PC Upgrade...but which hardware?

[John Smith]

Hi,

Decided its time to upgrade...

....not a gamer but want a top notch pc......

thinking along the following lines and would be glad of any comments:-

Motherboard - Asus A8N-E
Processor - Athlon 64 3800 including standard fan
Graphics - Asus 6600GT 128MB PCI Express
Memory - 2 x 1GB Crucial PC3200
Hard Drive - Samsung Spinpoint SP2504C SATA

....also anyone know if the above Athlon and/or graphics card will be
excessively hot or noisy?


Thanks, John

 

[JohnS]

Motherboard - Asus A8N-E
Processor - Athlon 64 3800 including standard fan
Graphics - Asus 6600GT 128MB PCI Express
Memory - 2 x 1GB Crucial PC3200
Hard Drive - Samsung Spinpoint SP2504C SATA

...also anyone know if the above Athlon and/or graphics card will be
excessively hot or noisy?

Seems OK to me. Of course it really depends on the prices you get for
each item in terms of the prices and availability of items in your
region.

Ive got the 3800 and the stock AMD fans have seemed very quiet to me
but then Im comparing it to the old days. Up until I started buying
the retail AMD CPUs that come with heatsink and fan I was into buying
the latest and greatest coolers on the AMD XPs and way way back then
that was right before things started go more toward quieter fans
meaning bigger fans with lower RPMs. A long time ago things used to
be stuck in the 60mm size and they were putting higher and higher RPM
fans on them and those sounded like buzz saws or dentists drills.
Compared to that the AMDs are incredibly quiet.

AMDs also have cool n quiet and you can try to get even quieter fan
setups if it really bothers you that much.

Id like to get 2 gigs too. I think that would make the greatest
difference in my case. Dont know too much about the Samsung as they
dont really sell much of them around here but I noticed Compusa must
have signed some deal with them cause they used to push Maxtors all
the time and then Seagates and WDs. They never sold Samsungs much at
all if ever. I went the other weeks and they had tons of Samsung HDs
in stock. I guess they are trying to push their way into the HD
mainstream mkt.

Im using a Hitachi Sata and really like it. I think Ive noticed a
difference. It feels like it handles certain situations better that
were slowing my system down before. Depends on the pricing in your
area though. There have been some recent deals on the Hitachis now and
again finally at Compusa.

 

[John Smith]

Seems OK to me. Of course it really depends on the prices you get for
each item in terms of the prices and availability of items in your
region.

Ive got the 3800 and the stock AMD fans have seemed very quiet to me
but then Im comparing it to the old days. Up until I started buying
the retail AMD CPUs that come with heatsink and fan I was into buying
the latest and greatest coolers on the AMD XPs and way way back then
that was right before things started go more toward quieter fans
meaning bigger fans with lower RPMs. A long time ago things used to
be stuck in the 60mm size and they were putting higher and higher RPM
fans on them and those sounded like buzz saws or dentists drills.
Compared to that the AMDs are incredibly quiet.

AMDs also have cool n quiet and you can try to get even quieter fan
setups if it really bothers you that much.

Id like to get 2 gigs too. I think that would make the greatest
difference in my case. Dont know too much about the Samsung as they
dont really sell much of them around here but I noticed Compusa must
have signed some deal with them cause they used to push Maxtors all
the time and then Seagates and WDs. They never sold Samsungs much at
all if ever. I went the other weeks and they had tons of Samsung HDs
in stock. I guess they are trying to push their way into the HD
mainstream mkt.

Im using a Hitachi Sata and really like it. I think Ive noticed a
difference. It feels like it handles certain situations better that
were slowing my system down before. Depends on the pricing in your
area though. There have been some recent deals on the Hitachis now and
again finally at Compusa.

 

[Bazzer Smith]

Hi,

Decided its time to upgrade...

...not a gamer but want a top notch pc......

thinking along the following lines and would be glad of any comments:-

Motherboard - Asus A8N-E
Processor - Athlon 64 3800 including standard fan
Graphics - Asus 6600GT 128MB PCI Express
Memory - 2 x 1GB Crucial PC3200
Hard Drive - Samsung Spinpoint SP2504C SATA

...also anyone know if the above Athlon and/or graphics card will be
excessively hot or noisy?


Thanks, John

Well I think you are making a better choice with AMD rather than INTEL.
I recently go a new system but it was a 64 bit semperon (I am not quite
in your price range, but the system I got is very upgradable CPU wise,
and it is like lightening compared to what I had before!!) a lot quiter than
my ancient Cryix MII 300 system, the fan is barely audible.
I think basically you have to look at the CPU power consumption
to have an idea about the noise, as CPU power = heat = noise.
Incidently Sisoft Sandra says it is a low power CPU
Anyway mine is probably a 62 watt chip, yours is 89W so not
much difference there.
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/default.aspx
Don't know about the graphics card cos i am not a gamer.
I am pleased with mine cos it is barely audible, the drive can
make far more noise than fans when it is having a good 'thrash'

 

[JohnS]

Well I think you are making a better choice with AMD rather than INTEL.
I recently go a new system but it was a 64 bit semperon (I am not quite
in your price range, but the system I got is very upgradable CPU wise,
and it is like lightening compared to what I had before!!) a lot quiter than
my ancient Cryix MII 300 system, the fan is barely audible.
I think basically you have to look at the CPU power consumption
to have an idea about the noise, as CPU power = heat = noise.
Incidently Sisoft Sandra says it is a low power CPU
Anyway mine is probably a 62 watt chip, yours is 89W so not
much difference there.
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/default.aspx
Don't know about the graphics card cos i am not a gamer.
I am pleased with mine cos it is barely audible, the drive can
make far more noise than fans when it is having a good 'thrash'

Yeah I dont know anything about that graphics card. He should try to
find such a card at Newegg and read the consumer reviews
or obviously search for a review of the same model. Some people do
complain various cards have really noisy fans. I really dont notice
much noise at all from PCs since I live in a fairly noisy environment
and keep my windows open most of the time.

 

[John Brown]

Well I think you are making a better choice with AMD rather than INTEL.
I recently go a new system but it was a 64 bit semperon (I am not quite
in your price range, but the system I got is very upgradable CPU wise,
and it is like lightening compared to what I had before!!) a lot quiter
than
my ancient Cryix MII 300 system, the fan is barely audible.
I think basically you have to look at the CPU power consumption
to have an idea about the noise, as CPU power = heat = noise.
Incidently Sisoft Sandra says it is a low power CPU
Anyway mine is probably a 62 watt chip, yours is 89W so not
much difference there.
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/default.aspx
Don't know about the graphics card cos i am not a gamer.
I am pleased with mine cos it is barely audible, the drive can
make far more noise than fans when it is having a good 'thrash'

---------------------
Hi, Thanks for comments...I did in the end go for mobo and cpu as above.
Ref graphics card yes I agree with what you mentioned about noise hence I
got the one with a silencer
Ref memory...was a bit silly with 2GB...my calcs showed that little
difference to 1GB...so went for 1GB
...And hard drive...eventually went for a Western Digital 320gb
....and all now installed...and...this afty...all fired up and working (after
a bit of a faff with original old copy of Windows XP only able to allocate
and format 127GB of the 320GB hard disc...had to download and install XP SP2
then...

Accessed Disk Management in Windows XP..... Right-click on My Computer,
left-click on Manage,
and then left-click on Disk Management....click unallocated space, and then
New Partition Wizard...
and on to formatting...so now have a couple of large (ok...too large really
but what the heck) partitions.
Cheers,
John

 

[Bazzer Smith]

Hi, Thanks for comments...I did in the end go for mobo and cpu as above.
Ref graphics card yes I agree with what you mentioned about noise hence I
got the one with a silencer
Ref memory...was a bit silly with 2GB...my calcs showed that little
difference to 1GB...so went for 1GB
..And hard drive...eventually went for a Western Digital 320gb
...and all now installed...and...this afty...all fired up and working
(after a bit of a faff with original old copy of Windows XP only able to
allocate and format 127GB of the 320GB hard disc...had to download and
install XP SP2 then...

Accessed Disk Management in Windows XP..... Right-click on My Computer,
left-click on Manage,
and then left-click on Disk Management....click unallocated space, and
then New Partition Wizard...
and on to formatting...so now have a couple of large (ok...too large
really but what the heck) partitions.

You will probably find the 2 gig of memory keeps the hardrive quiet and
the drive noise will probably be considerably more than the fans etc.
I only have a miserly 256meg of memory but will go to 512 shortly.
Having said that however much you have the computer finds a way of
gobbling it up, one way or another!
I have a WD drive on one machine which I though was nosier
than the original drive, but it was considerable faster though.
Faster generally means louder usually.