Any wisdom in this upgrade?

[DK]

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
high range:

Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
Athlon XP 2900+
Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 10)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 8)
Sempron 3000+

Questions:
1. What kind of speed increase in performance (say, DivX
encoding) can I expect by upgrading from to Sempron 2200+
to the speediest CPU in the above list?

2. Today, a used Sempron 3000+ can be had for ~ $70 delivered,
used Athlon XP 2800+ for ~$100 and used Athlon XP 3200+
for ~ $130. Would an upgrade to any of these make sense or
would I pay about the same for a new mobo/CPU/RAM
combination that is much faster?

3. How do CPUs in the above list compare?

Thanks,

DK

 

[Darklight]

Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
Athlon XP 2900+
Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)

The above cpu's get very hot, i had a Athlon XP 3200+ FSB 400
need i say it, it burned out in the summer, so i got a Sempron 2800+
socket A

My mum and father in law went back to Jamaica to live he had a
Athlon 3000+ FSB 333 a week of running it cpu burned out.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
high range:

I'm afraid a more basic question you forgot to ask is whether any of the
CPUs are going to available for purchase anymore. And the answer will
most likely be no. All of those CPUs are Socket A CPUs, and that family
was discontinued nearly 4 years ago. If you want to upgrade, it'll be
considerably more than $100, as you'll need a new processor, a new
motherboard, and new memory (DDR2 is the standard now). You'll also
likely need new hard disks, as most modern hard disks are SATA now, so
your old ATA hard drives will not work in the system, unless you
purchase an add-in ATA plug-in board.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Sleepy]

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
high range:

Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
Athlon XP 2900+
Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 10)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 8)
Sempron 3000+

Questions:
1. What kind of speed increase in performance (say, DivX
encoding) can I expect by upgrading from to Sempron 2200+
to the speediest CPU in the above list?

2. Today, a used Sempron 3000+ can be had for ~ $70 delivered,
used Athlon XP 2800+ for ~$100 and used Athlon XP 3200+
for ~ $130. Would an upgrade to any of these make sense or
would I pay about the same for a new mobo/CPU/RAM
combination that is much faster?

3. How do CPUs in the above list compare?

Thanks,

DK

I dont do much encoding but on my old XP2400 a 2 hour film would take around
4 hours to encode to xvid and I did one the other day on my A64 4000 and it
took just under 1hr 30min using the same encoding program and settings.
So logically you would see a performance increase but just how much is
difficult to say - you may shave half an hour off encoding time.

Semprons have very little L2 cache (even as little as 128kb) and the
Thoroughbreds had 256kb and the Bartons had 512kb and the extra cache was
the main reason for the performance boost.

If you have $100 to spend then a better CPU would give your system a decent
boost but I would personally save up and do the mobo/cpu/ram upgrade.

(as for the other 2 posts - anyone who fries a CPU only has themself to
blame NOT the CPU for being ignorant of proper system cooling and operating
temperatures. also any current mobo has both SATA and IDE ports because
there are still plenty of IDE drives around.

 

[DK]

I'm afraid a more basic question you forgot to ask is whether any of the
CPUs are going to available for purchase anymore. And the answer will
most likely be no. All of those CPUs are Socket A CPUs, and that family
was discontinued nearly 4 years ago. If you want to upgrade, it'll be
considerably more than $100, as you'll need a new processor, a new
motherboard, and new memory (DDR2 is the standard now).

Well, there are plenty of used Socket A processors around. Actually, it is
quite suprising how expensive *used* Athlon XP 3200+ is on eBay:
$120-160 (which I know does not make sense because today one can
buy faster and cooler processor for less).

likely need new hard disks, as most modern hard disks are SATA now, so
your old ATA hard drives will not work in the system, unless you
purchase an add-in ATA plug-in board.

That's exactly why I'd rather upgrade and postpone a hassle of moving
everything to the new system.

DK

 

[kony]

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:04:38 GMT,

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Extend it's useful life doing what exactly? The most
demanding uses would be the most important factor.

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM

Your memory can't properly support the fastest CPUs, you
would have to underclock the memory bus and just putting it
into asynchronous mode will be a performance loss before
considering it's then slower than the FSB for the CPU.

2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

It would be a bad value to upgrade that CPU now, even worse
in another year. You might get a 30% performance increase
but your system has limitations from the KT400 chipset
including slower memory and PCI bus, and it has not so much
memory at 512MB. I think it best to wait and add more money
towards replacing the motherboard, 1GB or more DDR2 memory,
and CPU. PCI Express video card too if you can't settle for
integrated video.

If encoding Divx takes too long then I suggest queing up the
jobs and letting them run overnight. Athlon XP generation
wasn't well suited for Divx encoding in the first place, the
newer CPU architectures are better at it, particularly with
the newer versions of the Divx codec.

 

[Dave]

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
high range:

Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
Athlon XP 2900+
Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 10)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 8)
Sempron 3000+

Questions:
1. What kind of speed increase in performance (say, DivX
encoding) can I expect by upgrading from to Sempron 2200+
to the speediest CPU in the above list?

Almost none. You might be able to speed up your CPU by about 25%, but
overall system performance will only increase by about 10%, which will not
be noticeable. People forget that the CPU is only one part of the system.
They think just plopping in a faster CPU will make a significant
improvement. CPU (alone) can usually not make a significant improvement,
though.

2. Today, a used Sempron 3000+ can be had for ~ $70 delivered,
used Athlon XP 2800+ for ~$100 and used Athlon XP 3200+
for ~ $130. Would an upgrade to any of these make sense or
would I pay about the same for a new mobo/CPU/RAM
combination that is much faster?

You can't make an improvement on your current system without replacing
mainboard, CPU, RAM and video card, plus a beefier power supply to support
all that. -Dave

 

[DK]

Almost none. You might be able to speed up your CPU by about 25%, but
overall system performance will only increase by about 10%, which will not
be noticeable. People forget that the CPU is only one part of the system.
They think just plopping in a faster CPU will make a significant
improvement. CPU (alone) can usually not make a significant improvement,
though.


You can't make an improvement on your current system without replacing
mainboard, CPU, RAM and video card, plus a beefier power supply to support
all that. -Dave

All right, thanks all. Just about everyone confirms what I suspected,
the upgrade is not worth it. Actually, with the rate by which hardware
industry introduces incompatible everything, it seems that any computer
upgrade rarely if ever makes any sense.

DK

 

[Yousuf Khan]

All right, thanks all. Just about everyone confirms what I suspected,
the upgrade is not worth it. Actually, with the rate by which hardware
industry introduces incompatible everything, it seems that any computer
upgrade rarely if ever makes any sense.

That pretty much is the basic case. There's only about a 3 year window
in which upgrades make any sense, then it's massive replacement time.

Yousuf Khan

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

All right, thanks all. Just about everyone confirms what I
suspected, the upgrade is not worth it. Actually, with the rate
by which hardware industry introduces incompatible everything, it
seems that any computer upgrade rarely if ever makes any sense.

To my mind, the upgrades that make sense are (in order):

1. Switch to ECC memory, if missing
2. Add memory
3. Add hard disks

I have omitted the prime upgrade, install Linux.

 

[Tony Hill]

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
high range:

Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
Athlon XP 2900+
Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 10)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 8)
Sempron 3000+

Questions:
1. What kind of speed increase in performance (say, DivX
encoding) can I expect by upgrading from to Sempron 2200+
to the speediest CPU in the above list?

The fastest on the list would be the AthlonXP 3200+, and it should
actually give you a pretty noticeable improvement in at least some
applicaitons, certainly media encoding. At a rough guess I would say
about a 30% improvement. Encoding is pretty CPU intensive, and the
AthlonXP 3200+ has a 44% higher clock speed, more cache and a faster
bus speed, so it should help a fair bit. On the other hand though,
most other applications won't see nearly as much of an improvement.

2. Today, a used Sempron 3000+ can be had for ~ $70 delivered,
used Athlon XP 2800+ for ~$100 and used Athlon XP 3200+
for ~ $130. Would an upgrade to any of these make sense or
would I pay about the same for a new mobo/CPU/RAM
combination that is much faster?

For about $150 you could pick up a new Socket AM2 motherboard, Sempron
3200+ processor and 512MB of memory (about $50 a piece) That will be
somewhat faster (though not hugely so) as compared to an AthlonXP
3200+. Such a setup also has a LOT more room for manuevering if you
have more money to spend, either for more memory or a faster
processor.

A couple points of note though, you didn't mention if you have a video
card, but if so then you'll need a new video card to go along with
this. There is also the possibility that you would need a new power
supply for the system.

Long story short, it's safe to say that you won't want to be spending
more than about $100 to upgrade your existing system.

3. How do CPUs in the above list compare?

As a rough rule of thumb, the socket A Sempron chips are about 400
performance ratings lower than the AthlonXP chips, ie a Sempron 3000+
about equal to an AthlonXP 2600+.

Another point, if you only have DDR333 memory then you won't be able
to make use of the full performance of a 400MT/s processor, so your
best bet is probably the AthlonXP 3000+ with 333MT/s bus speed. On
the other hand, I just quickly checked eBay and it seems like the
400MT/s bus speed processors are cheaper then the 333MT/s chips. You
might be able to pick one up for $50 or $60, which would proably be a
good deal.

Basically I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of money on upgrading
this system, it's never going to be MUCH faster. On the other hand,
if you can find a good deal on a fast, second-hand AthlonXP might not
be a bad idea. Chances are you're going to want to spend at least
$250 for a full system upgrade, probably more like $350 to see a
really good improvement.

 

[DK]

Basically I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of money on upgrading
this system, it's never going to be MUCH faster. On the other hand,
if you can find a good deal on a fast, second-hand AthlonXP might not
be a bad idea. Chances are you're going to want to spend at least
$250 for a full system upgrade, probably more like $350 to see a
really good improvement.

Thanks much, very informative reply. That's basically what have
decided: if I can get Athlon XP 2800/3000+ for no more than
$50 (with shipping) and another 512 Mb of RAM for no more than
$25, I'll get them. If not, no big deal, what I have now works. After
one-two more years, it will be a whole new system time.

DK

 

[kony]

Almost none. You might be able to speed up your CPU by about 25%, but
overall system performance will only increase by about 10%, which will not
be noticeable. People forget that the CPU is only one part of the system.
They think just plopping in a faster CPU will make a significant
improvement. CPU (alone) can usually not make a significant improvement,
though.

That's mostly untrue, with almost any platform from the last
decade you can expect a real-world performance increase of
30% by just changing from the lower end to the higher end
CPU. Unfortunately doing so on older hardware means paying
a premium for the parts to do it, until the hardware is so
old that it was futile to upgrade for performance reasons,
as everything newer leaves it in the dust.

The OP could probably even overclock that CPU and get > 20%
increase in Divx encoding - perhaps needing faster memory,
but didn't ask about overclocking and it's not the kind of
thing to push on someone. It's not an optimal architecture
for Divx encoding though, so unlike other areas like gaming
it would be a lesser benefit. Gaming with a modern AGP
video card/newer games, could have a near enough to linear
performance increase from CPU clockspeed increase.

 

[kony]

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:50:29 GMT,

All right, thanks all. Just about everyone confirms what I suspected,
the upgrade is not worth it. Actually, with the rate by which hardware
industry introduces incompatible everything, it seems that any computer
upgrade rarely if ever makes any sense.

It depends on what you do, when.

"IF" you had asked about upgrading 2 years ago, a mobile
Barton overclocked would have been a good value. A lot
changes in that time, including that the older the tech
gets, the more the lowest cost sellers have already sold out
of the parts and won't be reordering volume enough to offer
low cost, so essentially what you find left in the market is
often unsold because it was priced too high and the stock
sat around.

Similar could be said about today, if you bought an Athlon
64 single-core skt AM2 cheap today (like $60), in a couple
years you should have a pretty good upgrade path to a dual
core AM3 CPU (backwards compatible to skt AM2)... but if you
then waited an extra year or two, once again the lowest cost
sellers will have sold out of what you wanted and the newer
faster hardware again displaces the value.

You might see if you can find a used CPU, if you found one
cheap enough it could make more sense to upgrade it. Say
$35 instead of $100.

 

[GT]

I'm afraid a more basic question you forgot to ask is whether any of the
CPUs are going to available for purchase anymore. And the answer will most
likely be no. All of those CPUs are Socket A CPUs, and that family was
discontinued nearly 4 years ago. If you want to upgrade, it'll be
considerably more than $100, as you'll need a new processor, a new
motherboard, and new memory (DDR2 is the standard now). You'll also likely
need new hard disks, as most modern hard disks are SATA now, so your old
ATA hard drives will not work in the system, unless you purchase an add-in
ATA plug-in board.

I believe most new boards still tend to have an IDE connector for DVD drives
etc, so you could connect 2 IDE devices.

 

[Kramer]

----- Original Message -----
From: "DK" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups:
alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 11:04 PM
Subject: Any wisdom in this upgrade?

I have an aging system that really suits me well and I would like,
if possible, to extend its useful life for as much as it makes
sense (financial and computing):

Asus A7V400-MX (Socket A) - Sempron 2200+
single stick 512 Mb 333 GHz DDR RAM
2x120 Gb ATA133 disks

I am considering an upgrade for about $100. It can be done
now or a year later, depending on prices.

According to Asus, the board supports these CPUs at the
high range:

Athlon XP 2800+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 2800+(333FSB)(Model 8)(Thoroughbred)
Athlon XP 2900+
Athlon XP 3000+(333 MHZ FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3000+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Athlon XP 3200+(400 MHz FSB)(Model 10)(Barton)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 10)
Sempron 2800+ (Model 8)
Sempron 3000+

Questions:
1. What kind of speed increase in performance (say, DivX
encoding) can I expect by upgrading from to Sempron 2200+
to the speediest CPU in the above list?

2. Today, a used Sempron 3000+ can be had for ~ $70 delivered,
used Athlon XP 2800+ for ~$100 and used Athlon XP 3200+
for ~ $130. Would an upgrade to any of these make sense or
would I pay about the same for a new mobo/CPU/RAM
combination that is much faster?

You could always pick up this motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157092


And this processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116249

For not a whole bunch over your $100 price.... Of course, you could go with
any 775 processor depending on how much you would want to spend, I was just
referenceing the least expensive 'non-celeron' for an example. The main
benefit is that you can use your existing AGP video card and ram and still
have avaiable to you a PCI-Express graphics slot, two DDR2 memory slots and
a couple of SATA controllers for upgrade paths. This motherboard will also
support the latest Core 2 Duo chips as well, so you could really get some
mileage instead of spending nearly the same amount on a dead end....

 

[DK]

You could always pick up this motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157092


And this processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116249

For not a whole bunch over your $100 price.... Of course, you could go with
any 775 processor depending on how much you would want to spend, I was just
referenceing the least expensive 'non-celeron' for an example. The main
benefit is that you can use your existing AGP video card and ram and still
have avaiable to you a PCI-Express graphics slot, two DDR2 memory slots and
a couple of SATA controllers for upgrade paths. This motherboard will also
support the latest Core 2 Duo chips as well, so you could really get some
mileage instead of spending nearly the same amount on a dead end....

Definitely! At some point I'll have to upgrade to something like that. For now,
the drag of having to do complete reinstall of the system keeps me from
changing the mobo.

Honestly, I'd gladly pay an extra $200 for a new computer if it allowed
to transfer my complete existing system as simply as restoring a disk
image. I tend to be very pecular on how I like my system configured,
so tinkering with the setup is a serious involvement, and not a particularly
enjoyable one, alas.

DK

 

[DK]

To my mind, the upgrades that make sense are (in order):

1. Switch to ECC memory, if missing
Present.

2. Add memory

The modern trend of having 2-4 Gb of memory in a home PC
continues to surprise me. I almost never open files that are larger
than 50 Mb. Suspect that is also true for most users. At work,
I have 1 Gb in a WIn2K system, have disabled pagefile completely
and never ran into issues related to insufficient memory. (Mostly
calculation-intensive tasks plus simple illustration graphics
plus occasional raytracing at 1600x1600).

3. Add hard disks

Lotsa room as it stand right now. I wish the ones I have made
less of a high frequency noise but the speed is more than
adequate for me.

I have omitted the prime upgrade, install Linux.

It's a dual boot system, but I haven't booted Mandrake for a
couple of years. No need to. My XP is a lot leaner (c:\WinXP
takes up 920 Mb), feels faster and lets me do more without
memorizing 1001 switches to run fairly simple tasks. Every
time I need to use an odd Linux app that's not available for
Windoze, I find it easier to run Linux in emulation rather
than rebooting.

DK

 

[chrisv]

The modern trend of having 2-4 Gb of memory in a home PC
continues to surprise me. I almost never open files that are larger
than 50 Mb. Suspect that is also true for most users.

With the last couple machines that I've built, I've started with
enough RAM to last the life of the machine, which is 4-5 years in my
household. The 2G that I have in my current machine may be overkill
for XP or Linux today, but will likely be "needed" 3 years from now...

 

[chrisv]

You could always pick up this motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157092


And this processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116249

For not a whole bunch over your $100 price.... Of course, you could go with
any 775 processor depending on how much you would want to spend, I was just
referenceing the least expensive 'non-celeron' for an example. The main
benefit is that you can use your existing AGP video card and ram and still
have avaiable to you a PCI-Express graphics slot, two DDR2 memory slots and
a couple of SATA controllers for upgrade paths. This motherboard will also
support the latest Core 2 Duo chips as well, so you could really get some
mileage instead of spending nearly the same amount on a dead end....

Careful, though, if you plan on using DDR-400 in that board, it may
limit you to 800MHz FSB, in which case a CPU designed for 1066 FSB,
such as the C2D, would be underclocked.