Re: Is there a guide to upgrading options?


"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:i4s6d1ppqt0bimmlmdisqiijlltrppah0g@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:19:17 -0500, Peabody
> <waybackKILLSPAM44@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>>My Win98SE, Celeron 500, system can no longer keep up, so I would
>>like to upgrade. Is there a website that discusses what's available
>>now, and what might be worth doing or not?
>
> Obviously when it comes to upgrades, there's no "one size" so it's
> difficult to get a "recipe". You might try
> http://www.extremetech.com/category2/0,1695,644478,00.asp and see if
> they
> have something which fits... and look at the rest of their site for
> further
> info. There are many sites which cover components of course, like
> www.anandtech.com and www.xbitlabs.com.
>
>>I would like to just upgrade my existing system because I have a 19"
>>CRT monitor that I like a lot, and two fairly new 7200 rpm 80 GB
>>drives that work fine. So I was thinking I would need a mobo,
>>processor, RAM, pwower supply, and of course the infamous Windows
>>XP home. Somehow, though, my guess is that I could get a complete
>>new system for less than the cost of an upgrade.
>
> If your case is >2 years or so old, you'll need a new case and maybe
> new
> interconnect cables for the hard disks - the round cables are easier
> for
> routing. The trouble with ready-made systems is that they tend to be
> scaled across the board according to the CPU speed: faster CPUs come
> with
> big hard drives, expensive video & sound cards. Sure there is often a
> customization option but scaling down the odd component doesn't seem to
> save as much as it should.
>
> Some vendors will sell you a "barebones" system, with case, mbrd, CPU,
> memory etc. but often with a restricted choice of alternative
> components.
> www.monarchcomputer.com does this but I've no experience with them and
> I've
> heard good and bad. Might be a useful exercise to see what you can
> configure anyway.
>
>>Anyway, it's been so long since I looked at any of this stuff
>>(what's a Sempron? PCI Express? serial ATA?) that I was hoping there
>>would be a very helpful site would explain it all and get me
>>up-to-date.
>
> Sempron is AMD's "economy" (Celeron-like) version of their Athlon64
> which
> currently fits in a socket 754 mbrd, has 128KB of L2 cache and doesn't
> have
> 64-bit capability... though that last is going to change soon. If you
> go
> AMD, I'd recommend socket 939 for the mbrd and a lower speed-grade
> Athlon64
> over Sempron.
>
> PCI Express is a new interconnect standard which will eventually
> displace
> PCI. It can be configured with a variety of "lane" widths and the x16
> is
> used for new video cards; most new mbrds come with a x16 slot for video
> and
> maybe a x1 and x4 slot plus 3 or 4 PCI slots. Though the PCI Express
> x16
> has currently about double the bandwidth of AGP 8x for video, the
> difference is not that noticable for current video reqts. Note that
> though
> AGP 8x video cards are still available with latest GPUs, they are often
> more expensive than the equivalent PCI-e x16 version - PCI Express is
> the
> way forward here.
>
> SATA is a new serial interconnect to replace EIDE/ATA with much higher
> clock speeds, lower pin count and narrower cables - hard disks and some
> DVD
> writers now come with it though there are loads of EIDE/ATA versions
> still
> available. Again current performance difference is not going to
> astound
> you so you can get by with your EIDE/ATA drives, sometimes called PATA
> now,
> without much perfromance penalty.
>
> --
> Rgds, George Macdonald

I believe you might do better with a complete system. Dell, for example,
has some great deals often only being available for a day. Watch the
various deal sites like fatwallet and other similar ones. I forget the
name of the one that tipped me on a great dell deal. Lesser known
manufacturers can also provide good deals.

del cecchi


.

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