very modest upgrade

Sun Oct 15, 2006 3:33 pm by Cold_Void

well, been looking around on newegg at components and i am wondering - whats the best bang for the buck? i don't need PCI-express, and a board that accepts a 478 pentium would be ideal as i have a working 2.7ghz that i can't use ATM because i have a stupid socket-423/rdram board but i'm only looking to upgrade my computer to run UT2004 here- and i'm not interested in spending more than $200 for hardware that depreciates in value faster than enron ;P

i know techs always scoff at socket adapters, but i'm still wondering about the powerleap-type 478->423 package and whether the performance gain would be worth 10 bucks or so... an article at geek.com has some good testimonials and one that mentions my specific board, and tomshardware.com has 3dmarks scores that are an improvement(several years old with old 3dmarks software), and i am wondering if its enough of an improvement to justify screwing around with BIOS updates and funky gerry-rigged hardware.

right now i am running a 1.5ghz p4 cpu(i know i know!), and it doesn't seem like its getting full use of the advertised 3gb/s transfer at the rdram memory bus. but a 2.7 ghz (clocked at 2.4ghz due to FSB limitation) processor would be almost a 2/3rds improvement over the old processor(theoretically) and the benchmarks show it does offer significant improvement for games.... anyways, i'm interested in what you think of this hairbrained piece of half bakery- particularly our tech moderator/guru Taw

powerleap/generic adapter upgrade:10-50 bucks(ebay estimate fan incl or not incl)
478 pin mobo to accept rdram:$40 - $70
AMD AGP board, processor, and ddr system equivalent: ?

also i am aware that intel and rdram sucks, sucks, and sucks some more. but the powerleap adapter, or another intel 850-chipset based board wouldn't require a complete reinstallation of windows at least..

Edited by - Cold_Void on 10/15/2006 4:43:50 PM

Edited by - Cold_Void on 10/15/2006 4:47:11 PM

Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:03 pm by Cold_Void

*bumped*

help!

Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:18 pm by Esquilax

Iny my opinion, it's not worth spending money on such a modest upgrade. I would recommend saving up and buying a new system. Not only will it be a smarter investment in the longer term, but it will also offer you superior speed and reliability, and eliminate many problems as "upgrade kits" are not always pain-free.

Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:20 am by Tawakalna

I would strongly recommend that you follow the Chimaera's advice and avoid these "upgrade" kits like the plague; they have a terrible reputation, and in my own not inconsiderable experience do more damage than good. Way back when, they were quite popular for while when there was the big change from Socket 7 to the first Slot processors, with people who didn't want to splurge out on whole new systems, but for the limited benefits that they gave, they created untold system instability. i had to set quite a few up and fix even more that had trashed whole systems, and ripped a lot out and replaced them with decent kit. That someone is rehashing the idea again suggests to me that they have a stock of old kit that they've bought as a job lot that they're trying to get rid of. And yes rdram does suck, and suck, and suck some more. Never lived up to its promise.

for the same money you can pick up a decent motherboard, processor and memory off eBay and with a few hardware and software tweaks get a decent system that will serve your needs most admirably. Athlon XP processor, nForce 2 board, 512mb 333mhz DDR, or P4 2.8-3.0, Intel chipset board, again 512mb 333mhz DDR - shouldn't come to more than 200 of your infidel dollars, and all still widely available.

Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:43 am by Cold_Void

if this upgrade costs as much or more than all the guts for a new AMD PC on newegg, it was a dumb idea, because i'll still have a stupid(but twice as fast) intel processor

that's why i'm interested in the socket converter.... but maybe i will avoid it after all.

*i just found the mobo i want for a decent price! hoorah!

*

Edited by - Cold_Void on 10/23/2006 12:47:46 PM

Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:13 pm by Esquilax

Ah yes, the "Slot" generation. I remember that I picked up an AMD-K7 back in those days... and then they decided to switch back to Sockets again shortly afterwards. It's not surprising, those damn slot-based CPUs were ludicrously over-sized. Ah, rough times *sigh*.

Edited by - esquilax on 10/23/2006 4:13:35 PM

Tue Oct 24, 2006 3:09 am by Tawakalna

you picked one up, and put it down again straight away no doubt. bit modern for you, I expect. last i heard you were still on Socket 3, no ZIF!

Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:47 pm by Esquilax

Lies! All lies! Besides, I never had the resources to purchase my own PC until around 2002/2003, so you can't blame me for being stuck with obsolete equipment! Good old Typhon can still hold his own in the graphical arena though! "SW: Empire at War" for example; everything except shadows on full in 1280x1024 and perfectly playable. So there!

Wed Jan 24, 2007 4:56 pm by warrior17

i just wish i could get win 98 to work with my laptop which is 5 years old. i miss playing the old doom versions even though doom 3 still scares the crap out of me when i play it. then again duke nukem was fun to. not sure were the specs lie but still OLD when compared to the specs now.

Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:08 am by Cold_Void

you can still play those games (doom is still very popular online, believe it or not) - in fact duke nukem 3d recently got a major update with about 90% of its sprites replaced with quake models - there are high res texture packs available for both games, and the doomsday engine can play any Doom WAD file such as hexen etc

oh ya - stay away from socket adapters- zcrap! (i lost ten bucks with shipping so no biggie but some advanced packages come with heatsinks etc)

Edited by - Cold_Void on 2/3/2007 10:09:57 AM

Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:54 am by Hahukum Konn

Priced this out on newegg.com, assuming Cold_Void is in the USA -

Pentium D 820 (2.8 GHz dual core) - $95
Intel BOXD865GSAL LGA 775 Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - $80
mushkin 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) - $43 after rebate.

Total cost - $218

Add in a 10% fudge factor for shipping etc, and the cost is around $240.

OTOH if you want a Pentium 4 640 (Prescott 3.2GHz) which is single core, that is a $75 CPU.

Also, the cost will be higher if you get a board capable of taking a Core 2 Duo (technically the i865 chipset can support it, but in practice I'd be a bit iffy about it)

Edited by - Hahukum Konn on 3/18/2007 12:55:05 AM

Edited by - Hahukum Konn on 3/18/2007 12:57:50 AM

Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:03 am by Rankor

a 5 year old hp pavillion with an upgraded 1 gig ram and P4 processor and upgraded intel graphics chipset..worth about 200 bucks now.
Being able to play and mod freelancer with it... "Priceless"

Thu Mar 29, 2007 8:17 am by 007

hey all

you guys and ur fancy 2 gig processers...

i just got my own pc now

1.8 amd athalon processer, 64 meg nVidia geforce 3, 512 meg ram, and a read only cd/dvd drive, 38 gig hardie... how much?

:-P

50 bucks, 20 for a keyboard, and a mouse, keyboard and speakers that my dad had laying around

runs battlefront 2 maxed out totally online with no prob, C@C generals fine, so im not gonaa worry to much. plus i can over clock the proccesor to 2.5 no prob, so if i get the $$$ for a better video card, and could get the latest and greatest games...

and yes i have the fans for overclocking...

007

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate.The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

V from V for Vendetta

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