Advice on upgrade (cpu/motherboard/gcard)

[Schrodinger]

Hi.

I have been building my own computers for 10 years now, but haven't done a
major upgrade for a couple of years.

My current system:
Athlon XP 2200 (1.8)
1GB DDR Ram (I think 2700)
Asus A7V333 Motherboard
200GB 7200rpm IDE HD(can't remember which)
120GB Hitachi 7200 IDE HD
SB Audigy Sound card
Nvidia GForce FX 5900XT (128MB)
(OS is WinXP Pro SP2)

At present, I might be able to stretch to £200 for an upgrade - I use the PC
mainly for online gaming, DTP, Website writing and Photoshop.

I have been thinking about either;

Buying another 1GB ram - cost maybe £70 or

Putting an Athlon XP 3200 (2.2) in - cost £90 or

Getting new MB and AMD 64 Venice 3000 - total £170

I am thinking, with the new processor I could EBay the old one for maybe
£35 - same goes for replacement motherboard - EBay maybe £25.

I am put off from upgrading the motherboard because I can't afford a
Graphics card right now, so would have to stick with AGP.

Will putting the faster processor make a noticeable difference (I presume
that is my bottleneck), or would I see a marked improvement from the MB/CPU
upgrade and just accept that when I come to upgrade my graphics card I will
have to EBay the old/new motherboard and get another?

What do you think I will get the best value from at this time?

Thanks

 

[kony]

Hi.

I have been building my own computers for 10 years now, but haven't done a
major upgrade for a couple of years.

My current system:
Athlon XP 2200 (1.8)
1GB DDR Ram (I think 2700)
Asus A7V333 Motherboard

Which revision of this board? Earlier revisions aren't as
stable with faster CPUs. IIRC, the later versions which
were more stable had purple and gold striped Rubycon
capacitors around the CPU socket. I don't recall the
revision # where it mattered though, but can find a better
approximation if it's needed.

200GB 7200rpm IDE HD(can't remember which)
120GB Hitachi 7200 IDE HD
SB Audigy Sound card
Nvidia GForce FX 5900XT (128MB)
(OS is WinXP Pro SP2)

At present, I might be able to stretch to £200 for an upgrade - I use the PC
mainly for online gaming, DTP, Website writing and Photoshop.

I have been thinking about either;

Buying another 1GB ram - cost maybe £70 or

I suspect that motherboard may not be very stable with
another 1GB of memory. KT333 just didn't like a lot of
memory. You might be OK running it at 133MHz memory bus
speed but the potential for problems is definitely higher
than with most newer boards.

Putting an Athlon XP 3200 (2.2) in - cost £90 or

It uses DDR400/200MHz FSB. Your motherboard won't do that.
It overclocks the AGP slot to even run at 166MHz, IIRC, so
"usually" the upper limit is around 175MHz- some many get
theirs to go higher but others won't, as it can also depend
on the tolerance of the video card to run ok at higher AGP
port speeds, a variable I can't resolve for an FX5900 video
card. Generally speaking, older AGP 2X cards had a better
chance of success with a significantly overclocked AGP bus.

Getting new MB and AMD 64 Venice 3000 - total £170

That's the option I'd go with, or get a Sempron instead of
the A64. It'll be awhile till the benefits of 64bit
computing are realized. Not that A64 is a bad choice, just
that since you already specified an upper limit on budget,
every bit might help extend the system in other ways.

You haven't mentioned- what areas do you need the
performance boost in the most? If it's DX9 games, you may
find your video card is then a bottleneck too. It's not a
bad card, but "something" does end up being the bottleneck
when all is said and done, with the FX5(nnn) series not
being so strong at DX9.

I am thinking, with the new processor I could EBay the old one for maybe
£35 - same goes for replacement motherboard - EBay maybe £25.

Maybe, though it's a harder market selling a board OR CPU
that doesn't exploit the max of their era. For example,
there are better newer socket A boards and someone with
socket A may want faster than an XP2200.

I am put off from upgrading the motherboard because I can't afford a
Graphics card right now, so would have to stick with AGP.

You might be able to get a Geforce 6800 regular version, not
LE or GT for the budget you mentioned.

Will putting the faster processor make a noticeable difference (I presume
that is my bottleneck),

Some, yes, but where is your performance lacking, what
applications?

or would I see a marked improvement from the MB/CPU
upgrade and just accept that when I come to upgrade my graphics card I will
have to EBay the old/new motherboard and get another?

That's an option. You might check on what FX5900 are going
for on eBay right now, as well as your board and CPU. Get
an estimate of value then see if the budget will stretch to
cover a new board, Sempron, and Gefoce 6600GT (PCI express).

What do you think I will get the best value from at this time?

If it's a T'Bred B XP2200, the best value would be
overclocking the CPU. The're usually good up to at least
2.1GHz if not further. Your board has ample FSB,
multiplier, and CPU voltage adjustments to make it happen.
Just keep in mind that KT333 doesn't have PCI or AGP
frequency locks so staying nearer 133Mhz (or 166MHz if you
can do so stabily) should be better than a mid-range value
like 150MHz which puts PCI bus out of spec a lot.

Unless you're working with some really huge files, the
memory upgrade is least likely to be of benefit, even if it
is stable.

Also you mention that your system has PC2700 memory. If
it's running the memory at 166MHz/DDR333 speed instead of
the 133MHz/DDR266 FSB speed of the CPU, you may get a couple
percent better memory performance by running the memory
synchronous to the FSB, same 133MHz speed.

 

[John]

Will putting the faster processor make a noticeable difference (I presume
that is my bottleneck), or would I see a marked improvement from the MB/CPU
upgrade and just accept that when I come to upgrade my graphics card I will
have to EBay the old/new motherboard and get another?

What do you think I will get the best value from at this time?

Thanks

I think the MB and processor but you have lots of problems with that .
You also need 3200 DDR and a different graphics card so it essentially
means selling everything and buying everything. I would actually think
about that.

The alternative is to buy a 939 socket board with AGP which I think
VIA makes instead of nforce4. A lot of this is murky cause the
prices and availabilty is what determines a lot of this and its
different from region to region. Here a Chaintech VNF4 Ultra which
can theoretically take the X2 dual cores later on has been sold as low
as $80--- the motherboard. The processor is Ive see around $160 for
the 3000.

And Ive seen the 6600 non GT for 100 and even the 6600 GT has been in
the very low 100s several times recently. The 6800 non GT around $160
a few times though I think they were refurbs sometimes.

At Xbit labs they had a blurb they ceased socket A production so I
guess they should dry up fairly soon. And there have been blurbs about
new sempron chips 3100 and other with 64 bit enabled. So if you can
save money where you are at that may be the way to go. The prices I
saw were 80-90 for the chips though Ive never seen a 3100 for that
price yet.

Also didnt know until recently that there are new Sempron Bartons with
333 FSB 3000. Unless theres something about it I dont know like it
massively OCes or something it seems gross - $150 at newegg. Why would
anyone buy it at that price? Sure they dont want to upgrade their mem
and MB but Id try to find an OEM 2500 Mobile/Barton fast before they
disappear at 85 and use that at 333 and later get 3200 and OC to 3200.

 

[Schrodinger]

I think the MB and processor but you have lots of problems with that .
You also need 3200 DDR and a different graphics card so it essentially
means selling everything and buying everything. I would actually think
about that.

The alternative is to buy a 939 socket board with AGP which I think
VIA makes instead of nforce4. A lot of this is murky cause the
prices and availabilty is what determines a lot of this and its
different from region to region. Here a Chaintech VNF4 Ultra which
can theoretically take the X2 dual cores later on has been sold as low
as $80--- the motherboard. The processor is Ive see around $160 for
the 3000.

And Ive seen the 6600 non GT for 100 and even the 6600 GT has been in
the very low 100s several times recently. The 6800 non GT around $160
a few times though I think they were refurbs sometimes.
Noted!

At Xbit labs they had a blurb they ceased socket A production so I
guess they should dry up fairly soon. And there have been blurbs about
new sempron chips 3100 and other with 64 bit enabled. So if you can
save money where you are at that may be the way to go. The prices I
saw were 80-90 for the chips though Ive never seen a 3100 for that
price yet.

Also didnt know until recently that there are new Sempron Bartons with
333 FSB 3000. Unless theres something about it I dont know like it
massively OCes or something it seems gross - $150 at newegg. Why would
anyone buy it at that price? Sure they dont want to upgrade their mem
and MB but Id try to find an OEM 2500 Mobile/Barton fast before they
disappear at 85 and use that at 333 and later get 3200 and OC to 3200.

Thanks to both Kony and yourself for your in depth advice!

Having looked at the options bearing in mind your advice I decided to
upgrade just my video card altogether, it looked like my only other
realistic alternative was to upgrade MB, CPU, RAM and Gcard all at once -
even taking sale of old ones into account that was just too much for now!

I should still get maybe £60 for the old one and the new cost £130 incl
delivery. It's the Gigabyte silent pipe AGP, which seems to be the fastest
of the bunch and should give the gaming boost I'm after.

Thanks again.

 

[John]

Thanks to both Kony and yourself for your in depth advice!

Having looked at the options bearing in mind your advice I decided to
upgrade just my video card altogether, it looked like my only other
realistic alternative was to upgrade MB, CPU, RAM and Gcard all at once -
even taking sale of old ones into account that was just too much for now!

I should still get maybe £60 for the old one and the new cost £130 incl
delivery. It's the Gigabyte silent pipe AGP, which seems to be the fastest
of the bunch and should give the gaming boost I'm after.

Thanks again.

OK but I wanted to repeat there are 939 AMD 64 boards with AGP but
youll still should buy 3200 mem for it.

If you upgrade your graphics card it will be AGP so youll still be
stuck with AGP later on when you upgrade the MB unless you sell the
video card.

 

[Schrodinger]

OK but I wanted to repeat there are 939 AMD 64 boards with AGP but
youll still should buy 3200 mem for it.

What swung it for me, is that I didn't realise how *much* better the 6600GT
was than the 5900xt - nearly 3 times faster in DX9.0c games (my main reason
for wanting to upgrade - although not the only one!). Looking at the
options, I want to upgrade to a PCI-E MB and I figured on this being quite
important if I upgraded the MB to hopefully make it last as long as my
current Asus - which will have stood me in good stead now for 3 graphics
card upgrades!

If you upgrade your graphics card it will be AGP so youll still be
stuck with AGP later on when you upgrade the MB unless you sell the
video card.

Point taken. The way I've figured it I should still get a good price second
hand in 6 months for the 6600gt I've bought - so I can cost it as, say, £6
per month for the extra performance to tide me over for this time.

Thanks again for the advice. First time I've posted in here and it's nice
to get helpful and swift responses to a question which helped me to avoid
wasting money on bad upgrade decisions!