Worthwhile Upgrade?

[daftpunkit]

My brother is asking me a bunch of questions bout his upcoming upgrade and he plans to go from:
CPU-
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ ClawHammer (socket 754) to
Intel Pentium 4 651 Cedar Mill 800MHz FSB LGA 775 EM64T
(I have no experiences with P4s so I dont know much in this area)

MoBo-
MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R Socket 754 VIA K8T800 ATX to
JetWay J775GT4-G Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX
(both are respectable companies, I think)

Vid Card- (the only clear obvious upgrade I can tell)
POWERCOLOR R96-D3G Radeon 9600PRO 256MB to
XFX PV-T71G-UDF7 GeForce 7900 GT
(I suggested eVGA or BFG for the extra $20)

RAM-
Mushkin SP3200 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) x2 (1GB total)
and he wants to add 2 more 1GB sticks for 3GB total but I advised he just add the two 1GB sticks and shelf the 512s cause he'll see little or no difference.

PSU-
He has a Thermaltake Xaser III that came with a stock 420W psu. He wants to get some beastly RAIDMAX RX-630 ATX12V/ EPS12V 630W but I can't seem to find much support for that psu. I do think he should get another psu, but don't think 630W is needed.

Is that a worth $1000 upgrade?

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Well the burden of explanation is on him, as to why he's going from an A64 to a P4. Makes no sense, really. Maybe it's just a way for him to go from AGP to PCIe? But if that's the case, the Pentium D 820 would be far cheaper... I think the 920 even was going for cheap now too. and for the price of the Cedar Mill, he could get a nice Opty 148 or spend a bit more and go with an X2. And Jetway mobo?!?

Edit: he must not overclock at all, in which case the Cedar Mill would probably be a bit faster. But if he's stuck on Intel I would at least recommend a Pentium D, or better yet, wait for Conroe. If he wants a faster videocard in the meanwhile, there are much faster AGP ones out there. 7800GS, or a nice X850XT.

Also for a PSU I would definitely go with something like an Antec TruePower 430, or a Seasonic S12-430. That would be more than enough, and probably much better than a lesser-known Jigawatt PSU. Check the 12V current ratings on the Thermaltake thing, it might be very good or awful.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Going from AMD to Intel P4 makes no sense. AMD to conroe? I could see that. A better upgrade IMHO would be stick with AMD, get a 939 mobo, that would give you PCIe.

For the mobo, I wouldn't get a Jetway. Get MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, epox, abit... Jetway is a rebadged something-or-other. They can be "ok" but I wouldn't do it personally.

My personal bias is get the X1900XT as it appears to be the VPU king right now.

I agree with you on the RAM - 2x 1GB is better than adding the extra 512MB sticks because AMD's currently have a mem controller issue that with 4 ram sticks it forces speed down, and the change from 2GB to 3GB won't be big anyway. Sell the 2x512MB sticks.

As far as the PSU, I would recommend something bigger than the 420W unless the 12V rails are powerful enough, but the issue with that is does the PSU even have a 24pin connector on it? DO NOT get the raidmax PSU! Those things are aweful from my experience - cheaply made and die very easily. Get something better like Fortron, Antec, or Seasonic.

My .02 for whatever its worth.

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: daftpunkit
My brother is asking me a bunch of questions bout his upcoming upgrade and he plans to go from:
*snip*
Is that a worth $1000 upgrade?

In short, the only significant difference is the 7900GT.

Socket 754 mobo with PCIe: $60
7900GT: $300
2x1GB RAM: $150

Same performance as that P4 upgrade (or at least close enough), for $510.

 

[m1ldslide1]

RAM-
Mushkin SP3200 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) x2 (1GB total)
and he wants to add 2 more 1GB sticks for 3GB total but I advised he just add the two 1GB sticks and shelf the 512s cause he'll see little or no difference.

I didn't look up the mobo to make sure, but my understanding was that all current intel setups require DDR2 memory.

And I also don't understand why Intel? For a gaming rig the A64 is king, at least until conroe is released. Get a good PSU, and consider the x1900 over the 7900GT - either GPU is great but apparently the 1900 edges the 7900 in minimum frame rates.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
I didn't look up the mobo to make sure, but my understanding was that all current intel setups require DDR2 memory.

Most, but not all.

I too fail to see much purpose to the processor upgrade.

Raidmax makes (or rebrands, really) terrible power supplies with only a few exceptions. A higher-wattage power supply is probably not needed, but a non-Thermaltake one sure wouldn't hurt.

 

[bamacre]

Yeah, he doesn't need a cpu.

However, if he is stuck on going to Intel, he needs to look at the Pentium 930, it's dropped to less than $220 shipped at zipzoomfly.com.

 

[MrUniq]

Tell him to stay away from upgrading....Conroe and AM2 is so close that he's really losing out by not waiting....atleast if he wants a Pentium. AMD is another story, he should stick with 939 if he wants to upgrade now. I haven't heard about any 754 updates other than semprons.