro

So what should I get?

Seb

 

[AndyHui]

Duron and mobo would be a good start, I think. You can always wait a little bit to catch the next video card wave.

 

[nuttervm]

a scsi hard drive! well... thts what i'm saving up for anyways. (yes i noticed that you would need to buy a scsi adapter as well... only my wishful thinking)

 

[duragezic]

Yup, Duron (700mhz?) and mobo would probably be best. A V3 is still quite fast anyway. The rest of your system is good too.

 

[Toro 45]

Mobo & cpu without a dought.
Toro

 

[Sephy]

ANY CPU/MB combo will be way better then a video card, because K6-2's sucketh

 

[Burn]

mobo/cpu... I'd say a P3 650E and an Asus P3V4X or one of the solano boards if you can get them.

 

[FordLorider]

Well it depends on what games you play (if you play any). If you play UT then you will be fine with your V3 3000 and a new processor and board. If you play Quake III then you probably would have updated your computer long before this because a K6-2 450 wouldn't do a good enough job in my mind. You can wait until other boards come out that make overclocking the Duron easier but by then the Duron and T-Bird could be permanently clock locked. Or you can go with the AZ-11 and have to put in some serious time soldering and modifying the board.

If it was me then I would go for the Duron and the AZ-11 because I would love to do that soldering stuff, but I already put in some money into a Celeron II and peltier.

It looks to me like you are a applications man because you could map an encyclopedia on all that disk space! Maybe you need the processor speed instead of a faster video card (then again you could have your drived filled with games, who knows). I would wait and possibly get a Geforce II MX after you hear about how everyone is doing overclocking them.

Coppermines probably won't work that great overclocked on generic SDRAM so with $400 you will not be able to get a coppermine, board and new SDRAM.

The Celeron II is also a option but the Duron is a little faster for the money but what you make up in speed in the Duron is going to cost you in time trying to modify or wait for new boards for the AMD platform.

Hope I helped

 

[downhiller80]

Yeah I'm waiting to hear a bit more on the future of the duron in o/c terms.

As for Q3 it's definately playable on a K6-2. Admittedly only 800x600x16 @ ~40 fps but that's good enough for me. I don't play it that much as my modems too crap (and phone bill too expensive!) for online.

Mainly I like driving games. Motocross Madness 2 & Rally Championship are my faves. RC definately runs too slow on K6-2. MXM2 could be better.

Anyone know when Coline Mcrae 2 is released in the states?

Oh and 18Gb of that HD is MP3s. Another few gig is ripped music videos and the like (need to check out that divx stuff). Also I hate doing anything but a full install of any games. I also then hunt until I find a crack that'll let me run it without the CD. I just HATE having to search for a CD.

Thinking I might get a pioneer 16x DVD cos they look well cool and my DVD player has no AC3 so my surround speakers are kinda redundant at the moment!

Seb

 

[FordLorider]

I will sell you a Celeron II that does 1GHz (Golden Orb and Iwill Slocket III) and a Abit BE6-II for $300. Those anandtech and tom's hardware articles are talking me into overclocking and modifying a AZ-11 and Duron

 

[FordLorider]

double post!

 

[FordLorider]

You don't need a 16x DVD to play DVD's, they only read at like 1 or 2x, I can't remember.

 

[Mem]

Yep! a 700mhz Duron+board or if you can wait to August you should have enough cash (£250) for a 750mhz Duron & board.

 

[Shudder]

Your video card is plenty fine now. If you just get a new video card you'll still be chugging along at the same speed, just slightly prettier But, hating yourself the entire time for not getting a Duron.

Besides, in 6 months you can spend 100 bucks and get a new kick ass video card.

 

[Tripleshot]

Get an "E" machine type 'puter for a back up.Then you have two and when you upgrade 1 you will still be able to get on the net to have us help you get through the problems.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

I recommend investing in 20 lap dances.

 

[Howard]

Lap dances aren't that expensive.


Yeah, Duron + motherboard seems best way to go now.

 

[downhiller80]

OK I've just seen that asus has released a "delux" geforce 2 GTS with all that VIVO stuff. I think I may have to get that AND the duron & mobo. I wonder what funds I can scrape together . . .

Seb

 

[jaydee]

T-Bird 750 ~$212 (sharky extreme) and Asus A7V mobo (guessing $160-175)

 

[jaydee]

<< Get an &quot;E&quot; machine type 'puter for a back up.Then you have two and when you upgrade 1 you will still be able to get on the net to have us help you get through the problems >>



That is a good idea as well.

 

[downhiller80]

Well since you mention it I'm having serious problems now: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=201485

Seb