Wow! It's upgrade time!

P

PCMonkey

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 10, 2002
Messages
108
It's been a while since i been on these forums...the last time i was here was when i was building the computer i use now. I am hoping it'll be as helpful now as it was then. I am looking to upgrade my system's Case, and Motherboard. I have a 9700pro ATI card for my vid, so that's not too much of a problem. Check out my sig, it's all current because this is my first upgrade from before. My main problem right now is my overheating HDD. I know it's the case, so i am looking for some good deals, and any input from the users on this subject would helpful. The ability for cool air to get to my HDD is a must in this part of the upgrade.

My current MB is in my sig. It is not Dual Channel DDR, it's the regular kind, and the FSB is still 533. I've been informed that my P4 2.53 GHz proc is still powerful, but i wsa thinking of going the AMD option, any input on this decision would be great as well. What combos of procs and motherboards have been proven good gaming setups and so forth. Thank You.
 
Athlon64 is good for gaming. I would wait for pci express to come out so current products would be lower in price.
 
Originally posted by darktiger
Athlon64 is good for gaming. I would wait for pci express to come out so current products would be lower in price.
Click to expand...

Good logic, I agree with your thinking.

Monkey, your rig will hold fine until PCI express comes out, then stuff thats out now will get cheaper, I say go for an A64 setup
 
Yeah I would agree with the other guys. You have a pretty solid rig, I would hold off on doing an upgrade just yet. The A64s are going to change to a different pin-out very soon, and PCI-Express is just around the corner.

Also the current A64s do not do Dual channel DDR, only the FX ones have that. And those are very pricey.
 
In terms of cooling your case, you need good airflow. Put a fan at the bottom in the front blowing into the case, and one it the top of the back blowing out. If thats not enough add fans.
 
Ok now that i've decided not to upgrade the hardware, the problem with the case still stands. My price range is up to $200. I might even go water cooling in the future so suggestions as to what cases to get for water cooling and/or air cooling would be apprectiated. I've been looking at the Xaser III, but obviously it ain't the only case around. Thank you all for your help thus far.
 
Bump! Trying to get as much input as i can, this is a research phase, so more input is better, thanks. :)
 
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Come on! people i know you have case recomendations. Please give me something to work with. I see the advertisements for AMD and Intel of fanboys from each catagory. I want that from you people regarding cases. Please? Thanks. :)
 
Depends on what you want out of a case:

a. a box to hold your stuff
b. a quiet box
c. a showy box that will make your friends pee thier pants
d. doesn't matter - it will never be seen

There are cases for all the above purposes and more, just gotta decide what your priority is. If you LAN a lot, you'll probably want an aluminum case because they're lighter, but if you want a quieter case, steel cases are usually quieter. And if you want to show off, you'll want a window and some lights.
 
I still can't conceive of what type of monstrous computer I could build that would require me to buy some fancy case ;). I think the most i've ever spent on a case was around 60$ USD.

If it's just for the sake of looking pretty though, well that's something else. For an overheating HD, there are other solutions than buying a new case --a drive cooler would be ideal, I would think.

Erik
 
Look into Lian-Li, silverstone aluminum cases. they're plain and very classy. they Mod well also, especially for watercooling.

I fit a full WC setup in my lian li midtower. url of the worklog in my sig
 
upgrade upgrade upgrade.. I want to sooooo bad.. BUT I am waiting till mid April.
The new PCI-E should be released by the board makers, ATI and NVIDIA may release their new video cards....

WHICH MEANS

all the year old tech I want to buy will be very cheap ! I can't afford cutting edge, latest and greatest ... so I stay about a year behind the curve which give you a big bang for the buck.

And when AMD releases their newly PINed 64-bit CPUs thoses XPs will be just dirt cheap and still have lots of power to run my gaming needs.

sooo waiting waiting waiting:D ;)
for a sub $100 AMD, sub $190 ATI 9800Pro / XT, sub $100 NForce MB, and praying for cheap DDR RAM and that DDRII / III is out.

anyway... my humble opinion
 
No matter what you want to buy something new is always around the corner and will drop the price of the current products. If you keep waiting for the next best thing to come out your going to wake up one day running a 386 when the Pentium 6 (or whatever they end up naming a new processor down the line) comes out.

Those are just my thoughts,

James
 
Get a Antec Sonata case, and another 512mb chip of ram. If you don't like the Sonata, just get one of those Chieftec ones.
 
Thanks.

One of the main reasons my HDD overheats is because in my case, there are only two 3.5" drive bays. Therefore my HD is mounted right on top of my Floppy. This causes a problem as you can see. And on top of this the 3.5" drive bays are mounted directly under the CD-Rom bays. This allows for no movement of air above or below my HD. I wasn't too smart when buying this case and didn't know what to look for.

Looks doesn't matter that much. Though plain beige and white i don't like.

As for buying a HD cooler, there is no room to mount it due to the problem i just described previously.
 
go with athlon64 and unless you wanna wait over 2 months for pci express then dont, and you MAY want to get another 512 of ram for your new comp if you play games, umm besides that its up to you basically
 
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