Upgrading a friend.

[OmegaSpade79]

Hey,

A friend of mine is using this motherboard

Acorp

It currently has a celeron 1.8 and 512 2100 RAM and a GF2 Ti.

He wants to upgrade so he can do some gaming.

I am suggesting a 2.8GHZ P4 533FSB (Is there a hyper-threading version at 2.8 533?). Or is the $43 price difference to get the 3.06 533 w/Hyper Threading worth the money?

Additionally an Ati 9800 Pro 128.

I do not think he would see that great a difference in speed between 2100 and 2700 ram so unless he decides he NEEDS to go to a gig I don't see a pressing need to replace the RAM.

My emphasis for choosing the parts was best value for price.

Your thoughts?

 

[SocceRich20]

If hes got the cash, replace the motherboard and go with:

Abit IS7
P4 2.8C 800fsb
9800 Pro
PC3200 RAM

If not, merely upgrading the video will improve his gaming performace tremendously.

 

[OmegaSpade79]

If I tell him to replace the motherboard, I might as well build a whole new system. He doesn't want to drop that kind of money. Plus, that motherboard and ram would add around $240 to the cost which is almost a 50% increase in cost and I highly doubt it would result in a 50% increase or great performance increase. At least that is my justifacation for not changing the motherboard.

 

[dandragonrage]

You can upgrade the CPU for now and upgrade the motherboard later. But keep in mind that you'll need to stick with a 533MHz FSB CPU or you'll have to underclock an 800MHz FSB CPU or you'll have to hope his motherboard is a good overclocker, which I doubt. But yeah, I would recommend upgrading the motherboard and RAM soon too....