Which upgrades? Need advice...

[T.N.T. Toulouse]

I've got an Elite K7VMM+ mobo, with both memory slots filled with 133 Mhz SDR for a total of 1GB. FSB is 266Mhz. The cpu is a Socket A Athlon, running at 1 Ghz.
Graphics adapter is nVidia Geforce3 Ti500. Mobo supports 4X AGP.

I'd like to spend less than $1K. I've been thinking I'd get;

Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2 Ghz) ~ $450
Radeon 9800XT 256MB ~ $400-$500

Or is my mobo/memory just to slow for that gear - i should wait longer and rebuild from the ground up?

Words of wisdom appreciated....

 

[shapeshifter]

I don't think your motherboard can support anything over a 266fsb, so you won't be able to get that 3200+, or any core based on the barton for that matter, im not positive on that one, best place to look is the motherboards homepage for that sort of info. and 1Gb of 133mhz sdr ram? cough overkill.

 

[Heitai]

His motherboard doesn't actually. His motherboard has a Via prosavage km266 chipset.

http://www.ecsusa.com/products/k7vmm_plus.html

mobo specs for future refrence.

I origianlly started out making a computer for him that was under $1k (minus case, optical drives, hard drive.) before noticing that he was asking about upgrades to his current mb or if he should save and build from the ground up.

Basically it had a A7n8x dlx, Barton 2500, corsair xms 512 (2x256) and build by Ati radeon 9800 pro for 717.49 shipped from new egg. Oh well.

 

[SidewinderX]

you're mobo couldn't deal with that processor, and that Ram is jsut plain bad

However, here's a mobo/ram/cpu bundle that is nice and cheap that you can use with the 9800XT (get the 128mb one)

ASUS A7N8X DLX-MB; AMD XP 2800+(333Mhz); MWAVE 1GB DDR400(512MB X 2);
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/ViewBag....ded+to+your+basket&Back=ProdMBBUNDLE-AMD.hmx?
$450.06

 

[Heitai]

Ah Sidewinderx143 the link gives me this when I click on it.

Could not open SMX document.

Basically I am bored and was following the suggestions to the main poster.

 

[Homer]

dont bother with those, you could get a radion 9800 pro and a 2600xp for about half that. and the difference would be minute.

 

[Washuu]

no, he should DEFINATELY get a new motherboard, with the processor, memory, and video card, it would be under 1k! great upgrade, all will be happy!

 

[SidewinderX]

Originally posted by Heitai
Ah Sidewinderx143 the link gives me this when I click on it.

Could not open SMX document.

Basically I am bored and was following the suggestions to the main poster.

hit refresh.

 

[T.N.T. Toulouse]

Originally posted by SidewinderX143
you're mobo couldn't deal with that processor, and that Ram is jsut plain bad

However, here's a mobo/ram/cpu bundle that is nice and cheap that you can use with the 9800XT (get the 128mb one)

ASUS A7N8X DLX-MB; AMD XP 2800+(333Mhz); MWAVE 1GB DDR400(512MB X 2);
$450.06

The URL shows me an empty shopping cart, so I'm trying to recreate what you list there. The bundles for the AMD XP 2800+(333Mhz) don't offer RAM choices at 400Mhz. (Would it make sense to buy 400Mhz RAm with a 333Mhz bus CPU? I suppose the graphics card could suck stuff at the faster rate, but if the CPU's not feeding it.)

So, I'm look at more like:
ASUS A7N8X-X BUNDLE W/ COOLING FAN & (AMD XP 3200+(400Mhz); MWAVE 1GB DDR400(512MB X 2); ASSEMBLE/TEST BUNDLE) $692.63

(For $9, I'm happy for them to assemble it).


The slow, but large amount of ram I have was a cheap way to boost performance on this machine a little while ago.


Thanks all for the advice..! :bounce:

 

[TheRook]

Originally posted by T.N.T. Toulouse
The URL shows me an empty shopping cart, so I'm trying to recreate what you list there. The bundles for the AMD XP 2800+(333Mhz) don't offer RAM choices at 400Mhz. (Would it make sense to buy 400Mhz RAm with a 333Mhz bus CPU? I suppose the graphics card could suck stuff at the faster rate, but if the CPU's not feeding it.)

So, I'm look at more like:
ASUS A7N8X-X BUNDLE W/ COOLING FAN & (AMD XP 3200+(400Mhz); MWAVE 1GB DDR400(512MB X 2); ASSEMBLE/TEST BUNDLE) $692.63

(For $9, I'm happy for them to assemble it).


The slow, but large amount of ram I have was a cheap way to boost performance on this machine a little while ago.


Thanks all for the advice..! :bounce:

sounds like a great deal...

id say get the 9800pro the xt wont have that huge a perfomance increase tbh...

and when the xt comes out the 9800 pro price might drop

TheRook

 

[Xenome]

Buy a P4P800 Deluxe mobo ( 129 euro )
and a 2.8 ghz 800 fsb processor ( 330 euro)

Then youll have enough for your 3dcard, and your set to go.
You will be WAAYYY under 1k.

 

[Asus]

Originally posted by Xenome
Buy a P4P800 Deluxe mobo ( 129 euro )
and a 2.8 ghz 800 fsb processor ( 330 euro)

Then youll have enough for your 3dcard, and your set to go.
You will be WAAYYY under 1k.

and ram?
And I thought he was talking about $1k USD.

 

[T.N.T. Toulouse]

Because the HL2 delay, my urgency level for getting the hottest machine has lowered quite a bit. I wound up getting a faster cpu (2.0 Ghz) and faster RAM (DDR 266Mhz) for the mobo I have now. I figure that'll tide me over until all that new technology arrives (BTX, 64 bit, PCI Express, HL2 Software). These pieces (RAM, CPU) were pretty far down on the price curve, and I can use them to spruce up my home office computer (which 4 years old) when I get a new game machine.