newbie upgrading help needed..

[Mikeymate]

HI,

can anyone help me decide the best route to go in upgrading
my pc ??

At the moment i have an AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+, ~1.9GHz
766MB RAM DDR ram, ATI all in wonder 9700pro AGP Graphics card, and an ABIT KV7 board..

Now as i am but a poor person, ive found a motherboard that takes both AGP and PCI-E, and also supports My DDR Ram and the newer type..
The Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA Socket 775 Board
SO i was thinking of getting that and a cheap Dual core Intel Chip to go in it... Then as time go's on i could upgrade the rest when i can..

I use the pc for Editing movies, Games, and general stuff..
But coding video is the most intensive thing i do..

Any suggestions, as i can get the board and chip for £100.00 Uk pounds over here....

And will i notice much diffrence going from an AMD XP2500 to a Intel Pentium D 915 Dual Core 2x2.8 Chip ??

Thanks for any help

Mike

 

[mpjesse]

HI,

can anyone help me decide the best route to go in upgrading
my pc ??

At the moment i have an AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+, ~1.9GHz
766MB RAM DDR ram, ATI all in wonder 9700pro AGP Graphics card, and an ABIT KV7 board..

Now as i am but a poor person, ive found a motherboard that takes both AGP and PCI-E, and also supports My DDR Ram and the newer type..
The Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA Socket 775 Board
SO i was thinking of getting that and a cheap Dual core Intel Chip to go in it... Then as time go's on i could upgrade the rest when i can..

I use the pc for Editing movies, Games, and general stuff..
But coding video is the most intensive thing i do..

Any suggestions, as i can get the board and chip for £100.00 Uk pounds over here....

And will i notice much diffrence going from an AMD XP2500 to a Intel Pentium D 915 Dual Core 2x2.8 Chip ??

Thanks for any help

Mike

Yes, you'd see a difference. Going to a Pentium D would shave at least a few minutes off encode times.

 

[BaronMatrix]

HI,

can anyone help me decide the best route to go in upgrading
my pc ??

At the moment i have an AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+, ~1.9GHz
766MB RAM DDR ram, ATI all in wonder 9700pro AGP Graphics card, and an ABIT KV7 board..

Now as i am but a poor person, ive found a motherboard that takes both AGP and PCI-E, and also supports My DDR Ram and the newer type..
The Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA Socket 775 Board
SO i was thinking of getting that and a cheap Dual core Intel Chip to go in it... Then as time go's on i could upgrade the rest when i can..

I use the pc for Editing movies, Games, and general stuff..
But coding video is the most intensive thing i do..

Any suggestions, as i can get the board and chip for £100.00 Uk pounds over here....

And will i notice much diffrence going from an AMD XP2500 to a Intel Pentium D 915 Dual Core 2x2.8 Chip ??

Thanks for any help

Mike

If you are going to get that board go with the E6300. It's around $180 right now and will be a much longer lasting upgrade. I'm not sure what the 915 costs but even if you have to wait, WAIT. The E4300 will even be less starting next week.

 

[mpjesse]

according to newegg's site that board doesn't support Core 2.

 

[dasickninja]

I'm shocked Baron... no flip a coin advice?

 

[WizardOZ]

Get the MoBo and as good an Intel Core2Duo CPU as you can afford for starters. This will make a huge difference in overall performance. Given that the board supports all your other components, as well as newer hardware, you should be in a good position. You may want to avoid the Quad-core CPUs since there is very little software that uses the capabilities, and the price may be difficult to justify.

The alternative approach you may want to consider is getting the Asrock Mobo, cheaping out on the CPU by getting the least expensive C2D CPU and sinking the residual cash into DDR2 RAM. The advantage is that the CPU will still grossly outperform your existing CPU, but the faster RAM will improve overall performance noticeably. Mind you, you will need to carefully review the budget if you go this way, but if you can justify going overbudget by about 10 to 20 pounds, you will get much better return on the investment.

You may want to consider the following component upgrade path as your funds allow:

1) get a PCIe video card. Given that your current card is an ATI AIW and that you apparently use its features a lot, look into the PCIe versions.

2) Upgrade your PSU to at least a 500W unit. Output will be constrained by the requirements of the new video card you get. It may be necessary to get the new PSU before you upgrade the video card.

3) replace your existing case with something like the Thermaltake Armor Jr or equivalent. Make sure that any case you get has space for water cooling systems in case you decide to overclock. Note that overclocking has negative warranty and reduced hardware lifespan consequences.

4) add a SATA hard drive of at least 250 GB capacity. Note that most current MoBos only support 2 IDE devices, so you will eventually need to replace your IDE hard drives, if you want to keep existing optical drives.

5) replace your existing monitor with a high-performance LCD, with as low a response rate as possible, with "TV" capabilities as well. Note that many posters in these forums recommend sizes greater than 20". You may wish to keep in mind that the normal viewing distance of a monitor sitting on your desk is between 2 and 3 feet, or max of 1 metre. This has major implications for the maximum usable size of screen you should be considering. For a real-world example, why is the normal minimum viewing distance for a 27" CRT television considered to be approximately 2m (6 ft)? Usually more like 8 to 10 feet. And what happens to the viewing experience with such a screen if you plunk yourself down 3 feet in front of a 27" TV screen? Same issues apply to computer monitors.

Do NOT discard any of the old components as they are replaced - see below:

As a final thought, you may wish to consider keeping your old components as you continue to upgrade your current system. You could always use the older components / system to set up a Linux box eventually. Linux does a much better job of leveraging older components to get very good performance, and it never hurts to learn another OS. If you do go this way, you will need to get a good KVM switch, so you can use one keyboard, mouse and monitor for 2 (or more) systems.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mikeymate]

Thanks for the words of wisdom..

So it will be a worth while venture to get this Asrock board and chip then..

What i didnt want to do is get the mobo and chip and not notice any difference :roll:

I have tried to look at as many benchmark charts as i could find, but was still confused..
And installed sissoft Sandra to try and compare my chip to others :?

i think that really the main benifit is the option for further uprgrades afterwards, especially a nice Quick CPU...

I do want to get another Graphics card, and of course PCI-E is the way to go...

Thanks for putting my mind at rest, of thinking im wasting what money i have " 😀


Mike