It's upgrade time

[dcmaconachie]

Hello

Forgive my newness and general ignorance, but some help would be much appreciated. Here's the deal:

I have a sadly aging 5 year old PC, which despite many bitty upgrades (new CPU, new graphics card) is slowly and noisily biting the dust and I am keen to upgrade it, but trying to keep costs down by recycling as much as possible.

Currently I have a AMD 2400+ running on an old Epox 8KTA3+ motherboard and an AGP graphics card...all destined for the great scrapheap in the sky but I also have a PCI 108Mb Rangemax Wifi card, a USB 2 card and a 120Mb IDE hard drive and (presumably) IDE DVD RW drive which I am hoping to keep. I am finding it hard to find a motherboard which is compatible with Core 2 Duo (why upgrade to anything else?) and IDE, can you suggest one or is there anyway to convert these to SATA at minimal cost? The USB 2 card has an internal port, I've seen the Easy IDE thingy, are the speeds alright with this for long term use? I'll probably need a new HD in future, but don't want to outlay huge amounts at the start.

Also I will probably get a Sapphire X1900gt graphics card, does this seem like a good choice for around £150?

I know this is pretty similar to other posts, so thanks for humouring me.

Cheers.
Dave.

[HyeongSeong]

How about this mother board
Asrock 775 DUAL-VSTA VIA PT880, S775, AGP / PCI-Express, DDR/DDR2 667, SATA Raid 1066FSB ATX.

it have 2 x IDE channel and also accepts AGP Graphic card

[mcmiller]

do'h sorry wrong forum

any i just brought that mobo, hopefully will be with me on wednesday, but from the reviews i saw of it they where pretty good and positive about the motherboards there where afew bugs but most of the conroe boards are buggy

[dave87]

The x1900gt will be an even better buy when it drops in price as a result of the imminent release of the x1950 then you should be able to pick up an x1900xtx for about the same price

[dcmaconachie]

Thanks for your help, that was very useful. Just one question about the ASrock motherboard - is the PCI-E port the full 16x speed? I read somewhere that it was 4x...will this make any difference? I might just use my old AGP Radeon 9600 for now and wait till the 1900s come down in price before upgrading the graphics anyhow.

Thanks again.

[MSIC]

Don't worry about the PCI-Express speed, it's only really of use for multiple cards etc.
Get the ASRock DUAL-VSTA motherboard, a Core 2 Duo CPU, then keep the RAM, graphics card and everything else! Easy.
PS You obviously need to re-install windows. If you don't have a current SP2 disc (although you don't need it), it's useful. Check out nLite.

PS Your current power supply, whatever it might be, will almost certainly be fine as the Core 2 Duo will 'sip' power. When you upgrade other components (most obviously graphics card) this may change however, so let us know what PSU you have.

[dcmaconachie]

I have a fairly cheap and noisy 450W PSU, and I was thinking about getting a quiet case (my current machine sound like a Harrier Jump Jet when it starts up) so the Antec P150 with a built in PSU seemed like a good choice.
This is what I'm opting for (prices from Microdirect):

ASrock 775 Dual-VSTA (£38)
Core 2 Duo 6400 (£153)
1 Gb 667 Corsair Value Memory (£81)
Antec P150 + 430W PSU (£80)
Samsung 250Gb SATA HD (£47)
XP Home (£55) as my PC only had Windows ME originally and I think a fresh install would probably be better.

Then I'll just my DVD, 2nd HD and AGP card from the original machine. Any comments?

Thanks
Dave.

[dave87]

Yup, looking good should clock like hell

[dcmaconachie]

Done! £472 all in. Supposedly will dispatch today for delivery tomorrow, which would be sweet. Will let you know how I get on.
Cheers.
Dave.

[MSIC]

XP Home (£55) as my PC only had Windows ME originally and I think a fresh install would probably be better.

I wouldn't worry about that.
Windows ME is highly regarded as a solid, stable, powerful and efficient Operating System.


Oh.....hang on......

Sorry, don't mean to take the p!ss as you said you are new here! Just a bit of fun there. Most definitely get Windows XP (the 'SP2' version), either Home or Professional (Home is cheaper).
In general terms you ALWAYS want to do a fresh install when changing major components, and motherboard is about as major as it gets.

PS the components look good. Get them. The P150 (inc power supply) in particular is a very good idea.

[dcmaconachie]

I always wonder how many of my bluescreens are related to ME...actually I might have originally installed '98 then ME then XP Upgrades, which surely can't be a good thing. I guess it'll not be long till everyone moves to Vista anyway.