Which m/b,cpu should I select to upgrade my old bx/celery system?

4thman

Senior member
Dec 30, 2000
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I presently have a Abit bx6r2 and celeron 1.0 gig,384 megs sdram,gf2-gts,30 gig 7200 rpm maxtor,sb pci,cdrw,250watt p/s, etc...Got the upgrade bug,but I want to re-use as much of my stuff as possible to keep cost low.(so my wife will let me upgrade!)Ram and vid. would be upgraded at a later time.

I have two options for a m/b,cpu combo
#1-ECS P4S5A V.1 pcb 1.2a and a P4 1.5 s478.(sdram and ddr slots)
#2-ECS ECS K7S5A 3.1 and a AMD Athlon XP 1700+ CPU(sdram and ddr slots)

I realize this stuff is still slow by some peoples standards,but It would be a big boost for me,and it's all I can afford.

Will combo will allow me to upgrade to a faster cpu in the future?Thanks.
 

DieHardware

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2001
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Is the RAM PC100 or 133? What kind of PSU is that? (If it's generic you might need to get a new one)
 

4thman

Senior member
Dec 30, 2000
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Pc 133 sdram,generic psu,seems to be of fair quality,judging by it's weight,I clean it often,and case is well ventilated..The Ecs P4S5A is kinda neat in that it doesn't require a special P4 psu connector.I don't plan on o/cing .In future I will upgrade psu,if required.
 

DieHardware

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2001
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Out of those two I'd choose the Athlon setup. (Make sure you get the Pro for the extra USB2 ports) There are some other DDR/SD RAM MB's (Biostar has some KT266A with newer native USB2 VIA southbridges, etc).
 

brentkiosk

Member
Oct 25, 2002
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I'm using an ECS K7S5A with an XP 1700 and 768 M of mixed generic DDR RAM right now. This computer has been in operation for a little over a year. It'n nominally my wife's machine, but I use it a lot for web surfing/ email. We have absolutely no complaints. I would go this route again.

As for PSU, I put this in a Foxconn case with a no name "350 W" power supply. I sort of assumed that I might end up being sorry, but so far so good. You could get the board, CPU and use everything else you have already and see how it works. That would be less than $100 US - maybe less than $100 CDN - and be a nice general purpose system.

This computer replaced a PIII celeron/700 MHz, and the difference in all respects was very noticable.