Worth the Upgrade?

[DarkKobold]

I am going to a computer show tommorrow, and maybe, buying enough pieces to build a new system. However, I am not sure if it is worth the cost. Currently, I have a P700 oc'ed to 933 with 133 mhz bus. I was thinking of buying an Athlon 1.2 or 1.4 Ghz, with DDR. If that total costs me <300, is it worth the money? Am I going to notice that much of a difference? (I know it depends on 3d cards, what I am doing with the system, etc, but in general, if I only upgrade CPU, RAM, MOBO?) Also, at the last show, I saw a ASUS board with 2 DDR Ram slots, and 3 sdram slots... If I put in SDRam, will that slow down the DDR slots? It was really confusing. Please help me, I turned on PMing if anyone prefers that. Thanks!!!

 

[DCFife]

I'll let you know if it's worth it in a few days...I have a PIII 700 running at 933 right now and I should have my Athlon 1.4 and motherboard from Newegg on Monday.

Have you noticed a significant difference since oc'ing your 700 to 933? Considering that it's a 33% increase in both bus speed and processing speed, my setup doesn't seem much faster at all.

- Dave

 

[bozo1]

You can't run SDRAM and DDR at the same time so the answer to your question is no, SDRAM won't slow down the DDR slots.
I'd be wary about buying at a computer show - what you buy may have no warranty and the shows I've been to seem to be full of a lot of overpriced junk. For < $300, you can get a mobo, 1.4 Athlon and DDR RAM from MWave or Newegg.

 

[DarkKobold]

I've not had any problems with Computer shows, yes, they are a &quot;slight&quot; bit higher then price watch, but you don't pay shipping. I see a lot of the same people from show to show, and they all give 90 day warranties. Plus, I read in Maximum PC that as long as they are an authorized reseller, AMD offers a 1 year warranty on all chips. (see the June issue, I think, if anyone wants me to research it, I will) I like looking at stuff at the Comp Shows anyway. It's a blast. Now my question is, Why do they put both SDRAM and DDRram on the same Mobo, if they don't both work? Seems like wasted space/money. Also, does anyone know if it is that much faster?

PS DC- I notice a slight increase, when I unrar 700 mb files, it saves enuff time to make it worth the pull on the CPU

 

[dmw16]

I figured that a reason for both SD and DD slots were so you could make a more gradual upgrade. If you had say, two 512MB sticks of SDRAM you may not want to trash it just yet. So you could use that until you could afford enough DDR to make it worth the switch.
-doug

 

[Helznicht]

&quot;Why do they put both SDRAM and DDRram on the same Mobo, if they don't both work? Seems like wasted space/money.&quot;

I see it as both formats are still valid solutions for todays PCs.

Plus there is the cost saving &quot;assembly line&quot; mentality. Overall, its cheaper to manufacture one MB that supports both than to build 2 differnt MBs with different memory standards. In the end, what we get is a cheaper DDR Motherboard because of this.

 

[igowerf]

Hey DarkKobold, I'm going to a comp show too tomorrow. Where is the computer show you're going to?