# Looking at upgrading



## Tan DJ (Oct 14, 2007)

I am looking at upgrading my system as cheaply as possible (but not so cheap that I regret it later )

I want faster CPU, more memory, and extra harddisk space.

I'm still trying to determine if I should keep my radeon (8xagp - currently plugged into a 4x slot) or upgrade to a PCIe card, but that would add about $120 to the overall cost of the upgrade.

While doing some research, I came up with the following upgrade components from www.umart.com.au:

MSI K9MM-V M/board - VIA K8M800 HT1600 Dual DDR2- 533/667/800 AM2 AGP8
AMD Athlon 64 5600+AM2 Processor Retail Dual Core AM2
2 x DDR2 1024MB(Single stick)PC6400 800Mhz (generic memory)
2 x Samsung 500G 7200RPM SATAII

Does this combo look like it would work?
This MOB would take my existing Graphics card, but I noticed that the SATA connectors are only SATA-150.  Is that a problem for SATAII drives?

Also, this would max out the memory to 2GB, which would not give me any room for growth if I find I need more than 2G.  We are finding that on or current system, we are constantly using all of our existing 1G, when running programs like CIV IV, MyVirtualHome, Adobe Photoshop, etc...

would I gain much from getting a different MOB with a PCIe slot, and support for 4+Gb of ram, and SATA II connectors?  

Of course if I did that, I'd need to get a PCIe video card, which would mean I'd get something like:

Albatron KM61S-AM2 Nvidia DDR2 All in One Mirco-ATX Motherboard
ASUS Radeon HD2400PRO 256MB DDR2, 64bit PCIEx16 VGA HDTV DVI HDCP 


Would this be a better option?

Is there a better option?

Cheers,

Tan DJ


----------



## theonetruewill (Oct 14, 2007)

OK what sort of budget do you have. To be honest AGP is dead in the water. I would go with a cheaper Core 2 duo system with parts like the E2160 and the overclock rather than the Athlon chip. If you don't want to overclock getting something like an E4600 (mid-budget) or E6750 would be a good idea. They are so much faster than the Athlons. Then get a newer Gigabyte PCI-E P35 chipset motherboard and go for a 2400XT/Pro/8500GT etc


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 14, 2007)

Yeah, I know AGP is dead in the water, but I already have one of those cards, so I figured that I could cut costs by getting a MOB that supports AGP rather than getting a newer technology, but that leaves me in the position that my current set of software will run well, but if in the future I need a GPU that supports more than the Radeon 9800 does, I'll be screwed.

But about Intel Vs. AMD, check out http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6389077-1.html?tag=lnav

And by the way, my budget is around $500 - $700 AUD


----------



## Wile E (Oct 14, 2007)

You could alway opt for a board that has a PCIe 16x slot and on board gfx. Some of the newer on-board IGPs have around the same performance as your 9800.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 15, 2007)

So if I go for a board with an onboard gfx, what should I be looking for to find something with the same performance as a Radeon 9800?


----------



## kwchang007 (Oct 15, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> So if I go for a board with an onboard gfx, what should I be looking for to find something with the same performance as a Radeon 9800?



Right, but I'd say try to see if you have the money to get a decent mobo and decent graphics.   If your bent on going AMD, defiantly see that you get a AM2 board with pci-e


----------



## panchoman (Oct 15, 2007)

there are a good amount of mobo's that have an integrated geforce 7025/7050 onboard chipset, which is preety good for light gaming. look into the biostar tforce 7025/7050 if you're going amd. theres a lot of integrated grafix amd boards.


----------



## panchoman (Oct 15, 2007)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138061

biostar makes very nice budget ocing boards. they come with debug leds, onboard power/reset buttons, good ocing software ,nice bios features, really good boards. my biostar tf550 is awesome.


----------



## Fitseries3 (Oct 15, 2007)

this is a decent board with onboard graphics... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138095

not too expensive either.
go for the e2160.... i have one on a secondary machine and have it OC'ed to 4ghz!!! very good cpu for the price.

and why the hell do you need 2 500gig drives? that's not budget at all. one would be sufficient. just use a 160gig as your OS drive and keep important stuff on the 500gig. that way if you ever need to reinstall your os you wont loose important data.


----------



## panchoman (Oct 15, 2007)

get a tforce for biostar, the regular biostars dont come with cool features


----------



## panchoman (Oct 15, 2007)

i think the amd road might be cheaper for him then the intel road lol. he can grab a 5000 black edition for cheaper cant he?


----------



## p_o_s_pc (Oct 15, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> So if I go for a board with an onboard gfx, what should I be looking for to find something with the same performance as a Radeon 9800?



If you are wanting AM2 and onboard gfx than i would look at the board i am going to link it is a great board and overclocks vary good... I love this board and the price is great http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128034

as for ram Geil ram works great on this board.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 15, 2007)

fitseries3 said:


> and why the hell do you need 2 500gig drives?



to mirror.

You can replace a failed disk but it's a lot harder to replace the data on it.

And yes, I know that mirroring doesn't cover all recovery scenario's, but it's hard to backup modern hard drives these days when backup media with the required capacity is a hundred bucks a pop.  backing up to CD or even DVD is impractical.

My existing 80Gb is nearly full, and I have started playing around with VMware, and VMware images tend to chew up a bit of space.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 15, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> Right, but I'd say try to see if you have the money to get a decent mobo and decent graphics.   If your bent on going AMD, defiantly see that you get a AM2 board with pci-e



I wouldn't say that I'm bent on going AMD yet.

I think its going to come down to a balance between what mobo can I afford but still get a decent gpu.

I still have a few links from other replies to follow up to try and figure out the AMD/INTEL thing.


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 15, 2007)

Hmm, don't really know any good PC stores in Brissy. As for AMDvIntel, it's really up to what you prefer to buy, I've always preferred to buy AMD. I've gone from a 450mhz AMD (my first computer that wasn't a 486) to a 500mhz AMd to a 1.9ghz AMD and now have bought a 3800+ AMD and recommended AMD to various people. I've never had a problem with them, that is why I keep getting them. I'm not too concerned about the Intel and AMD differences.
 If you buy online, check out eBay America, as if they will post worldwide, even with postage included the parts will work out cheaper then Australian prices most of the time. With the currently BS strong Aussie dollar, buying international may end up saving you a lot of cash if you are prepared to wait for the shipping.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

I posted my question on LinkedIn

And someone there recommemded http://www.tomshardware.com which has a lot of apparently unbiased information about the latest Intel and AMD chips (and a whole bunch of other info) with results of many different bench marks.  Looks like which is best depends a lot on what type of application you are running.


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 16, 2007)

Yep, a lot of the time I've found AMD to be fine. As I've said I have never had a problem with them, never wished 'I want a Pentium'.

 So what are some shops locally around you that could have websites we can check out?

 Edit: just checked out Umart.com and their prices are a bit wierd. They also have the old Gigabyte AM2 motherboards, for a 'too high' price IMO because you can get the M55 SLI S4 for only $10 extra from arc.com.au (only in NSW though). So any other local places? You might be best to get a 939 setup, you can keep your ram at least.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

www.umart.com.au - CPU's are cheaper here than at ARC
www.ht.com.au - Harris Technology does't appear to have has much in the way of components though.

That GA-M55SLI-S4 does sound nice.

Keeping my existing ram doesn't interest me much, it is DDR266 512Mb DIMM's.  I really want to go to 2Gb, with space to add additional memory at a later date if I need it.


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 16, 2007)

Ok so you are still needing those hard drives, or can they wait for later on? Personally I would buy the best cpu/mobo/ram/video package I can get now and then use your 80gb for awhile until you want to get those hard drives. Spending that extra bit of money on the core of your computer could lead to having a much better system.
 If not there is some pretty good deal packages on eBay for a CPU, motherboard and simple DDR2 ram. Would probably work out cheaper then you can get at Umart, better choice of motherboards aswell. Alternatively, stick to buying just a CPU/mobo/ram/gpu setup or even just cpu/mobo/ram and temporarily use the onboard graphics for a bit, post what is left of youe P4 system on eBay, use the money from that to help get a graphics card or what not.


----------



## HookeyStreet (Oct 16, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> But about Intel Vs. AMD, check out http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6389077-1.html?tag=lnav



LOL   The old AMD CPUS were loads better then the old Intel CPUS (mostly because AMD's were better for gaming)......but now the tables have turned and Intel are wiping the floor with AMD.....sorry, but its a fact!


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

Woah Mama! said:


> Ok so you are still needing those hard drives, or can they wait for later on?



Yeah, still need those hard drives, though I could possibly put them off for at most a couple of months.

This looks nice: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Gigabyte-DQ6...yZ111427QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

But it will be closed before I'm ready to buy


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

HookeyStreet said:


> LOL   The old AMD CPUS were loads better then the old Intel CPUS (mostly because AMD's were better for gaming)......but now the tables have turned and Intel are wiping the floor with AMD.....sorry, but its a fact!



Trouble is that Intel is much more expensive. (unless I go for a bottom end one and OC it), but I've never been one to go in for Overclocking


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 16, 2007)

When are you thinking to buy all of this then? I don't think $1400 is a budget rig anymore lmao.


----------



## Wile E (Oct 16, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> Trouble is that Intel is much more expensive. (unless I go for a bottom end one and OC it), but I've never been one to go in for Overclocking


If you don't want to OC, both AMD and Intel offer similar price/performance ratios. Intel just whoops AMD in clock/performance ratios.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

I just resigned from my job, and I got to wait for the payout before I can buy.  Hopefully in the next fortnight.  But that ebay rig would definitely blow my budget, and I wouldn't be able to get the HD's immediately.  (well, I probably could afford it, but my wife may not be too happy if I spent that much)


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

Wile E said:


> If you don't want to OC, both AMD and Intel offer similar price/performance ratios. Intel just whoops AMD in clock/performance ratios.




looking on Umart, and comparing CPU's on Toms Hardware, the Intel CPU that is similar in price to the AMD is way down on performance: AMD 5600+ vs INTEL E4300  Unfortunately Toms Hardware doesn't have a clock/performance chart.

or where they are similar in performance (AMD5600 vs INTEL E6550) is about 1/4 more expensive, and that could be the difference between getting a good MOBO and a mediocre one, or I could get a better GPU...

  This AMD/Intel thing is getting really difficult to wade through!


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 16, 2007)

Ok, well wait a while, see if anything good comes up on eBay. Seems all the Gigabyte boards are the older AM2 ones, if push comes to shove you could more then likely get ARC to post a M55 SLI S4 to you, if you cannot find one for the same price in Brisbane. If you decide on a C2D system, then again, wait to see what will come up on eBay. At least the people who sell the package deals on eBay are store owners or power users, so you are pretty guaranteed on getting the proper stuff. How much gaming do you do? A mate picked up a Gigabyte 8500GT for $150 or something and it runs Bioshock at decent details, he only has a 1.86ghz C2D and 1gig of 667mhz ram aswell.
 When you have the cash then see what is around either locally or, eBay.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

I only play Civilation 4, Stronghold 2, AOE2, and a few shockwave games, so my current system can handle it all (except for the fact that I don't have enough memory, and the system starts paging heavily during play)  and the Intel Web site has a disclaimer about the D845GRG board that even though the system can technically address 2 Gb, it has not been tested and there is no guarantee that it will work, and it's not a supported configuration...  and CIV 4 get's really slow later in the game - taking 20-30 seconds per move.  Stronghold 2 was unplayable until I got the Radeon 9800.

Adobe photoshop runs out of memory fast when doing serious photo editing also.  But it doesn't need the CPU power, or fast graphics, just lots of memory.

So basically, I need more memory, but to get more memory, I need to upgrade the MOBO, so if I got to upgrade the mobo, I may as well get up-to-date CPU, then I have the issue that my graphics card can handle all that I throw at it at the moment, but it's AGP, and as mentioned in a previous post in this thread "AGP is dead", so I probably got to upgrade the GPU...


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 16, 2007)

Ok, so put these lists together, was the best prices I could find in a quick look over both ARC and Umart if you decide to not buy on eBay. These would include;

 ARC:
Gigabyte M55 SLI-S4 (sAM2) M/B 	           $109.40	
Geil 2GB KIT DDR2 PC6400 800Mhz RAM	$102.50	
 	           Total	 	 	       $211.90	

 Umart:
Western Digital 500G SATAII 7200 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache)		$145.00
AMD Athlon� 64 5200+AM2 Processor Retail Dual Core AM2		$145.00
MSI 8500GT 512Mb PCI Express 128-bit DDR2 Dual-link DVI          $119.00
                            Total	                                              $409.00

 Seems ok to me for less then $650, I guess it would be about $680 depending what ARC could do for postage. 

 But, see how you go, depends what comes around on eBay. The M55 SLI is a great board for the price, I put one into a mates budget AM2 build and it has a stable amount of overclocking features in the bios, the board is actually different to the one in ARCs photo, it has a southbridge fan and is a little different in other places.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 16, 2007)

Is there much difference between the MSI, Palit, and ASUS  8500GT cards?  The Asus one is only $103, and the MSI one you mentioned is currently out of stock (but of course stock levels will change by the time I've got the cash)

And what's the difference between Maxtor, Samsung, and WD hard drives?


----------



## panchoman (Oct 16, 2007)

theres not much of a difference between the video card manu.'s just slightly different clock speeds, different hsf's, and different things in the box. 

as for the hdds, preety much the same thing, some slight performance differences here, nothing too major though. and price and the company you have to deal with when something goes wrong lol.


----------



## Woah Mama! (Oct 17, 2007)

Personally I hate Maxtor hard drives, I prefer WD. Never had a samsung but I plan to get two for my storage drives on my 939 when it is built. I wouldn't worry too much about the videocard, like Pancho says there is hardly a difference. If you are buying a cheap card just to play a few games then it's not a real worry I would consider.


----------



## Tan DJ (Oct 20, 2007)

The other thing I wanted to ask, is why do you suggest the Gigabyte M55 SLI-S4 Motherboard?  What makes a good motherboard, and what makes a bad motherboard?


----------



## Tan DJ (Nov 5, 2007)

Woah Mama! said:


> ARC:
> Gigabyte M55 SLI-S4 (sAM2) M/B 	           $109.40
> Geil 2GB KIT DDR2 PC6400 800Mhz RAM	$102.50
> Total	 	 	       $211.90
> ...



If I go for something like this (with 2 X WD 500Gb drive) will my existing 450w psu be enough to run all this (including my existing 80Gb Samsung IDE, and LG DVD rom, and 3 case fans?


----------



## p_o_s_pc (Nov 5, 2007)

i am sure it will because the 8500GT is a LOW end card and doesn't take much power even OCed.3 HDD and a DVD rom won't take that much power.


----------



## p_o_s_pc (Nov 5, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> The other thing I wanted to ask, is why do you suggest the Gigabyte M55 SLI-S4 Motherboard?  What makes a good motherboard, and what makes a bad motherboard?



Gigabyte makes a kick ass board.There board are rock solid.They use good caps and mosfets and the overall build is great on most gigabyte boards.Also the chipset is a good chipset some boards use VIA and you want to stay away from them unless you are vary tight on ur money or want the coolest a energy efficient system.Nvidia and AMD/ATI are good chipsets.
so what makes a good mobo different from a bad one...
1.Brand of caps used
2.Mosfets used 
3.Chipset 
4.BIOS 
5.Driver support 
6.over all build of the board.


----------



## Namslas90 (Nov 5, 2007)

p_o_s_pc said:


> i am sure it will because the 8500GT is a LOW end card and doesn't take much power even OCed.3 HDD and a DVD rom won't take that much power.



Power requirements for an 8500GT are 27 watts on the 12v rail supplying power to the card.  If combined with the ATX connector I would go for more. here's a good link for GPU power requirements; Link here


----------



## p_o_s_pc (Nov 5, 2007)

At the most he will be pulling less than 300w from the PSU so i think the 450w will be fine.


----------



## Tan DJ (Dec 3, 2007)

Finally got paid out from my previous employment!  

So, how does this look?

2 x Western Digital 500G SATAII 7200 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache)                        $258.00 
DDR2 2Gig(2x1G) PC6400 800Mhz Dual Channel Geil                                       $99.00 
AMD Athlon� 64 5600+AM2 Processor Retail Dual Core AM2                           $168.00 
MSI K9AGM2-L M/board - AMD 690V HT2000 Dual DDR2- 400/533/667/800, 1x   $78.00 
Foxconn GeForce 8500GT 256M DDR3 OC Dual DVI HDTV-Out                          $75.00 

Total:    $678.00

Also, is it necessary to get a thermal compound to attach the heat sink to the CPU?


----------



## Wile E (Dec 4, 2007)

If you plan on gaming, there are better choices of gfx cards. If it's not a priority, the 8500 will do just fine.

One downside of the mobo you picked is that it only has 4 SATA ports. You'de be limited to 2 IDE devices and 4 SATA. If that's enough for you, then that's also not a big deal.

I like Seagate drives better. 5 year warranty and the perpendicular recording models are pretty darn fast. Again, WD is still fine.

As far as thermal compound, the stock AMD heatsink has some pre-applied, but something like AS5 would be better.


----------



## Tan DJ (Dec 4, 2007)

The only games I play are:

Stronghold 2
Age of Empires
Civilistation IV
Zoo Tycoon II

My current Radeon 9800SE (soft mod'ed to have 8 pipelines running, and plugged into a 4xAGP slot) seems to handle that selection Ok.  if the 8500 in a 16xPCI Express slot is better than that, I'll be happy.

I only have 2 IDE devices - my DVD drive and my 80gb samsung drive.  I don't plan on getting more than the 2 500 Gb SATA drives, but if I needes a couple more, there will still be 2 free SATA plugs.  I also have an IDE raid controller so IF I ever did want more IDE devices, I do have a controller that could handle them.

Umart sells the Seagate:
Seagate SATAII NCQ 500GB 7200RPM 32mb Cache(ST3500320AS) at $189, so with 2 drives that's an extra $120.  but for perpendicular recording, and double the size of the disk cache, and extra 4 years warranty might be worth it...  I'll see if I can talk my wife into letting me spend an extra $120

The only Thermal Compound I can find at umart is "DeepCool Silver Tim Thermal Grease" for $12 is this OK, or should I look elsewhere for better stuff?  Or do I really only need to think about it if I wanted to overclock? (which I've never really considered before...)

Sorry, just had another look at umart, and they also have "Artic Silver 5 Thermal Grease" for $15

P.S. I don't think I'll be trying your trick of removing the IHS


----------



## cooler (Dec 4, 2007)

go with hd2600pro 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102103


----------



## Wile E (Dec 4, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> The only games I play are:
> 
> Stronghold 2
> Age of Empires
> ...


Cooler is always better, but with no OCing, AS5 is not absolutely necessary. Will help out in the summer months tho, still, it's purely optional for someone that doesn't OC.


----------



## Tan DJ (Dec 4, 2007)

cooler said:


> go with hd2600pro
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102103



That hd2600pro draws 100W more than the 8500GT.  Is that going to mean I'd need to upgrade my psu as well?


----------



## Tan DJ (Dec 4, 2007)

Ooops, Just had another look at http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&c=7&t=9354 and realised that my previous comment about the 100w more was for the hd2900pro.  the hd2600pro is only 6w more than the 8500GT.   My bad...


----------



## Woah Mama! (Dec 7, 2007)

An 8500GT will be fine for your gaming. A mate has a 512mb Gigabyte 8500GT and he runs Bioshock, CoD 4, NFS Pro Street etc etc... 

 Hell you can pick the same card up from Megabuy in QLD for $105 and you get a free copy of DoW.
Here is the MSI motherboard for a few bucks cheaper and from QLD.

 Try out shopbot.com.au if you havent already, seems there is a bit of stuff you can get in QLD for a decent price.


----------



## Tan DJ (Dec 8, 2007)

Ok, So this is what I finally ordered:

DDR2 1024MB(Single stick)PC6400 800Mhz  x 4
AMD Athlon� 64 5600+AM2 Processor Retail Dual Core AM2
Abit AN52 nVidia NF 520 HT2000 Socket AM2 Motherboard
Asus Radeon HD2600XT 256MB DDR3 128bit VGA HDTV 2xDVI HDCP
Seagate SATAII NCQ 500GB 7200RPM 32mb Cache(ST3500320AS) x 2


Now, when I get it all, as I will be using the "WinXP installation" on my existing 80G drive, do I need to do anything to that existing install to "prepare" it to receive the new hardware, or do I just build it all, and load the necessary drivers the first time it boots?


----------

