A poetic plead for help...

[Insanity]

Hello, oh gurus of the PC,
An answered question I require of thee,
I need an upgrade; it’s easy to see,
But I bid you: share your knowledge with me,

With a Slot 1 550MHz Pentium 3, I contend,
Struggling with a GeForce 2 MX (32Mb) to no end,
A motherboard capable of only AGP 2x, a 200w PSU,
128Mb of RAM, and a 10Gb HDD that certainly isn’t new,

Is it worth (Considering with thought),
An Athlon XP 3200 being bought,
Along with new Mobo, new RAM, and all,
To make my PC fly and not stall,

Should I favour a Pentium four?
Or a wait a month, maybe more?
Are AMD’s 64bits up to scratch?
Buying one would certainly take the shirt from my back!

There is one problem and it isn’t rare
You see, my pockets…they are bare,
I just can’t afford to upgrade (BTX, PCI Express) again in a years time,
So should I just wait and see what comes down the line?

If this is the case, then I ask you this:
Is there any (£250 Budget) way to return me to gaming bliss?
Help! I ask you as a last resort,
For too long with this problem have I fought…

[GreenPiggy]

Athlon 2400-M from CPUCity £65
Abit NF7 Mobo £50
RAM - probably some reasonable 3200 or 3500 512MB for about £80
G-Card of your choice for £50 (9500,9600 perhaps) - not sure about this
Obviously you'll be overclocking that CPU to 3200+ at least depending on the RAM
Damn, forgot the PSU as you will need a decent one with that setup.
Could go with a cheapy 350W as a stop gap i suppose.
I wouldn't go 64bit for 6 months or so.

[funnelhead]

Serious problems i think you're facing
It's all all outdated and needs replacing
Plus ur budget for the new and shiny
well, lets face it, it's pretty tiny
Serious bargains will be required
but don't Panic
you've got me imagination fired
Give me lunchtime, and maybe dinner
I'm sure i can spec u up a winner
Just two questions i need to place
are you needing a brand new case?
And if my bargain-sense is sound
Could you stretch to 300 pounds?
right i'm off to spend your bread
don't worry, it's fine
trust ur local funnelhead

[Lee H]

Serious problems i think you're facing
It's all all outdated and needs replacing
Plus ur budget for the new and shiny
well, lets face it, it's pretty tiny
Serious bargains will be required
but don't Panic
you've got me imagination fired
Give me lunchtime, and maybe dinner
I'm sure i can spec u up a winner
Just two questions i need to place
are you needing a brand new case?
And if my bargain-sense is sound
Could you stretch to 300 pounds?
right i'm off to spend your bread
don't worry, it's fine
trust ur local funnelhead

LOL - quality reply

[GreenPiggy]

Have i ignored the rules here or something?
Damn poems

[funnelhead]

Well can i suggest fo the graphics card you go to this thread

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=20321

and consider buying the 9600 pro - good for £62 inc del.

Then
Scan:

Scan black midi case + 350W psu - £28 ( have a look it looks very nice actually)
Hitachi deskstar 80gb, 2mb - £42
2 x 256 Corsair value 3200 ram - £62
Asus a78n-x (bleh the cheap nforce 2 one) - £45
Aero 7 lite - £9.22

CPUCITY

Athlon 1500 mobile 1.45v £30 ( will oc up to 2.4 aparently, bargain)


That comes to £279 plus delivery (£15 prolly).

I know it's not the cheapest but im trying to keep a measure of quality in the components As well as keep it all in one place to avoid shipping.
Hope thats a good start, ill have a bigger look later but i've got to drive to london now.
Sorry it didnt rhyme.

F

[funnelhead]

link to the case:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=100044


CPUCITY also sell arctic silver 5 the cheapest i have seen around as well, nout £4 and you'll need sum o' that

[Insanity]

Hey, thanks,
(Great poem, by the way),
After a long ponder,
I'll save for another day,

I could stretch to three-hundred,
I don't need a new case,
But I'm skint, bare-pocketed,
And with that I'll have to face,

Those things you've picked,
They're great an' all,
(Why Scan, not Dabs?
Are they not such a great stall?)

You see, this thing has freaked me,
It's called PCI-express,
By the time it comes out,
Currently fast items might cost less.

If you dissagree, then tell me,
Come to my aid,
In the meantime, to raise money,
I'll make and sell lemonade!

[funnelhead]

ok no poetry for this post, but the thing is - SO many formats will be changing over the next 18 months ( sata, pci-x, Btx, 64-bits, ddr-2 ) That the best thing to do is to but cheap now and o sit tight for the the next year and a bit.

PCI-X, i think, won't make currebt things cheaper because manu's will know there'a loads of people out there desperate to prolong teir current rigs. and yes i'm pissed. IT will make thing cheaper in about mmmmmm 6/ 7 months. to be fiar your rig is SO ancient i'd upgrade now or within a month, then wait out the next 18 months while all the formats change. Thats what most peeps short on tha money will be doing,

scan are cheaper than dabs i think, and have more OC stuff.

nighty night

[Jonny M]

This isn't really suited to the HEXUS Help forum, as it is a place for people to get help with urgent problems.

Moving to GH.

[Insanity]

Sorry, Caged,
I didn't realise,
Thanks for everyone's help,
You're all such nice guys,

I'll take your advice,
And upgrade really fast,
But there's one more question,
I need to ask,
Why nForce, not SiS or VIA,
Aren't they up to the task?

What is the difference,
Between the three,
nForce may be the best,
But would it matter to me?

[eldren]

Forgive me for the lack of rhyme. :>

Currently, the nVidia nForce2 chipset is the best platform for socket A boards, mostly in terms of performance (Though you'd probably only ever notice in benchmarks). It also has some nice features, what with the MCP-T (The southbridge chip) version sporting onboard sound (Known as SoundStorm) with quality surpassed only by the Audigy 2. Overall, this is the chipset to go for.

Try to get a board using the nForce2 Ultra400 northbridge and the MCP-T southbridge (The Abit NF7-S is one such board, and will be the one most recommended, on average, by Hexites) - boards using the MCP southbridge don't technically have SoundStorm. Regardless of what brand of motherboard you go for, I would highly recommend paying more for a decent (Usually, higher-end) motherboard now, and upgrade other parts later (For example get only 1x 256MB RAM now, and stick with your 10GB drive for a while longer). Having an upgradable base system not only allows you to slap in nicer parts when you have the money, but it will also have a higher resale value a year down the line then would, say, a board already at its upgrade limits.

With regard to the CPU, of course, the XP2500-M[obile]/XP2400-M comes recommended by all. It's rather good at overclocking, and is complemented by the nForce2's overclocking abilities.

The graphics card, in that price-range you're looking at a GeForce4 Ti4200 or a Radeon 9600 (9500 if you can find it). While a bit dated, the Ti4200 is still comparable, FPS-wise, to the 9600's (At least, according the a December 2003 [I think] Custom PC. Yes, I managed to find a copy here in South Africa!) when played at reasonable quality settings.

Hope that helps. :>

[Howard]

LMAO. This place gets more imaginative by the minute!! Hexus really is unique in many ways!!

Funnelhead, your first "poem" was brilliant

[funnelhead]

I'd like to thank my agent, my mum and british telecom, as well as my primary school english teacher.....

Why thank you Howard, it was just like doing gcse english homework again But top nods to Insanity for starting the party.

How's the decision making going Insanity? Well not needing a new case may save you a bit of the money, but how powerful is your current psu? I think you will need a new one really, and the case/psu combo i pointed out was pretty good value. If you just want the psu then get the 3xs meridian 350W from scan - £23 and they're a good brand ( used to be CWT)

any other questions?

F

[Agent]

I'd like to thank my agent

awww, "my agent", how cute

[funnelhead]

your my agent now.


SQUEAL PIGGY!
let's get jiggy


Ff