Possible upgrade routes.

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My newest machine is a 939 based Opteron 170, 8800 GTX, 2 gig ram, etc etc.

So I'm basically looking at upgrading the mb/cpu/mem, reusing the video card and rest of components.

Then take the mb/cpu/mem and push it down to the next oldest machine...and use it's components to get my brothers machine working again. It has something going on with it's motherboard...old old AMD system Abit board I want to say a K7 processor but could be wrong there. Basically good memory throws errors in it and I just don't have enough components to narrow down the culprit.

So my question is a two-parter here, cuz Im not up to date on hardware released lately, etc.

I would like to spend around 350 bucks to upgrade cpu/mb/mem on my newest machine, I was looking at some DDR2 1066 and an intel wolfdale and preferably a motherboard with a fanless cooling system, or one where it could possible use a more normal sized fan to cool instead of those little bastards that make noise or die after a year or so. So I need suggestions, maybe even possible ways to spend a little more/less now and save overall, Im open to suggestions on possible upgrade routes.


Second part of this is, my newest machine has a SLI ready OCZ PSU with the 24 and 8 (4+4) pin adapters I think it's 600-700 watts. The other machines have older PSUs but are 450 or so on both, brands being Cooler Master and ....Antec. I am concerned about buying adapters to turn 4 pin molexs into motherboard pins for the new motherboards. Because I would guess they have the wattages needed to handle the new mb/mem/cpu...just don't appear to have all the connectors. Admittedly I haven't examined them thoroughly to make sure of exactly what they do have available, but I'm hoping some people here have had to do this and have some input on possible problems.

And if you can think of anything else that may be a problem doing this, Im all ears. Might not even end up doing it if I can't keep the costs and headaches to a minimum on it all.
 
Intel Wolfdale CPUs are horrible purchases for the money nowadays. AMD's Phenom II and Intel's Core i5 CPUs are better buys.

Now what's the model number of the OCZ PSU that you have? Model number for the Antec PSU?

Now before we can help you, we need the following questions answered:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
3) Where do you live?
6) Will you be overclocking?
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
 
Danny Bui said:
Intel Wolfdale CPUs are horrible purchases for the money nowadays. AMD's Phenom II and Intel's Core i5 CPUs are better buys.

Now what's the model number of the OCZ PSU that you have? Model number for the Antec PSU?

Now before we can help you, we need the following questions answered:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
3) Where do you live?
6) Will you be overclocking?
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
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Looks as though I might have posted in the wrong forum, I saw something similar here posted and figured it was the right location but to answer questions.

1) Gaming is the primary concern, but I would also use it for browsing, music, and some minor photoshop stuff.
3) SW Ohio USA
6) Probably won't be overclocking, or very minor.
8) If I were to find something suitable performance/price wise I would probably purchase it before the end of October. Not in a particular hurry, just would like to have the down machine fixed before winter.
9)On board audio, nic, sata, IDE. Crossfire and SLI aren't needed as I probably could only afford one video card anyway. I do want to try to get a fanless motherboard or one without the tiny fans on it because they give me problems and are usually hard to replace due to replacement heatsinks not fitting between capacitors and what not placed around the old one on the MB.

For the model numbers:

Cooler Master is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171005
OCZ is Oczdxs700
Antec I'll have to pull it out of the back of the machine to see the label on it because I can't find my invoice on it, I'll get it later tonight.


And if this needs moved to General Hardware please feel free, I thought I was posting to the correct location.
 
veterator said:
OCZ is Oczdxs700
Click to expand...
I think that D should be a "G". Since you have the GameXStream PSU, that does limit your upgrade path just a bit. It's based off the FSP Episilon PSU design which has out of spec ripple, or voltage fluctuations, at high loads that can damage or kill your system. Granted, you may not reach such high loads but still something to pay attention too. For all intents and purposes, you have a decent quality OCZ 500W/shitty 700W PSU. Should be fine for now. But if you ever upgrade the video card, you will need to get a new PSU.

Anyway, for your budget, I recommend this setup:
$247 - AMD Phenom II X4 945 CPU + Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G mATX Motherboard combo
$80 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
-----
Total: $327 plus tax and shipping.
 
Danny Bui said:
I think that D should be a "G". Since you have the GameXStream PSU, that does limit your upgrade path just a bit. It's based off the FSP Episilon PSU design which has out of spec ripple, or voltage fluctuations, at high loads that can damage or kill your system. Granted, you may not reach such high loads but still something to pay attention too. For all intents and purposes, you have a decent quality OCZ 500W/shitty 700W PSU. Should be fine for now. But if you ever upgrade the video card, you will need to get a new PSU.

Anyway, for your budget, I recommend this setup:
$247 - AMD Phenom II X4 945 CPU + Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G mATX Motherboard combo
$80 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM
-----
Total: $327 plus tax and shipping.
Click to expand...

Useful information on the PSU. I don't think I'll be buying OCZ PSUs anymore, as it has been replaced once and I find this out...system killing defects is kind of a big issue.


My only concern at this moment is that my Opteron 170 was kind of a whacky with games where I had to load em with special options or get drivers for the processor so the game wouldn't play in fast forward etc. Which I assumed was a two part thing, that it was dual core and because it was AMD not being supported as well as Intels are. After awhile it wouldn't pop up as much unless it was an old game, but usually for awhile after first reinstalling the OS I'd always forget something and have to go through the process again of trouble shooting. The AMDs/Intels of today got the same issues or did they somewhere along the way get it figured out? Not a huge issue overall, just hoping they are more taken care of now.

Updated:

Is there anything else you would recommend beyond a new PSU that would be something that could be potentially hard to find later or would just alleviate headaches? I know some of my older PSUs may need a 20 to 24 pin adapter or some other odd thing to make the PSU compatible...if I buy a PSU it may alleviate the need to do this as I can just move the PSU with the system.

Anything else come to mind?
 
Last edited:
Will you be upgrading the OS, like Win7? Most issues are ironed out, and runs most hardware smoothly.
 
gwarren007 said:
Will you be upgrading the OS, like Win7? Most issues are ironed out, and runs most hardware smoothly.
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I may consider it. Currently using Windows XP, would stick with it on most machines, may consider upgrading on the upgraded machine. Not sure if I'd be gaining any benefits over XP beyond accessing 4+ gigs of memory in a 64 bit OS. Money is pretty tight, just trying to make sure Im not forcing myself into a difficult to update position later. Seems like they've used the same sockets for awhile now but socket 939 seemed to fade pretty fast motherboard wise.
 
veterator said:
The AMDs/Intels of today got the same issues or did they somewhere along the way get it figured out? Not a huge issue overall, just hoping they are more taken care of now.
Click to expand...

That issue is looooooooonnnnnnnnng gone by now.

veterator said:
Anything else come to mind?
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Well you still haven't told us what Antec PSU you have. In addition, you may need to buy another PCI-E card, if you don't already have a spare one, so that you can actually reuse that old AMD CPU + Mobo + RAM as that mobo does not have onboard video IIRC and that only AGP video cards were available at the time of the old K7 CPU you mentioned your bro having.
 
Danny Bui said:
That issue is looooooooonnnnnnnnng gone by now.


Well you still haven't told us what Antec PSU you have. In addition, you may need to buy another PCI-E card, if you don't already have a spare one, so that you can actually reuse that old AMD CPU + Mobo + RAM as that mobo does not have onboard video IIRC and that only AGP video cards were available at the time of the old K7 CPU you mentioned your bro having.
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I was thinking of another computer's PSU on the antec, it's a old raid system with a truepower 550w in it. Which is not going to be modified in this exchange. The pertinent PSU is an Enermax Whisper EG465AX-VE listed at 433 W on the side of it.

I have a spare 7800 GTX I was going to to move into the mix to replace the 8800 GTX not being moved down, was trying not to complicate it too awful much. And the AGP video would be supplied by the card in my brothers old K7, as the board going into it is a AGP board with a northwood chip on it 2.66 ghz.

I have a bit of an intel /amd question. Im assuming you both chose AMD for the price/performance what are your feelings on the Intel chips? I mean either is an upgrade for sure, just wondering.
 
veterator said:
I was thinking of another computer's PSU on the antec, it's a old raid system with a truepower 550w in it. Which is not going to be modified in this exchange. The pertinent PSU is an Enermax Whisper EG465AX-VE listed at 433 W on the side of it.

......

I have a bit of an intel /amd question. Im assuming you both chose AMD for the price/performance what are your feelings on the Intel chips? I mean either is an upgrade for sure, just wondering.
Click to expand...

So you'll be using the Enermax PSU, which you already have I'm assuming, with your bro's "new" PC?

Intel CPUs are faster than AMD CPUs. But when it comes to price to performance on a lower level, AMD CPUs are the better choices. I simply go with whatever CPU meets the requirements of the user and has the best price to performance ratio.
 
Danny Bui said:
So you'll be using the Enermax PSU, which you already have I'm assuming, with your bro's "new" PC?

Intel CPUs are faster than AMD CPUs. But when it comes to price to performance on a lower level, AMD CPUs are the better choices. I simply go with whatever CPU meets the requirements of the user and has the best price to performance ratio.
Click to expand...

The OCZ will be used in the upgraded machine.....because Im just going to attempt to swap mb/cpu/mem and leave as much as I can in the case as it stands. The Enermax will run what's currently in the OCZ machine a Opteron 170, 2 gig, 7800 will be added to it for video.

The Cooler Master will take what's in the Enermax case, a gigabyte board running a Northwood 2.66 Ghz with 1 gig memory and use the video card that is currently in the cooler master. The Radeon currently used with that board is giving me some issues and I'd rather just take it out of the loop for a back up card if something happens.

And what's in the cooler master case is currently throwing weird errors and I believe the MB to have went bad in some fashion, I may find out it's something else. But until I can narrow down it's problem Im taking the cpu/mem/mb out of it until I can check the memory. If everything goes OK with the new MB/mem/CPU then I may try adding it's memory to it for a little higher memory capacity 1.5 gig versus 1 gig and call the mb/cpu dead since I have no other way to confirm it's one or the other due to lack of parts.

And, if I need to swap power supplies around to make it work I can do that. I am about halfway convinced to just buy a new PSU to go with the upgrade since the OCZ sounds potentially harmful...and keep the OCZ as a spare or keep it with it's current mb/cpu/mem combo since it hasn't killed it yet.


Im still a few weeks off before I'm going to commit to doing anything as I need to move some data around and get everything then pretty much ready for it. So there's time for stuff to change if needed. I just want to get all my drivers and stuff updated to the newest I can find for em and get everything in order/backed up/finalized.
 
The most worthwhile upgrade that I would take if I was you is just going straight to intel core i5 architecture even though ddr3 is overpriced right now.

core i5 $200 or $170 at your local microcenter
i5 compat motherboard $100
cheap ddr3 ram $50 4gb - get some on the h forums

thats your $350 worth of upgrades
do it, do it now,

better to be future proof or have no future at all,

As far as power supplies,
KNOW YOUR WATTAGE LOAD OUT
since thats a generation G90 8800GTX, that sucks up alot of power, if you did your research, the AMD 5800 series graphics cards power load out runs in par with your 8800gtx.

cheap brands vs respectable name brands as far as power supplies,
cheap brands= no overvoltage protection, no power safeguards
name brands= overvoltage protection, electronic safeguards

OCZ should be fine, even if it's about to die, it would only take itself out.
 
A good power supply is the key issue. My friend was building a Q9550 box and it refused to boot properly on two diff boards, we thought the supply would be fine based on apparent amperages, but it was just a crap supply. I had him get an OCZ 500W and it is great.
 
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