Intel M/B guidance pls ?

[Keyser Sose]

Hi,
I have got a P4 Prescott 3.4G in the mPGA-478 package on a Intel 865 chipset
with 1G of DDR SDRAM (200Mhz). Confused about the memory. Got a NVIDIA
6600GT AGP graphics card. About two years old. HOw has memort moved on?

I'd like to upgrade this lot somewhat. What are my options? Could I get a
new motherboad with a PCIe graphics card slot and reuse my CPU and memory?
OR is that CPU old hat nowadays and the chipsets have moved on?

The version of Windows XP I have is an OEM provided by the maifacturer
(Siemens-Fujitsu). If I do a load of upgrading will I still be able to use
without reactivation? Is it possible to reactivate an OEM version of
Windows?

Thanks for any help or suggestions guys. Would like some links to look at
please?

Steve
Nottingham, UK

 

[Dave]

Hi,
I have got a P4 Prescott 3.4G in the mPGA-478 package on a Intel 865
chipset with 1G of DDR SDRAM (200Mhz). Confused about the memory. Got a
NVIDIA 6600GT AGP graphics card. About two years old. HOw has memort
moved on?

I'd like to upgrade this lot somewhat. What are my options? Could I get
a new motherboad with a PCIe graphics card slot and reuse my CPU and
memory? OR is that CPU old hat nowadays and the chipsets have moved on?

The version of Windows XP I have is an OEM provided by the maifacturer
(Siemens-Fujitsu). If I do a load of upgrading will I still be able to
use without reactivation? Is it possible to reactivate an OEM version of
Windows?

Thanks for any help or suggestions guys. Would like some links to look at
please?

Steve
Nottingham, UK

I'd suggest you do nothing. Your processor, RAM and video card are all
fairly current. While it's not a high-end gaming rig, it should handle
Windows Vista and any game currently on the market, just fine. If you have
an open RAM slot, you might want to slap a stick of DDR400 (200MHz) PC3200
1GB (1024MB) RAM in there.

Other than adding more RAM, you really can't get a significant performance
increase without starting all over. That is, to get something significantly
faster, you'd have to build core 2 duo, which would mean a new mainboard,
processor, RAM and video card. And optionally, a new hard drive, also.
(upgrade to SATA 2)

While it's possible you might be able to find a PCI-E mainboard to accept
your processor and RAM, I think you'd be shooting yourself in the foot to
try it. Yes, there are better video cards on the market, and PCI-Express is
what you want, if you buy now. But any *significant* video card upgrade is
going to be crippled somewhat by that processor. -Dave

 

[DaveW]

You basically have to leave all your components behind to upgrade to the
components required by PCI-E based motherboards.

 

[Keyser Sose]

Thanks for your excellent reply. I think I may continue with my existing
set up for a while longer then!
Regards,
Steve

 

[Keyser Sose]

Thanks for your thoughts DaveW
Steve

You basically have to leave all your components behind to upgrade to the
components required by PCI-E based motherboards.