Well, I finally decided to update the processor and motherboard of my computer… and I would like some help/suggestions.
What I have now: AMD K6-2/500MHz with some Soyo motherboard, 256MB and 64MB memorymodules (sdram), SB Live! 5.1 as soundcard and some GeForce 2 MX/MX 400 (32MB) variant as display card.
What I’m going to get:
AMD XP 2200+ for processor… that’s about all I know for sure now.
For motherboard, I’m considering MicroStar’s KT4V-L or ECS’s K7S5A. The main difference between the two (among several other things) is that he ECS mb has two slots for old sdram and two slots for DDR-RAM memory, and it is a lot cheaper than the MicroStar. If I buy the MicroStar, I also have to get DDR-RAM memory… so if anyone of you can help me on deciding which one to get, I’d be more than grateful.
Main question in this is, that is the DDR-RAM really that much better and faster? How much faster it would make my machine go (and especially, does it speed up rendering (also considering that I’d have to settle for 256MB of memory instead of the 320 I have now)
Well, at the moment i too have a motherboarod with sd slots and ddr slots, and i’m using sdram. The problem is that most of the games run WAY slower than they should with my system (P4 2.4 ghz, 512 sdram, geforce 4 ti 4200) and i’ve had a lot of people who knew what they were talking about say it was probably the motherboard or the ram.
But blender runs fine, so unless you’re a gamer you could just go for the 2 kinds of slots mobo.
Don´t save your money on memory! DDR is really a difference. I would rather take a slower processor and get faster RAM. I recommend the MSI KT4 which comes at 70€ at the moment and is supposed to be very good. Save your money on eating, drinking, smoking, whatever, but not on your mobo and your ram.
Okay, so I got the XP 2200+ and the MicroStar mobo, plus 256 MB of DDR-RAM…
Now… My processor’s temperature is constantly about 68-70 degrees celcius, and I bought a cooler that is supposed to be not-so-bad (yeah, I had to save the money on something). Bad thing is, that the box I have now, is realy crappy by design. The processor and heatsink is right below power, and there’s about ½ cm space between the two
Sooo… I have to buy a new box also. Any recommendations on those? Preferrably one with GOOD ventilation
If that’s a little out of your price range then you may just buy any cases that you can afford and add things to make it cooler, case fans would be one way to improve your cooling as well as fans that can be put into your drive bay and case fans, there are also better cable that would allow more air flow http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/search.asp?page=3&mnf=161
bad news is that a completly new computer, except the box, modem and other PCI cards is probably cheaper and will last longer.
i looked into the economics of a system upgrade, e.g. changing the mobo and CPU.
honestly by the time you worked out the speed improvments it was better to get a totally new computer.
if you just do an upgrade, then your Memory and HDD will slow down the computer too much. and changing from a 500Mhz - a 1700Mhz won’t give you the expected improvment.
but all thats my opinion based on research. (i would say get a cheaper but well balenced computer all around and keep your old one, so that you have 2 computers)
Yeah, I know that
But this way, I get the goodies I want at the rate I want. It comes more expensive in the long run, but at least I can afford the pieces individually.
Anyway, I’m not really after the state-of-the-art computer, rather something that is not completely out-of-date and relatively cheap.
But, about the temperature… I made a temporary solution by taking the power out of the box and leaving the case a bit open (not very good thing to do, but I think I can survive for a few weeks, my friend had completely open system for about year or so, and nothing happened). Now the CPU temp is 54-56 (it was 68-70) and system temp is 42 (was 38-40).
I had a computer running on a cardboard box for years. just the motherboard and parts laying there… worked just fine. I had to fit it into closet, so that’s why. also, I had removed the plastic covers from my keyboard, to fit that there too…
after sauna, when I sat down to type something, the skin being still a little wet, I could feel the energy flowing through me
This won’t matter now you bought the microstar, but never mix different speeds of RAM together. The system will always run at the speed of the slowest one, no matter how fast the others are. It can also slow your computer down considerably.
Athlon’s do have a habit of running seriously hot. They can cope with the heat pretty well though. You can get to about 75 degrees celcius before stability becomes a problem. My 2600+ runs at 40-50 celcius, I thought that was way too hot coming from a pentium on my last machine. Kept thinking it would overheat and melt the chip 8)
well in my case (atholon XP 200+) running SD causes my system to be UNDERCLOCKED! so I am not using it’s full potential. It is running at 1250Mhz now, and I think ddr will take it up to 1600 or something.
