• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

System upgrade question.

A

Atragon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 31, 2004
Messages
338
Well, the time has come once more to upgrade my computer, currently I'm running:
Athlon XP2100+ (stock speed and HS)
1GB PC2100 ram (Samsung)
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP rev1.1 (max FSB of 266)
MSI GF4 Ti4600 (stock speeds+cooler)
Aureal SQ2500
3Com 10/100 PCI NIC
80GB 7200rpm Maxtor (2MB cache, ATA133)
DVD Drive
LiteOn 40X12X48 CD-RW drive.

At the moment, I'm considering either upgrading the video card, or the CPU and motherboard. I've noticed slightly flagging performance in graphically intensive games, and I'm looking for something to give my system a little boost. If I can keep my current RAM, great.

(And the componant I wind up not upgrading, I'll put a nice HSF on it to try and bring the temps down and be able to boost the speed a bit.)
 
would be nice for you to get the asus 9800 but i think its too much for you. that memory you have you really cant get any better than that. dunno y u would want to change it. but you could go with the readon 9200 or 9600. both are cheap but have good performance
 
Other than the proc im not so sure itd be worth upgrading anything from that setup. Ti4600 is still pretty fast compared to todays standards, next step up from it id say is more along the lines of a 9700 pro
 
very true. if u want a video card use the one u have and save your money for the asus 9800
 
Right, but the question is, what can I upgrade the proc to? I'm 99% sure my MB can't support Barton processors.
 
Oops, I made a mistake in stating what I had, It's actually PC2700 RAM (166mhz X2 = 333mhz = PC2700)
 
If it is a xp2100 t-bred core, I'd say get a inexpensive nforce2 motherboard like this one and get a nice healthy OC out of that chip... but something tells me it's probably a palomino core :(
 
Save up for the video card - it will get you a much more noticeable improvement in games than a small CPU upgrade.
 
*nod* I guess all I'll do for now is upgrade the cooling and try to squeeze a few more MHz out of the system. :D

I'm thinking a Thermaltake Silent boost to replace the stock HSF and some nice rounded IDE cables (Don't you love the ribbon cables?) Maybe I can finally drop my CPU idle temps down from 62deg C and get some headroom to overclock.

And failing that, it should at least buy me a little more silence.
 
Overkill. Besides, no sense putting a nice WC setup in a box destined to be upgraded with a completely different setup.
 
WC is the best. my friend is running a barton 2600 and with his WC he can get it up to 3200+. thats the best and dont have to worry about the heat. one problem is that its a pretty penny
 
Which is overkill for a system that I'm planning on replacing within a year. (Especially in terms of cost.)
 
It's not overkill. It's watercooling :rolleyes:

Even at stock speed the benefits of watercooling are great. It's quiet, it's cool, and best of all, it's WATERCOOLING :p

As far as destiny, nothing is forever, so that's meaningless. Everything is destined to be replaced.

Even still, if you replace it with another socket A setup, the rig is still good... and even if it's a new socket that you upgrade to, if you play your cards right you should be able to reuse everything on the new socket. At least that's my assumption.

You could look for a waterblock that would possibly accept fittings for future sockets, or at the most just get a new waterblock and re-use everything else.
 
Your best price/performance gains would be met with a new motherboard. As stated prior an Nforce2 mobo would be best. I's recommend an Nforce2 with an MCP-T southbridge so it can have the extra goodies like Soundstorm, firewire, sata (some mobo's). Here's the cheapest one that i know of. That particular mobo is the same as the epox 8RDA3+ but carries the FIC badge.

My official recommendation for price/performance/goodies included would be the NF7-S
 
That FIC board looks REALLY good for that price, holy sheeite...

I wish newegg had it for that same price :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top