What should I upgrade and why, opinions please :)

Sephiroth · #1 24th Nov 02, 01:42 AM

K, here's my specs, and I'm not sure what I want to upgrade

Asus A7V133-C
Athlon XP 1600+
512 PC133 CL2 SDR
80 Gig 7200 RPM ATA-133 Maxtor Diamond Max HDD
32X Sony CD-RW
Geforce 4MX 440 4x AGP
Sound Blaster Audigy
etc. etc. etc. (ethernet, router, etc.)

I've got three options to upgrade.

1: An Athlon XP 2000+

2: Buy an identical Maxtor drive to the one I have now and stripe raid them in RAID-0

3: Add another 512 megs of sdr, giving me a gig total.

Which would you pick and why? I'm a big gamer, though not worried about upgrading my video card until after Christmas when the NV30 cards (drools heavily) are avalible, plus the G4MX isn't too bad as long as I don't run it at 1024 x 768 @ 4X FSAA.

Everytime I upgrade my box I'm never too sure what to get, lol. If I do go with the RAID array I'm going to dread backing this 80 gig drive up on CDR's (nearly 40 gigs of stuff to burn,

lol), as I think you have to format and remove all the partitions on both drives before creating an array.

just_do_IT · #2 24th Nov 02, 01:53 AM

Adam,

I would say get 512MB DDR and a motherboard to support it. You should be able to get a decent MB (gigabyte is decent) and the ram for about 160.00 CAD. If that was my price range, I would do that. A G of SDRAM is not going to make anything better for you imo. And with that thought of the future Vid card, you might want a MB that is running closer to the speed of the ram in the vid card.

So as for you options....

Probably the HD would be your best bet. I know you and buying more sd ram will only end up being a waste of cash - you upgrade like moi !!

My 2 pennies bud.

Sephiroth · #3 24th Nov 02, 01:55 AM

Good point... I haven't thought of that, real world use how much faster is DDR than SDR? I've always used / built systems with SDR, never DDR, so I've never been able to compare the two :P

[SiN] · #4 24th Nov 02, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sephiroth@Nov 23 2002, 06:55 PM
Good point... I haven't thought of that, real world use how much faster is DDR than SDR?  I've always used / built systems with SDR, never DDR, so I've never been able to compare the two :P

DDR 400 has a bandwidth of like 3.8gb

DDR is a lot faster, and you will get a good performance boost with it (and DDR2, even more faster when it is out).

Out of them choices there, I would say go for the other HD and raid em, you will get the best boost from that. 1600 to a 2000 would be good, but at the rate the procs are advancing I would wait on a new proc till the speed increase is insane (and to me worth it). More ram (SD), all you would be doing is better optimizing windows - not much of a performance boost, 512 is plenty of ram atm.

So for now, put the drives in a raid array, get the better/faster data transfers - would help the most imo with all round performance.

Regarding gaming, that GeforceFX card is going to rock, but I would wait on that a bit till we all see some real life benchmarks and see what the price is/goes to. I got the geforce 4 4400 and like on unreal I get 50+ fps 90%of the time (at 1024x768 - everything at high)

there is my 2 cents :P

just_do_IT · #5 24th Nov 02, 07:27 AM

Adam DDR= double data rate

Two heart beats of ram as compared to one on the processor clock

Hence 133=266 FSB

FreeUS · #6 24th Nov 02, 02:00 PM

Nothing

You dont need to upgrade nothing (of my point of view

) May be add 512MB more but its enough with 512. Are you running a server or something?.

Stringent · #7 24th Nov 02, 04:25 PM

Do you really NEED to upgrade? If your computer runs everything fine, then I wouldn't bother. Personlly I'd just wait and get your graphics card when it comes out.

Big POPPA Pump · #8 24th Nov 02, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sephiroth@Nov 23 2002, 07:42 PM
K, here's my specs, and I'm not sure what I want to upgrade

Asus A7V133-C
Athlon XP 1600+
512 PC133 CL2 SDR
80 Gig 7200 RPM ATA-133 Maxtor Diamond Max HDD
32X Sony CD-RW
Geforce 4MX 440 4x AGP
Sound Blaster Audigy
etc. etc. etc. (ethernet, router, etc.)

I've got three options to upgrade.

1: An Athlon XP 2000+

2: Buy an identical Maxtor drive to the one I have now and stripe raid them in RAID-0

3: Add another 512 megs of sdr, giving me a gig total.

Which would you pick and why? I'm a big gamer, though not worried about upgrading my video card until after Christmas when the NV30 cards (drools heavily) are avalible, plus the G4MX isn't too bad as long as I don't run it at 1024 x 768 @ 4X FSAA.

Everytime I upgrade my box I'm never too sure what to get, lol. If I do go with the RAID array I'm going to dread backing this 80 gig drive up on CDR's (nearly 40 gigs of stuff to burn, lol), as I think you have to format and remove all the partitions on both drives before creating an array.

To answer your questions:

1) You will get only a marginal difference if you upgrade from a XP 1600 to XP 2000. I did this on my comp and I hardly noticed any performance gain.

2) Getting an additional drive does no harm to anybody. You may consider that option if you plan to work around with a lot of big files and also if you plan to have a ftp server. Also if you plan to keep all your downloaded programs on your hard disk rather than back them up on cdr's you may consider this option.

3) As FreeUS said, unless you plan to run a server you really dont need to get 1 gig of ram, especially sdr ram. Adding additional ram over 512 mb for gaming systems is not going to give you any performance gain, rather I have seen systems take performance hits.

I would suggest to hold on to your money and wait for a month or two till you get some more money and get a newer and better motherboard and faster ddr ram. You will probably be able to buy at least an Athlon 2200 for the same price you will be paying for the 2000 right now. There is a lot of performance difference between the 1600 and 2200.
As for the graphics card, I would suggest that you buy the nv30 cards 2-3 months after they become available in the market. That way you may probably pay a little less than what the prices will be when the cards actually hit the market.

Now for the backup solution. This is what I did....I was in the same situation as yours if not worse. I had to get rid of my Raid config and I had almost 90 gigs of data to be backed up before I undid my raid config. Thats more than 125 cds of data. Who in this blue world has the time and patience to sit down and do this? I had 300 bucks to spare for 1 month. I went to Bestbuy and bought a DVD writer for 250 bucks + Tax and also bought two 15 pack recordable media. I backed up the entire 90 gigs + on the 30 dvd's in about a week's time. Once i was done with my backup, I returned the dvd recorder back to Bestbuy and got my 250 bucks + Tax back. Bestbuy is one of the few stores where you can buy computer and electronic stuff and return them within 14 days for a FULL refund (No restocking fee).

Hope this helps!

SOLARIS · #9 25th Nov 02, 05:50 AM

My system spec..

AMD 2000
512 ddr 333 ECC
ABIT AT7 MAX * 12 ide

*
LeadTek Geforce 3 TDH
550 enermax power suply
seagate 80 gig and a maxtor 40 gig set as raid 0
16x pioneer dvd slot
48x black cdrom
24xcdrw

If your looking to upgrade, i suggest the new ABIT AT7 max2 board... you can get one for either amd, or intel chips.
I have nothing but pure and insaine performance from this board.. it was my first time using a ABIT board, and i can tell you i will never use anything else. ASUS isnt what they were today.. their boards are lacking big time.. either ABIT or Gigabyte are the tops boards.

Oh and btw, make sure you use that Raid ! night and day differance. Plus may i add, that they are the first to offer S-ATA