Ultrabudget upgrades

[directhex]

Right, Girlfriend now has total control of her own PC, and it's about time to bring it up to scratch. I already sorted out the case & cooling recently (it was lasting 10 minutes in the summer heat before), and now it's time to give the spec a shot in the arm. Spec is:

• eBuyer V770 (Generic PSU)
• 4 eBuyer Case fans
• Coolermaster XDream
• AMD Athlon 1333
• 512Mb Unbranded PC133
• Asus A7A-266 (ALiMAGiK 1)
• Elsa Gladiac 511 (Geforce 2 MX 64Mb)
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Player 1024
• Linksys LNE100TX Network CArd
• Sitecom 802.11b PCMCIA Card
• Samsung SyncMaster 750S
• Diamond SupraExpress 56i
• Logitech Cordless iTouch Desktop
• Logitech USB Optical Wheelmouse
• Visioneer 4400USB Scanner
• Unbranded 1394 Card
• 25Gb Maxtor 5400RPM
• 3.5" Floppy Drive
• Toshiba 16x DVD
• Matrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbisha 4x32 CDR

The mobo supports both SDR & DDR (but not at the same time), and ANY 266-bus AMD chip (including Applebred & Thorton). NOt that that excuses the fact that it's an ALi chipset. PC gets used for general use, and playing games from 1993 DOS titles to things like Morrowind. Budget is "spare change" i.e. no TwinX-4000-1Gb money lying about, but it needs pepping up & being given a decent chance at use (and more than 2753 in 3dmark2001 would be nice).

Any suggestions (with suppliers) for a list of upgrades, IN ORDER (i.e. one part ordered at a time, never having a part on a shelf unuseable). Remember, something sensible but no need for a 9800pro & 3200+

--jo

[Korky]

With that XDream cooler you could go with the:
Abit NF7-S v2.0
Athlon XP 1700-1800 DLT3C

and get about 2.1ghz from the overclock.

Graphics card:
Radeon 9200pro, 9600pro, 9700np

something like that.

[fondie]

#1) i think the best thing you could do to it is a new gfx card, if you could stretch to a 9600pro, that'd be nice.

£117.50 from ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=51440

#2) just putting DDR into your current mobo isn't going to help much, but an xp2400+ might at,

£56 from ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=43066

(or alternatively a bit of gazumping (not that i would condone such a thing) on josh's for sale thread http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?threadid=2584 will get you an xp1700 pre-modded to an xp2400 for £35)

#3) next thing performance wise would be an NF7 and some DDR ram combined

£73.60 from komplett
2 x http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?a...7&GrpID=9&s=pl

£69.50 from komplett
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?a...0&GrpID=5&s=pl

#4) 120Gb 8mb cache HDD

£86 from ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=32012

[directhex]

but the motherboard would need to sit on a shelf for god knows how long whilst waiting for some sensible RAM to be bought as well - as for gfx, a 9600pro is a fair wedge of cash.

how about

1. 2200+ ~ £45.00
2. 512Mb Corsair Value PC2700 ~ £75
3. Geforce4 Ti4200 ~ £70
4. Asus A7N8X-X ~ £65

Reactions? I've not heard ANYTHING about corsair value ram. infact, XEV? get some in to review!

--jo

[directhex]

for reference, my last Abit experience ended in tears, so i'd be hard pushed to use them again any time soon.

--jo

[fondie]

Originally posted by directhex
but the motherboard would need to sit on a shelf for god knows how long whilst waiting for some sensible RAM to be bought as well - as for gfx, a 9600pro is a fair wedge of cash.

how about

1. 2200+ ~ £45.00
2. 512Mb Corsair Value PC2700 ~ £75
3. Geforce4 Ti4200 ~ £70
4. Asus A7N8X-X ~ £65

Reactions? I've not heard ANYTHING about corsair value ram. infact, XEV? get some in to review!

--jo

ok, out of those i'd recommend :-

1. Ti4200
2. xp2200+
3. pc2700ram
4. nf2 mobo

and i think that'd make a pretty good upgrade path i'm not sure about corsir value ram either, i seem to remember seing on a couple of forums that people were saying it wasn't a cut on their top line stuff though, i'd personally stick with twinmos pc3200.

[Tom]

ive already heard about ur abit experience on irc (althought it was with the crappeh p4s ) so i spose the asus will have to do.

gf4 ti4200 is a very good choice, and a 1700+ JIUHB DLT3C would be better if u can be arsed to overclock. Deffo go with the TwinMOS w/ winbond ram, tis not far off of corsair from what ive seen and is a damnsite cheaper

[3Dfx]

3200 from Crucial.com = £30 or summet cheap for like 256Mb

[directhex]

the crucial 3200 has the worst timings ever, ever, ever.

--jo

[joshwa]

why not get an XP2400 for £55 inc vat at ebuyer.com - and use it in your current motherboard, it should work at 15x 133/266 in your current motherboard... it works in my kt266a motherboard.

also, you should be able to use the current ram for the time being, and then upgrade to DDR when you feel like it.

then just get a good gfx card

[3Dfx]

yeah but Crucial is reliable.