Bullett proof PC too old to Update?

M

Mike Armstrong

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
197
Hi guys,

Five years ago I built my own PC (with allot of help from this Forum) using the best components at the time. Originally built for gaming it has been just the everyday home computer used for e-mail, web browsing and some MS Office stuff. It's been 'bullett proof' all these years, still looks nice and shiny inside and out and I just don't have any reason to get rid of it. With years of programs being installed and un-stalled, occasional nasty viruses and improper shutdowns, it's now buggered up enough, software wise, that it needs at least an OS re-install and driver update.

So, I'm thinking of updating it, a little, by replacing the OS with Windows 7 x64 (better OS and recognizes more memory), maxing out the memory with an additional 2gb's (since it's so cheap now) and perhaps getting a better video card, again, just cause they're so cheap nowadays for a much better one than what I have. I could get a better processor but I don't want to put 'that' much money into an old PC.

If I get these few things at good prices (ie holiday sales) does it sound like a totally stupid thing to do? I'd really hate to just junk a once great PC for the cost of something new.

DFI LP NF4 SLI-DR (BIOS 623-3)
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 939 90nm 1mb L2 cache
2GB (2x1GB) Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000
1-BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256mb
WD 74 Gb SATA 10,000 rpm Raptor
NEC 3540A DVD RW
Mitsumi Floppy 7 in 1 USB Card Reader/Smart Media
Creative X-FI Fatality
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI
Lian Li PC-60B Plus case
XP Home x32

http://dfics.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_...p?PRODUCT_ID=3491&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP UT&SITE=NA
 
That CPU will pretty much limit the performance of whatever new GPU you get. So GPU wise, that's a bad idea.

RAM might be an ok thing to upgrade if you can get 2GB DDR RAM for relatively cheap. Around $30 to $40 I'd say would be a good price.

The OS is not a bad idea at all.
 
Is the 74GB drive your only HDD?

Maybe a bigger HDD or maybe even an SSD.
 
I'm not too sure on the memory, I looked around a little bit, and the only info I found said that board supports up to 4gb, but it might support more who knows.

One upgrade that I would highly recommend before anything else would be upgrading the cpu, if your only running a single core cpu, going to at least a Athlon 64 X2 3800+ or better would speed everything up, I've been looking at prices for the X2 3800+ on eBay lately, and they seem to be in the $30 range or so.

If it were me, my preference for upgrade order would be CPU > Memory > GPU > OS.

For the video card, I know in my case, just going from a 7800gt to an 8800gt made a huge difference, I just looked on ebay, and 8800gt's seem to go for around $50 to $60, I believe the GTS 250 is also in the same range.
 
One thing to be aware of is that some boards that claim to support 4GB of ram can't map ram beyond the 4GB boundry. So having a 64-bit OS does not gaurantee you will be able to use all 4GB of ram. A quick googling shows that you may have such a board (unfortunately it's kind of hard to find definitive info on what boards suffer this issue).

Personally i'd say consider what you are trying to acheive. Why do you want win7? going x64 just to get under 1Gb more usable ram doesn't seem worth it even if your board can support it seems kind of pointless. Why do you want better graphics? are there games that you want to play that you could run on there with updated graphics? IIRC retail copies of win7 come with both 32-bit and 64-bit discs so you can try both (there is no point running 64-bit if your motherboard limits the address space to 4GB).

If you do get a new graphics card try to get one that doesn't eat too much address space (e.g. a 512MB rather than a 1GB).
 
Hi Danny,

Ya, at the time that CPU was pretty good but definitely a limiter for the whole system. a better socket 939 CPU, say 64 X2 or FX if you can find one that hasn't been overclocked to death, nowadays is now way too expensive.

I forget now what that CPU can handle as far as a better GPU. Is that 7800 GTX about it?

I can gat this ram at Newgg, I think the timings are slightly higher than the Ballistix Tracer currently installed but it may not matter that much to me anymore and 184 pin Ballistix Tracer memory is expensive now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m_mmc=BFUS-_-147-_-N82E16820146545&nm_mc=BFUS

Lots of good prices on GPU's there also.
http://promotions.newegg.com/black-...-_-na-_-na&PID=3891137&AID=10521304&SID=194r0
 
Mike Armstrong said:
I forget now what that CPU can handle as far as a better GPU. Is that 7800 GTX about it?
Click to expand...

Yeah the 7800GTX is about it. Maybe the 7900GS or 7900GT if you can find one for about $25 shipped. Any higher and you're getting ripped off. Two years ago, the Athlon64 X2 5000+ was a limitation with the mid-range 8880GT card. SO yeah, your CPU is gonna be a severe limitation for any card with performance similar to the 8800GT
 
Thanks guys.

The 74GB Raptor is the only GB currently. It was nice and fast at the time and mega GB drives weren't a priority back then.

I see your point about the newer x64 OS, it would be mainly just for the extra 1GB of memory, probably not the best excuse. Upgrading the graphics card would 'only' because their so cheap and the one I have lags at HD media.

There are indeed allot more socket 939 CPU's on e-bay than I expected. Makes me sick to see I could buy my very same CPU for only $20 now, geez. Some of those x2 939's look pretty enticing, for what the PC is being used for now I wonder just how much more CPU power for the cost would be reasonable?
 
Mike Armstrong said:
There are indeed allot more socket 939 CPU's on e-bay than I expected. Makes me sick to see I could buy my very same CPU for only $20 now, geez. Some of those x2 939's look pretty enticing, for what the PC is being used for now I wonder just how much more CPU power for the cost would be reasonable?
Click to expand...
No more than $30 for any socket 939 X2 CPU. Any higher than that and it's a bit of of a ripoff considering that you can get a significantly faster CPU + mobo + RAM for around $130 to $140 these days.
 
Danny Bui said:
No more than $30 for any socket 939 X2 CPU. Any higher than that and it's a bit of of a ripoff considering that you can get a significantly faster CPU + mobo + RAM for around $130 to $140 these days.
Click to expand...

Yup. I have to admit, if I didn't have such an emotional tie to my 'ol reliable friend' I wouldn't put anything into it. So ya, I gotta keep some perspective on just how much money to put into the old bugger when modern much faster/better components are so much cheaper than what it cost me to build this PC even 5yrs ago.
 
That's something I like about these Forums. You get a different and often better, perspective on things. Thanks
 
ahh the good ol socket 939. I had the EXPERT version of that board. It ran like a dream. Best, most reliable box I ever built.
unfortunately there comes a time where you have to get rid of the old to make room for the new. I demoted that setup down to fileserver duty. It does a wonderful job of it however. When it needs to rip disc or compress files to zip, or run some game servers, it still has the "oomph" to get the job done.
My vote is if you don't have fileserver yet I highly recommend turning this box into one. It has plenty of horsepower and sata ports with RAID capability. Also has plenty of PCI/PCIe for expansion. Build a new box for your main system.
Also be careful if u decide to update to 4GB. I tried to update to 4GB but my board just wasn't having it. It wouldn't take them in any configuration, it would either not post or just plain not see them. This might be a different story if you can happen to find models that match your current dimms. DFI's have always been quite picky on componets.
 
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Yeah, you can probably find an x2 chip for pretty cheap, check fs/ft im sure someone is trying to offload one somewhere. If i hadnt gotten rid of my older x2 4800 id have just mailed it to ya.

But as already stated you will be limited on the newer video cards.
 
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