Upgrade or new PC

[bosox188]

I have a Dell Dimension 2350
Specs:
[email protected]
256MB RAM
Nvidia Geforce FX5200 PCI
30GB HDD

It came with integrated graphics so no AGP slot. I was hoping I could just by a good AGP mobo and then I'm getting a 9600xt or 9800 pro if the prices drop. But I'm not sure a new mobo will work with my Dell. If not, I'm selling this computer and building one from scratch. I think I'll get an AMD Athlon XP because they're cheaper and I heard there's not much of a performance difference. Can I upgrade? Or do I need to build a new one?

 

[Asus]

It's a Dell. You are most likely stuck in a rut for upgradablity of any kind.
Buy a new PC.

 

[joule]

Yeah, what Asus said, buy a new PC. And if you have the dough, go with Alienware, Voodoo, or Falcon Northwest.

 

[RTFMish]

Yeah, what Asus said, buy a new PC. And if you have the dough, go with Alienware, Voodoo, or Falcon Northwest.

Do not listen to this guy.

Just build your own from scratch, you'll save alot.

 

[Maxi]

Yeah, new pc, build your own, no alienware crap.

 

[IchI]

buy a new pc, but actually buy a good one

 

[blackeye]

If you dont have enough money to buy a new pc atleast upgrade your ram to 512

 

[Maskirovka]

Yeah, new pc, build your own, no alienware crap.

yes...i mean...alienware are fast i bet...and they're made non-stupidly so you can actually upgrade them...unlike dell/gateway/compaq shit. but building your own will save you a lot of $$ and give you a great experience building your own machine...you'll have a lot more pride in it that way...and it's fun.

 

[bosox188]

Yeah I think I'll buy a new pc. Should I get an Athlon FX or Pentium 4? Athlon is cheaper, and I know it's great for games, but what is the Pentium 4 better for? I have one now, is Athlon good for video stuff like encoding and decoding? And how much could I sell my Dell for? I'll probably keep the monitor.

 

[joule]

Yeah I think I'll buy a new pc. Should I get an Athlon FX or Pentium 4? Athlon is cheaper, and I know it's great for games, but what is the Pentium 4 better for? I have one now, is Athlon good for video stuff like encoding and decoding? And how much could I sell my Dell for? I'll probably keep the monitor.

Go with the Athlon 64 FX-53, it's the best money can buy right now. You will really notice the major difference over the Pentium 4. And, yes, the Athlon 64 should do well with encoding and decoding. I'm not sure how much you could sell your Dell for, it ranges it price.

 

[bosox188]

Oh, whoops, did I just type in FX? Sorry, kinda new to Athlons so I'm still a little confused with the names. I wish I could afford an FX, but I meant XP. Here's the specs of the comp I might me building:
Athlon XP 2500+ @1.83ghz
512MB PC2700 RAM
Nvidia Nforce 2 mobo
Hitachi 60GB / 7200 / 2MB / ATA-100 EIDE Hard Drive
BenQ DVD Burner / 4x4x12x DVD+RW / 16x10x32x CD-RW / White Box
Ati Radeon 9600 XT

All for the price of $518. I'm not selling my current monitor. I just want to know if the processor is ok. 1.8 ghz seems a little slow, especially since my current P4 is 2.2ghz. Is there something else that makes Athlons fast because they all seem to have slower speeds than P4s.

 

[joule]

Oh, whoops, did I just type in FX? Sorry, kinda new to Athlons so I'm still a little confused with the names. I wish I could afford an FX, but I meant XP. Here's the specs of the comp I might me building:
Athlon XP 2500+ @1.83ghz
512MB PC2700 RAM
Nvidia Nforce 2 mobo
Hitachi 60GB / 7200 / 2MB / ATA-100 EIDE Hard Drive
BenQ DVD Burner / 4x4x12x DVD+RW / 16x10x32x CD-RW / White Box
Ati Radeon 9600 XT

All for the price of $518. I'm not selling my current monitor. I just want to know if the processor is ok. 1.8 ghz seems a little slow, especially since my current P4 is 2.2ghz. Is there something else that makes Athlons fast because they all seem to have slower speeds than P4s.

Yeah, you're right. 1.8 ghz seems a little slow, especially since your current P4 is 2.2ghz. Why don't you try the P4 @2.8 GHz? I don't know how much you are willing to spend on a processor so I wouldn't know whether you would want me to go higher.

 

[Asus]

I just want to know if the processor is ok. 1.8 ghz seems a little slow, especially since my current P4 is 2.2ghz. Is there something else that makes Athlons fast because they all seem to have slower speeds than P4s.

Its a good machine. Its a lot faster than the P4 2.5GHz CPUs.
And a lot less $$ than the 2.6c P4 CPUs.
'Does it matter how fast you can spoon cereal into your mouth if its just a teaspoon? Why not use a real spoon and go at a little slower pace and not spill so much.'

With any electronics you cannot compare MHz/GHz with another design/core. Its a combination of design, operation and speed.

I would get a 9800Pro if you could though. It's worth the small extra fee and in gaming, GFX should be priority #1.
If you have to save a few bucks in order to get the 9800pro I would get a 2400+ instead of the 2500+ then.

 

[bosox188]

I'll keep the 2500+, and since the 9800 pro has already dropped to $164, I think I can get it. If the 2500+ really is better than a [email protected] ghz, I'm really getting a pretty good upgrade. But nobody has answered my question about how much they think I can sell my Dell for.
Specs:
[email protected]
256MB RAM
Nvidia Geforce FX5200
30GB HDD

I think I'm keeping the monitor

 

[blackeye]

Are you even sure you are allowed to sell your dell. Some companies dont allow you to sell the computer that you have purchased from them.

 

[bosox188]

Are you kidding? And if I sell it back to them so they can refurbish it and re-sell it, they'll probably rip me off.

 

[blackeye]

you probably could sell the computer. But i know A lot of the high end builders (such as vodoo) dont allow you to resell the computers that you have bought from them. I dont think Dell would give a crap if you sold the computer 6 months later that you bought from them. They might loose a lot of money when you sell your computer to someone else when that person could be buying one from them brand new.

 

[bosox188]

Well it's a 2350, I got it last year, and they don't make 2350s anymore so I think I'm good.

 

[RTFMish]

An 1.8gig AMD really runs like a 2.8gig p4..

 

[Asus]

An 1.8gig AMD really runs like a 2.8gig p4..

An A64 2800+...yes. Actually better.

An AXP 2500+...no.

 

[Shockwave]

Get rid of the system, heres what you'll end up spending.

Mobo $120 for a decent one
Processor $175 for a 2.8c P4(overclock it to 3.3ghz area)

And one thing im sure you forgot in all this mess is that dell's come with a propierty(how you spell that?) power supply, which means you will need to buy a new power supply also, another $50 minimum for something of quality.

So instead of spending the $350 on that, sell your system for $450, add that to the $350 and you have $800 total.

You can build a much better system for $800 than you currently have

 

[Asus]

Get rid of the system, heres what you'll end up spending.

Mobo $120 for a decent one
Processor $175 for a 2.8c P4(overclock it to 3.3ghz area)

An A64 2800+ is the same price (100$ for the MSI K8T800 board), performs better and can even match a P4 EE system in some games.
OCing is unnecessary with the game performance of a A64 and I doubt you want lowered reliability for whatever CPU you OC.

If you did OC an A64, you can imagine the performance. Link

CPU will not do as much justice as a better gfx card though. Really.
Any extra money should go into the gfx card. A 2500+ could handle just about any card well. Link

 

[Maskirovka]

do not buy the $164 9800 pro's...they are "lite" versions with 128-bit RAM instead of 256-bit...they are slow and crappy. you will have to spend around $200 for a 256-bit one.

the other thing you should watch out for is an upgrade path. can you buy a faster processor for the mobo you buy? will it be worth it? are you going to have to just get a whole new computer in another 8-12 months?

i guess you'll be fine with a 2X00+, non-cheapo RAM, and a (real) 9800 pro for the next year or so. you won't feel slow too soon. also consider trying to save your old HD, sound card (if you even have one in a dell), and DVD/CD rom...that stuff adds up...and you also haven't listed what case/power supply you're going to get. don't forget that part

 

[blackeye]

the extra 128 mb of ram will on get you a increse of 10% performance at most. Buy the time a game needs 256 of ram its more then likely that your clock and memory speeds will be to slow.

 

[Maskirovka]

the extra 128 mb of ram will on get you a increse of 10% performance at most. Buy the time a game needs 256 of ram its more then likely that your clock and memory speeds will be to slow.

i'm talking about 128-bit not 128 Megabyte. ram speed not ram size.

128-bit RAM means you have half the memory bandwidth of the 256-bit card...that means your card is slower at all settings...period.

i'm well aware that 256 megs of ram isn't really necessary right now because most games don't use textures that are detailed enough to utilize the extra ram, though valve is supposedly releasing an update to hl2 at some point that will include larger textures for 256 meg cards.

 

[bosox188]

You're right, the store selling it for $164 is only 128-bit. I'll wait until the prices for the real ones drop, they should soon. If the processor I'm getting is way better than my current [email protected], I'm happy with it. What I'm getting is a barebones kit that comes with an Athlon XP 2500+, Speeze Socket A Cooling fan up to 2800+, Nforce 2 mobo, 512mb pc2700 RAM, and a 400 watt power supply. I have a mouse and keyboard, I'm getting a 60GB HDD, a DVD+RW/CD-RW Burner (So it reads and burns everything). I already have Windows XP, I'm keeping my monitor. The price is $370. Then I'll just use one of my old video cards until I get the 9800 pro.

 

[bosox188]

Well if the prices don't drop more I'll have to settle for a 9600xt. But I just found a 256MB 9600 pro. Would that be better than the 128MB 9600xt?

 

[Foxtrot]

t3h ownage
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.html?i=2058

 

[Asus]

I'll have to settle for a 9600xt. But I just found a 256MB 9600 pro. Would that be better than the 128MB 9600xt?

No.
Link

 

[bosox188]

Ok I'll stick with the 9600xt if I can't get the 9800 pro.

 

[Maskirovka]

if i were you i would really try hard to save and get the 9800 pro...the 9600xt really isn't any good, imo...and the 9800 pro isn't THAT much more expensive

 

[bosox188]

btw, how well will a 9600xt overclock? I heard they were good overclockers.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

9800Pro will still beat it, plus the 256mb version can have bios flashed over to XT.

 

[Maskirovka]

9800Pro will still beat it, plus the 256mb version can have bios flashed over to XT.

you don't need the 256 meg version to flash the bios to the XT bios. and the 9800XT is a huge waste of money. just get an x800 pro for slightly more. if you're gonna get a 9800 pro, just get the 128 meg version for around $200...or a refurbished one for like $170

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

I was comparing the 9600XT to the 9800 Pro 256-bit how you could flash to the bios of the 9800XT....

X800 series is def worth the money now. Can't beat $400 with awesome performance in hl2 can you?

 

[Farfege]

Hey guys. I'm 16 and just got interested in computers about a year ago when my family bought a Dell. My friend is a nub from what I can see and always buys those high end Aleinware and Northwests. How much did you guys save building your own comps compared to these company's rigs? And how often do you upgrade your rig to newer technology? How many fans, like 4? 2 exhaust? And have you ever fried anything from OCing? Just some fast questions I'd like answered from some pros. Thanks for the help.

 

[Maskirovka]

never fried anything
i have 5 exhaust fans (2 front 2 back 1 by agp slot on the side)

my whole rig (p4 2.4c, 1024mb corsair XMS, abit ic7, cdRW/dvd, case+430W power supply, 19" viewsonic p95f+B)...(video card gf4ti4200 and 40gig HD transferred from old machine) cost around $800-900 last june.

i upgrade about every 18 months or so...but i never buy all new parts...mostly just get a vid card here, cpu/ram/mobo there...new case every 2+ years or so...

that's what makes upgrading really nice. you buy a few parts (around $200-400 worth) a year and your comp is never crappy and slow...it's always at least decent...and if you have more $$ you just get some nicer parts or something...birthdays/christmas, etc. if you're younger help out. it's definitely the way to go. plus you learn a ton doing it.

on top of that, i've built my dad, mom, gf's mom/dad computers with my old parts.

 

[Farfege]

Cool, sounds like a great deal. I'm still working toward a new graphics card for HL2. But after that I think I'm going to start building my own. Thanks for the input.

 

[blahblahblah]

If you do build your own computer. Be sure you spend time learning about hardware and software. You become your own tech support when you build your computer.

Besides saving money and making a computer that is perfect for me, I find it alot of fun to upgrade and maintain a computer I built.

 

[bosox188]

farfege I bought a Dell a year ago and it came with integrated graphics. If yours did too, that means you don't have an AGP slot to put a good video card into which pretty much means you need a new computer. Just build you own, and don't screw up like I did.