Low budget up grade

[jimsmithkka]

ok, i have $200(usd), can var maby $15, i have a noname mobo p4 478, with a 1.7 ghz p4, i have a Radeon 9600pro vid card.

I wann upgrade my mobo and proc. Any sugestuns?

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130457

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103485

That's about the only good option for that budget.

[jimsmithkka]

Re: Low budget up grade

is it good multi-media quality?, i have tv in and a santa cruise 5.1 sound pci addins?, i was looking for a little bit more of a spreed boost. I wanted to know also if it is worth it to upgrade my vid to pci-e as well, my max spending is 400, i need to gear up for colledge and not spend my entire budget on a new machine.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

If it's $400 that changes things.
Grab one of these and these. From there, you could probably still afford a cheaper or even refurbished PCI-E 6600GT, which is a decent upgrade from a 9600, though I'd have to ask what your current PSU is. If insufficient, you may have to upgrade to a new one. At the very least, you'd probably want a 20- to 24-pin power converter for it. A PSU such as this ought to be sufficient for that system, though I generally recommend 480W just to be safe.

This is all good stuff multimedia-wise, though for better sound quality, if your an audiophile, you'd want a 24-bit Creative Labs Audigy card as opposed to he onboard sound, which does support surround sound, but won't have as high of quality as an Audigy PCI card.

[jimsmithkka]

Re: Low budget up grade

i was hoping to geet alittle more of a clock boost, or is that not important right now?, i already have a 1.8, and don't i need a pci-e board for a pci-e card?, i am just worried about future upgrades from this, i don't want to rebuild my system from scratch a second time to update on thing (cpu speed)

[Darthtanion]

Re: Low budget up grade

The items that Yawg recommended are all future proof. The motherboard is an AMD Socket 939 type and will be around for a while. The processor, while "only" running at 1.8GHz will literally smoke the one you have. As for the PCI-E, check the stats on the motherboard... it too is PCI-E, which is going to be the industry standard before long (replacing AGP) so again, you'll be pretty much setting yourself up for future upgrades.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

The processor, while "only" running at 1.8GHz will literally smoke the one you have.

Athlon 64s are really powerful, but I don't think they have lungs nor the ability to combust anything other than themselves and the motherboards, so literally smoking something ought to be impossible. :P

But it will figuratively beat the crap out of a 1.8Ghz P4. It'll beat the crap out of a 3.6GHz in some applications. Intel has yet to release a processor that can outperform any desktop Athlon 64 in Doom 3, for example.

More realistically, you could say it has overall performance comparable to a 3Ghz Pentium 4. Some applications it will be more like a 2.8GHz or even a little less, and in some it will outperform 3.2 and 3.4GHz P4s. Don't think of processor speed in terms of clock frequency.

[jimsmithkka]

Re: Low budget up grade

i think my psu will due, it hase the 4 pin p4 part, in a revew on hte board that was said to work, is it a good idea? And does the 64 work well with windows?

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

At least get a converter for it. The 4-pin power connector does not replace the 4 pins on the ATX power connector.

Athlon 64s work fine with Windows. Actually, they work great...

[jimsmithkka]

Re: Low budget up grade

where could i get a cheap pcie vid card, or will an agp still work? idoubt it but that refurb card you showed me was an agp. thanks for all the help

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

I didn't mean to post an AGP card... Just didn't check. If a 6600GT is too much money, a 6600 will do. It's not really much of an upgrade from a 9600, though, so I'd suggest you dish out a little more for this or another 6600GT.

[jimsmithkka]

Re: Low budget up grade

what about the x#00s from ati? i prefer there card becausei know their software better

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

Their cards are inferior; the software shouldn't matter, though I do prefer the Catalysts over nVidia's driver. I would rarely consider ATI for anything above $100 U.S., unless a country where ATI has a huge advantage over nVidia is what the situation involves.

[jimsmithkka]

Re: Low budget up grade

my tv-in card is an ati tv wonder and i don't know if it will work well with the nvidia video card, i haven't ever used a nvidia with my machine so i have no idea

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Low budget up grade

It should work fine, though I can't say that from experience. But it really should be irrelevant.