Mustard's CoffeeMaker March 5, 2004 Share Mustard's CoffeeMaker Member March 5, 2004 (edited) Ok my old MMX440 has finally bit the dust. I've been concidering an upgrade for some time now, but really haven't needed to b/c what I've got has allowed me to play everything I've wanted to play w/o any problems. Now that the vid card is toast I'm attempting to review my options, but with so many optinos available I'm finding it increasingly difficult to narrow them down. First off I'd like to spend as little as possible. Second I dont' see any reason to get an AGP8x card when my mobo AGP is only 4x. I built this system in 2002 and I've known that the time to upgrade would be here soon, but I'm hoping to make it last until tax season comes around next year. Here are the specs: Mobo: MANUFACTURER DFI PLATFORM Socket 478 PROCESSOR TYPE Pentium® 4, CHIPSET Intel® 850 Chipset FRONTSIDE BUS 400MHz FORM FACTOR ATX PCI SLOTS 5 CNR SLOT 1 AGP SLOTS 1 x AGP 4X MAX RAM 2GB RIMM SOCKETS 4 BIOS AWARD ON BOARD AUDIO AC`97 Audio codec 1 x game/MIDI, 3 x Audio jacks ON BOARD I/O 2 x USB, 2 x DB-9, 1 x DB-25, 1 x mouse,1 x keyboard, ON BOARD IDE Dual PIO mode 4 EIDE channels up to 4 IDE devices UltraDMA/100 transfer rate up to 100MB/sec Ram: 4x 256MB RDRAM PC800 Any input would be greatly appreciated. Also anything that I get now could be used to upgrade my wife's computer: http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/pd_spec.asp?product_id=321 Thanks in advance for any help you could possibly give. Edit: Bah didn't realize I was signed in under my wife's login. -MrMustard Edited March 5, 2004 by Mustard's CoffeeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Mustard March 5, 2004 Share Mr.Mustard Member March 5, 2004 One thing I forgot to include is that I need to upgrade my monitor. Right now it's like this: Graphics Modes Resolution Frequency --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1024 x 768 60Hz 800 x 600 60, 75, 85Hz 640 x 480 60, 75, 85Hz 720 x 400 70Hz 640 x 350 70Hz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer March 5, 2004 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member March 5, 2004 A. You need a video card, I'd suggest one of these routes: 1. ATi 9800 Pro for around $212 at Newegg. Will be AGP which won't be the slot of choice in a year, but could be used for your wife's sytem next year. 2. Get another cheapie video card based on what you play. Start with this article on Tom's. You could post in these forums and try to get someone who recently upgraded to give up their old one. Wilco just upgraded. 3. Onboard video, see below. B. The mobo/cpu/rdram you have won't upgrade really. You'd be stuck getting all 3 if you plan on upgrading any. If you decide to upgrade now, you could see a big jump by going with one of these (Newegg u.n.o.): 1. 266mhz FSB w/ video $67 Athlon XP2400+ (266) $40 512mb PC2100 (look online at officemax.com under in-store specials, it is usually there for $20 for 256mb after mail-in rebate) $65 Biostar mobo w/ integrated GF4 MX video. I've used this board myself and it runs decent at 1024x768 in Windows, you know what the gaming ability of this chipset is. $9 heatsink/fan 2. 266mhz FSB w/o video $67 Athlon XP2400+ (266) $40 512mb PC2100 (look online at officemax.com under in-store specials, it is usually there for $20 for 256mb after mail-in rebate) $49 Albatron mobo w/o video $9 heatsink/fan 3. 333/400mhz FSB w/o video $75 XP2500+ Barton $90 2 x 256mb PC3200 DDR cas=2.5 $53 Biostar mobo $9 heatsink/fan 4. 333/400mhz FSB w/ video $75 XP2500+ Barton $90 2 x 256mb PC3200 DDR cas=2.5 $65 Biostar mobo w/ GF4 MX video $9 heatsink/fan If you had more money to spend we could start talking P4c or Athlon64. Options B3 & B4 have some room for overclocking if that would be of interest, but you may want to reseach the RAM and mobo a little more then to get ones that O/C best. Option B1 would probably get you most bang for the buck and leave you open to upgrade to an AGP video card if you wanted. Any of these would also spawn nice leftovers for your wife's system in a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer March 5, 2004 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member March 5, 2004 re: monitor Try here . or here. In any case I'd go with a 19". p.s. I've asked Fatty if we can change the color of the links! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL March 5, 2004 Share dwEEziL Member March 5, 2004 Thank you. I was thinking the same thing. Either change the color or make them underlined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer March 5, 2004 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member March 5, 2004 I was just looking on the VGA charts on Tom's and it looks like the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra does decently, the 128mb version is available for $178 on Pricewatch.com. I'd still prefer a 9800 Pro myself, but when every dollar counts it might make the difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
All Kill3r March 5, 2004 Share All Kill3r Member March 5, 2004 bad time for upgrading. You PC runs everything you have wanted it to up to this poiint and your going to get a new one in one year. Personally i would just get a agp card and ride other upgrades out till next year. 9800Pro is the obvious pick being a high end card for 212 bucks on newegg and will be nice for the wife later. 9600Pro for 130 isnt a bad choice either if your on a tighter budger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Mustard March 5, 2004 Share Mr.Mustard Member March 5, 2004 Maybe I'm a bit confused, but the items you listed are hardly an upgrade for my system. I listed a mobo that already supports a 400mhz FSB and the Athlon 2500 hardly compares with the 2.2gigP4 Also PC3200DDR runs no faster than the PC800 Rdram? Although those would upgrade my wife's system why would I buy stuff that is comprable to what I already have? Maybe I'm confused.... But thanks for mentioning the AGP going out. I hadn't thought about that and after doing some research I'll deffinately be waiting until next year after the socket 775 and the PCI express has been released. Now just something inexpensive to replace my burnt vid card.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL March 5, 2004 Share dwEEziL Member March 5, 2004 Mustard, AMD's 400MHz FSB is comparable to 800MHz FSB on Intel. The mobo's that Homer listed above (the AMD ones) have twice the FSB throughput as your current Intel mobo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer March 5, 2004 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member March 5, 2004 You listed about everything but the speed of your PC at 2.2ghz. Given the RDRAM it could have been as slow as iirc 1.4ghz. I was thinking that you had a fairly slow system by todays standards. I too would then say that just upgrading your video card would go a long way. If you can swing a 9600 XT, 5800 Ultra, 9700 Pro, or 9800 Pro then you'll see some nice performance out of your machine. One of those would scale very nicely on your system. Next year a new cpu/ram/mobo/video card for you and your wife would get a sweet system for a hand-me-down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Mustard March 6, 2004 Share Mr.Mustard Member March 6, 2004 Thanks for your help. I think that that's the way we're going to go. See you for some fraggin again soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Mustard March 6, 2004 Share Mr.Mustard Member March 6, 2004 Ok so I'm in the market for a new vid card. I checked out the most taxing games that I'll most likely be playing and it seams that I'll be needing something that has at least 128mb ram, support Directx9.0 and has pixel/vertex shader compatible hardware? Help some more plz? And if anyone has an old card that does this I'd be interested in buying it for an extremely small portion of hundreds of dollars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX March 6, 2004 Share NOFX Member March 6, 2004 9600 XT man best bang for you buck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer March 6, 2004 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member March 6, 2004 A 9600 XT 128mb would be great, the 256mb version is overkill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Mustard March 7, 2004 Share Mr.Mustard Member March 7, 2004 Wewt thanks! Ordering soon.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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