Any point in upgrading my system?

[P T]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

I see 3 ways to improve my system. (My mobo accepts 2 ddr or 2 sdrams.)
-I could convert to ddr.
-I could swap my 128 sdram for a 256 or 512 (to total to 512 or 768
meg.)
-I could swap my swap my Athlon xp 1700 for something faster.

Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like sdram
is obsolete!)
Would increasing the sdram improve much?
How about the cpu? How fast of an Athlon (or other AMD) could I use?
Will it make a noticeable difference?

Thanks,
Pete

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

 

[Cuzman]

" Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like sdram
is obsolete!)
Would increasing the sdram improve much?
How about the cpu? How fast of an Athlon (or other AMD) could I use? "


First of all, it is well worth updating the BIOS to a recent overclocking
version. This will support the highest 266FSB processors, and ables you to
get the most out of the motherboard. You can find details at
http://p199.ezboard.com/bk7s5amotherboardforum

You can upgrade to an Athlon 2400+ (or a 266FSB 2600+ if you can find one).
All the 266FSB Athlons have a 256KB L2 cache, but there is still a marked
improvement going from 1466Mhz (11 x 133) to something like 2000Mhz (15 x
133) or 2133Mhz (16 x 133).
http://www.fact-index.com/l/li/list_of_amd_athlon_xp_microprocessors.html

The K7S5A runs stable at CL2.5 settings, so get 1x 512MB CL2.5 DDR, and
leave room for another identical stick. You'll need at least PC2100, but
it's worth getting the fastest CL2.5 (or lower) DIMM you can afford This
will give all the overclocking room you need, and can also be used in a
future system. Upgrading from SDRAM to DDR might only give roughly a 10%
performance boost, but it is still relatively noticeable.

Sell your Athlon 1700+ and SDRAM on eBay. This will certainly lighten the
cost of your upgrade.

You said that you mostly use your system for surfing, but if you are a gamer
then you may also wish to upgrade your Radeon 7000.

 

[Dave C.]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

You couldn't significantly improve that rig without starting over from
scratch. If you want to do it a piece or two at a time, start with a
name-brand stick of DDR400 512MB RAM with a heat spreader. Next would be
the mainboard and CPU, but that one's gonna hurt. Figure about $300 total
for something decent. If your power supply was anything but Sparkle, that
would be the next to go. It still might not be a bad idea to pick up a
larger one, but stick to Sparkle brand. Sell leftover pieces on ebay when
you are done, and it might not cost nearly as much in the end. -Dave

 

[Mr. Slow]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I
use it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

I see 3 ways to improve my system. (My mobo accepts 2 ddr or 2
sdrams.)
-I could convert to ddr.
-I could swap my 128 sdram for a 256 or 512 (to total to 512 or 768
meg.)
-I could swap my swap my Athlon xp 1700 for something faster.

Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like
sdram is obsolete!)
Would increasing the sdram improve much?
How about the cpu? How fast of an Athlon (or other AMD) could I use?
Will it make a noticeable difference?

Thanks,
Pete

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch
from dial up to something faster.]

You have a well balanced system which by your own submission, works very
well.for what you do. Leave it as it is> If you upgrade the CPU you may run
into PSU problems and DDR RAM will be only marginally faster. Save your cash
and buy a complete new system when funds permit. Just my 0.2, of course!

 

[Matt]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

For surfing, all I _might_ recommend would be to increase your RAM
amount to 512M or 768M from your current 384M. Really I find it hard to
justify even that unless you are having some performance problem. Not
clear why you don't seem to want to move to DSL or cable modem ... yes,
that is where you will notice a difference.

 

[JK]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

I see 3 ways to improve my system. (My mobo accepts 2 ddr or 2 sdrams.)
-I could convert to ddr.
-I could swap my 128 sdram for a 256 or 512 (to total to 512 or 768
meg.)
-I could swap my swap my Athlon xp 1700 for something faster.

Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like sdram
is obsolete!)
Would increasing the sdram improve much?

What do you typically run? When you do CTRL ALT DEL, how much free ram
is shown? try this when you have your system like you typically use it.
Extra
ram that isn't being used won't help.

How about the cpu? How fast of an Athlon (or other AMD) could I use?

Going from an Athlon XP 1700+ to a 2400+ isn't really worth the trouble
or expense. Why not plan for an upgrade to an Athlon 64 new motherboard,
and new ram? That would be a worthwhile upgrade. Since you mostly just
surf the net, there isn't really any reason for you to upgrade. If you plan
to
run games, Photoshop, or other demanding software, then you would
have a reason to upgrade.

Will it make a noticeable difference?

Not for surfing the net.

Thanks,
Pete

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

 

[Monster]

new motherboard and cpu. Since you're stuck with pc133 ram you probably
wouldn't want to change the motherboard. I would go with an entirely new
system (mobo, cpu and ram) and probably do the rest (ps, videocard) later.
Or even just buy a new computer since upgrading might cost you more than a
spanking new system

 

[DJS0302]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use

it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

My personal philosophy is to squeeze every last bit of good out of something
before upgrading to something else. You wouldn't think of buying a tv every
few months, so why constantly spend money upgrading your computer? I have an
old Windows 95B computer that I'm still using. However, I also have a new
computer I built this past Spring that I installed Windows XP on. Of course
everything on it was new at the time but by now it's obsolete. I'm not going
to go out to buy a new processor or a new graphics card for it though because
the ones I have are just fine. If I did that then I would then have to upgrade
my memory, and then the hard drive, and then dvd drive, etc. I would just be
wasting money at that point.
The thing is if you're going to upgrade, make sure it's a major upgrade and not
something piddling that's going to make you wonder why you wasted your money.

 

[jaster]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

I see 3 ways to improve my system. (My mobo accepts 2 ddr or 2 sdrams.) -I
could convert to ddr.
-I could swap my 128 sdram for a 256 or 512 (to total to 512 or 768 meg.)
-I could swap my swap my Athlon xp 1700 for something faster.

Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like sdram
is obsolete!)

Not really. In my case it was the same if not slower than sdram.

Would increasing the sdram improve much? How about the cpu? How fast of an
Athlon (or other AMD) could I use? Will it make a noticeable difference?

Thanks,
Pete

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

I have:
ECS K7S5A v1.0
XP 2000 Palomino
1gb DDR
80gb HD
DVD+/-RW
CD-R
Antec 3700SLK
Maddog 4.1 card (it was cheap with rebate but I haven't received the
rebate).

Since you have PC100, PC133 I'd look at new systems.
A decent m/b, cpu combo costs $100USD (XP 2400 or Intel 2.4)
memory $100 for 256 PC100 or 512 PC2700
HD $100 for 80Gb to 120Gb
DVDRW $60 - $100
GF4 MX 400 $60-$80

With a 2400 or 2.4Ghz cpu you will see some improvement but for
$399 - $599 you can get a warrantied system from some of the online
vendors with all of the above with USB 2.0 and Firewire and avoid
hassle of rebates for upgrade components. $800 for a AMD 64
3000 PC with a better video card.

I just bought the DVDRW my other choice was save the money for the
DVD to put to a new system. I decided I could backup files from the HD
onto DVD for more HD free space and wait for prices to fall on better
systems.

 

[DaveW]

Upgrading any one or two components in your system will NOT make a
noticeable speed difference if you are primarily surfing with it. The
components are faster than your dailup modem; so the only way to truly speed
up your system is to go to broadband.

 

[Ruel Smith]

I have:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

I see 3 ways to improve my system. (My mobo accepts 2 ddr or 2 sdrams.)
-I could convert to ddr.
-I could swap my 128 sdram for a 256 or 512 (to total to 512 or 768
meg.)
-I could swap my swap my Athlon xp 1700 for something faster.

Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like sdram
is obsolete!)
Would increasing the sdram improve much?

Yes. You should have at least 512MB of memory, or you'll be using the
virtual memory system that will slow your system down big-time. Win XP
is a memory hog. DDR speed increases will only be noticable when gaming,
but the memory size certainly makes a huge difference.

How about the cpu? How fast of an Athlon (or other AMD) could I use?

You can upgrade to an Athlon 2400+. Roughly, you should only upgrade if
you can get twice the performance. According to Tom's Hardware, the
Quake 3 test was an 83% increase in speed, and SysMark 2003 overall got
an 86% speed increase. That's a sizeable difference. Now, take into
account that you can get the Athlon XP 2400+ retail boxed for $85, I'd
say take the dive.

Will it make a noticeable difference?

See above.

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

Yes, and no. I have a friend that switched computers after having Road
Runner installed and saw a noticable difference in speed. Your internet
experience is both the connection speed and the speed at which your
system can render the results.

If you game, consider a video card upgrade, too. If you look for
bargains, you can often get a Radeon 9600 level card for $75 or less
after rebates. Check out this site for some good deals:
www.techbargains.com.

 

[Yves]

Hello,

(e-mail address removed) says...

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I'm into frugal computing and if you really use your computer JUST for
websurfing and other office chores, your machine is already overkill for
those basic tasks. I know people who get by with P3s and even P2s for
that. For most modern non-gaming tasks, low Ghz (1>x>2 Ghz) range PCs
are more than adequate for the job.

Is there something wrong with the computer you have now? Has speed
degraded over time or are your needs changing? If you answer NO to both
questions, then your computer is mighty fine.

If your needs are changing (ie: you want to play more recent games),
then yeah, upgrading is a given - but you don't need to go crazy.

- Yves

 

[ToolPackinMama]

Hello,

(e-mail address removed) says...

I'm into frugal computing and if you really use your computer JUST for
websurfing and other office chores, your machine is already overkill for
those basic tasks. I know people who get by with P3s and even P2s for
that. For most modern non-gaming tasks, low Ghz (1>x>2 Ghz) range PCs
are more than adequate for the job.

Is there something wrong with the computer you have now? Has speed
degraded over time or are your needs changing? If you answer NO to both
questions, then your computer is mighty fine.

If your needs are changing (ie: you want to play more recent games),
then yeah, upgrading is a given - but you don't need to go crazy.

Well said! I agree.

Too many people get caught up in upgrade fever. The question is: what
do you actually need? If you are playing one or two games that require
a good video card and lots of system RAM, then that's a legitimate
need. If all you are doing is web browsing and email, then your actual
needs (hardware-wise) are few.

 

[raderator]

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing.
I am wondering if there are any upgrades which I can do which will
appreciable improve my system.

I have:
ECS K7S5A

Any boot problems with this? I gave up on mine, Grrrrrrr. Love all my
Biostars....Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)

This will likely OC a LOT in a the right mobo with newer RAM. I've had one
running at 2GHZ (XP2400) for a yr without crashing in a mATX case with
170watt PSU.

128 pc133 sdram, and
256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem

Get a v92 modem if you don't already have one, especially if you have
call-waiting so you can take calls while online. It will generally be faster
too.

Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
300 watt Sparkle ps
Windows XP Pro
cd-r
cd-rw
fd

I see 3 ways to improve my system. (My mobo accepts 2 ddr or 2 sdrams.)
-I could convert to ddr.
-I could swap my 128 sdram for a 256 or 512 (to total to 512 or 768
meg.)
-I could swap my swap my Athlon xp 1700 for something faster.

Would ddr be much faster? (Looking at current mobos, it seems like sdram
is obsolete!)
Would increasing the sdram improve much?
How about the cpu? How fast of an Athlon (or other AMD) could I use?
Will it make a noticeable difference?

Thanks,
Pete

[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

A lot a people put down dialup web accelerators but I think they are great,
especially if your phone lines suck.

Check out www.freedomlist.com

You can get dialup w/accelerator for as little as $8/m. I have used
www.access4less.net and www.all2ez.net and both work fine.

I'd say keep the Athlon XP1700+ and get an OCing mobo, new RAM and a web
accelerator. But really, the web accelerator is all you need.

If you're looking for a way to justify the cost of broadband, go with VoIP
for phone service. It will cut at least $20 off most people's phone bill. I
use www.packet8.net.

 

[raderator]

Well said! I agree.

Too many people get caught up in upgrade fever. The question is: what
do you actually need? If you are playing one or two games that require
a good video card and lots of system RAM, then that's a legitimate
need. If all you are doing is web browsing and email, then your actual
needs (hardware-wise) are few.

Yep, unless you are a gamer or do video encoding or high end graphics,
anything around 1GHz and 256-512MBs is fine. What most people need is to
reformat and reinstall Windows, thus eliminating the adware and other crap
they've accumulated. Also, run msconfig and disable anything in startup you
don't really need running. Defrag too.

Laptops are another matter. My 2.3GHZ Celeron Inspiron runs slower that a
Duron 750 desktop.

 

[rhys]

Yep, unless you are a gamer or do video encoding or high end graphics,
anything around 1GHz and 256-512MBs is fine. What most people need is to
reformat and reinstall Windows, thus eliminating the adware and other crap
they've accumulated. Also, run msconfig and disable anything in startup you
don't really need running. Defrag too.

Very good advice, and if you get a router and a firewall, update your
AV software and defrag a couple of times a month, you will have a
generally more pleasant computing experience.

Add to that the habit of partitioning into C: (root/OS), D: (programs)
and E: (data) and you will greatly simplify your backup procedures.
Your pokey 'puter will run faster, too, accessing only a small, tight
OS partition and a reasonably sized data hoard.

Laptops are another matter. My 2.3GHZ Celeron Inspiron runs slower that a
Duron 750 desktop.

Tell me about it. My 1.8 GHZ P4 Inspiron 8200 Win XP unit (a nice
2003 tricked out laptop) is only equal to my 2001-era PIII dual 1 GHZ
tower with 1.5 gig of 133 Mhz RAM under Win 2K.

That's because I run mostly multiple-processor aware apps...the 2001
rig isn't so hot for Doom 3, admittedly.

Regarding upgrades: don't, in most cases, bother. Better to get the
absolute best/fastest rig you can afford *every three or four years or
so*, guaranteeing two years of "peer" performance, and 18 months of
"it'll do the job" until you have to start again, at which point you
make the old rig a file server or a spam filter <G>.

IMHO, anyway,
R.

 

[john doe]

(e-mail address removed) (P T) wrote

About 20 months ago I built a modest computer. It works very well. I use
it mostly for surfing. ....
ECS K7S5A
Athlon XP1700+ (T.bred)
128 pc133 sdram, and 256 pc133 sdram
40 g Western hd (~25% full)
cheap modem
Sound Blaster 16
Radeon 7000
Windows XP Pro ....
[Yes, I know, the best way to speed the whole thing up it to switch from
dial up to something faster.]

There you go. Your system is fast enough to render web pages nearly as fast
as high-speed Internet can deliver. If you haven't tried, if you can afford
to, just do it. High-speed Internet makes dial-up look snail slow
(seriously), and it is much better for gaming. If you have any money left
over, save it for better hardware.

I agree with the consensus that upgrades are usually boring. Ignore the
hype. My last CPU upgrade was from 800MHz to 2GHz, and that was reasonably
fun. Currently, maybe a good rule is to wait until about twice the
speed/quantity of what you have is affordable and then go for it.

I appreciate the prior discussion about SDRAM versus DDR RAM. Too bad SDRAM
is more expensive.

 

[jaster]

Very good advice, and if you get a router and a firewall, update your AV
software and defrag a couple of times a month, you will have a generally
more pleasant computing experience.

Add to that the habit of partitioning into C: (root/OS), D: (programs) and
E: (data) and you will greatly simplify your backup procedures. Your pokey
'puter will run faster, too, accessing only a small, tight OS partition
and a reasonably sized data hoard.

Yes that was good advice.

I have 3 partitions now (C:/XP-NTFS, D:/FAT32, E:/Linux). I have the D:/
for sharing files between Linux and XP, like mp3 and personal files.

With FAT32 only systems it makes sense to partition to optimize cluster
size to partition size minimizing wasted space inside clusters. IMHO,
with NTFS only systems a single partition system is easier to maintain,
easier to backup than a multiple NTFS partitions. Of course, it also
makes sense if one is frequently installing new versions of the OS to C:/.

One can create a "data" folder or "My Documents" for data. One can change
the application data folders to sub-folders in "My Documents" and backup
the "My Documents". For instance, IE address book, bookmarks, Office
folders etc. to "My Documents" .

[snip]

 

[Andrew]

If you are happy with it and it meets your needs - why spend money?. Keep it
for another 2-3 years.

Regular software maintenance will improve it quite a bit. SP2, Norton 2005.
Registry Mechanic, Ad-Aware. And actually do them once a week.