Time for a Rebuild...

JackKelly

Well, with the summer coming up, leaving cert ending and a job looming, it looks like its time to consider a rebuild of the old pc. Haven't had much time in the last year to update myself to the pc standards of the moment and all i got was good advice last time i asked here. Anyway, at the mo i have a
Athlon 2500+ Barton
512Mb (2X 256) DDR 3200 ram
Radeon 9600Pro
Asus A7N8X mb
80gb IDE HD
+case etc.
So im thinking maybe spending about 800 or so (might get a few euros if i sell the above). So what should i want. I'd like to stick with AMD and Ati as they have done me well,so i'd be looking at a Athlon 64? Any suggestiongs.

As far as ram goes, would i be bottlenecking the system getting a big upgrade, but sticking with DDR 3200? How great is the new DDR2 and all that. It would save alot of money i just bought another 512 stick ram/1Gb Ram instead of upgrading to the next standard.

Also, regarding HD's. Say i bough a new 200Gb to go with the 80. Would combining the two create much slowdown?I ask, because at the moment,i have my HD partitioned about 5 ways. So with a new hardrive, id be adding space to these which would mean, some info would be on the new HD and some on the Old. Would i be better to just transfer everything on to the new one, and save the 80 for something else?What are the advantages of this SATA, i hear so much about?

Anyway, sorry to ramble. Any advice? Keeping in mind i have a PSU,Case, monitor etc.

Nukem

Wait a while for the dual core beasts and prices will drop like a sinking stone.

Nukem

JackKelly

whats a while? Won't be building it till end of summer probably

padraigf

that should do nicely. although you can wait till the cows come home when it comes to building a pc, waiting for x y and z to come out/drop in price.

JackKelly

also,just to mention, i have OC'ing in mind.

pauln

Athlon 64, Socket 939 Mobo, PCI Express Graphics card, Sata Drive. Stick with the 3200 ram it'll do fine, add 512 if you like but remember the problems of matching the sticks if you want them to run dual channel.

The SATA drives have a faster transfer rate then the normal Pata drives we're used to. Nice and tidy setup and the new boards come with on board raid which is nice.

You would be better off transfering most of the information to the new drive and starting fresh, some things may benifit from running off the 1st parition of your second drive but most will be slowed down.

^whitey^

Nukem wrote:

Wait a while for the dual core beasts and prices will drop like a sinking stone.

Nukem

Is it true that ATI are bringing on next gen graphics cards over the summer?
Also when is XDR ram coming out to the desktops (if such a thing exists), or are these all vicious rumours ive been hearing/reading?

I'm also in the same situation as TimAy, except i'm upgrading from an 8 year old PII 333Mhz ... long overdue.

Canis Lupus

Have you overclocked that xp at all? Should be able to increase it to xp3200 level at least altho not 100% sure about the barton cores o/cability, thought I heard they were locked but worth looking into.

At least it will increase your cpu power for a bit.

SouperComputer

S939 is the way to go alright. Grab yourseld a 3200 with a good cooler (XP 80 from jes) and you will get good results overclockign without breaking the bank.

Get a DFI board with SLI, gives you more of an uprade path for graphics in the future. DFI's are built with overcloking in mind and some feature Dual GB lAN. A good few guys have used these boards for overclocking.

SATA is nice, But It's not neccarily quicker....yet. The interface is faster, but most of the drives are the same mechanics as the PATA drives. The 10000RPM WD Raptor is an exception of course. In a RAID 0 config, SATA should hold an advantage of PATA, and IIRC is there is a small saving in CPU time with SATA.

Of course you could always go SCSI! This is what im doing. Im sorry I ever moved from it two years ago, so im moving back!

RAM, PC3200 is the minimum you should be using if you plan overclocking.

Make sure you pick up a nice PSU. Antex & Fortron are good AFAIK. A good PSU is essential more than ever for overclocking. 400W + is desireable

JackKelly

Canis Lupus wrote:

Have you overclocked that xp at all? Should be able to increase it to xp3200 level at least altho not 100% sure about the barton cores o/cability, thought I heard they were locked but worth looking into.

At least it will increase your cpu power for a bit.

I have it at 3200 speeds at the mo. Got a new thermaltake to cope with it.

I presume if i go with a SATA drive, my 80gb pata will be useless alongside?

Have a nice PSU. Pretty sure it's over 400W's

What are the RAM matching problems?

pauln

No you will be able to use your pata also, the motherboards with onboard sata ports also come with the standard pata sockets. It will show up as normal.

The Ram problems arise because of the Dual channel feature. In order for this to work correctly the two memory cards need to match each other, for this reason you see them sold as a "mached pair" sometimes. If there not the same make, brand, timing and sometimes the same batch they just won't work in the dual channel configuration.

JackKelly

just looking at CPU's. Why is there such a price difference between Socket 939 Athlon 64's and socket 754 athlon 64;s?

also, if i went with a sata drive, and cloned my current HD (PATA) to the new SATA, there wouldn't be any problems with compatibility or anything? The only difference is the way the information is transferred right? Sata2 looks favourable

pauln

A straight clone to the new drive might give you some problems with XP, I'm not sure how it would take all of a sudden being on a new drive.

Not to sure on the 939-754 thing, I might be wrong, is the 939 newer tech and more features onboard?

Ciaran500

A straight clone definatley be a bad idea. Windows would still be looking for all the old parts.

Are current SLI boards Nvidia only? Will they work with ATI SLI cards when the come out?

mp3guy

Will you be selling any of the old parts?

JackKelly

eventually.not for a long while.July/august

Prior Of Taize

http://www.komplett.ie

there is no substitute (unless there actually is one)

JackKelly

didnt want to make a whole new topic so ill bump this instead.

Just looking at ram and was wondering, how identical must they be to work together properly? I have 2X 256mb TwinMos Cl2 PC 3200 sticks at the moment and i want another 1 or 2 512mb ones to go with it. I bought the originals off komplett. Would these do the trick? Its stupid but the reason they look like the ones, is they have the Gold heat pipe on them, like mine!

Secondly, when i decide to buy the new rig, i intend on selling my a7nx8 Mobo with XP 2500+ Barton (at 3200+), Thermaltake Volcano and Radeon 9600 Pro (also Oc'd). Hopefully together. What could i realistically expect for them (im not trying to sell them now!).

Thanks

pauln

The matching only applys to DDR setups. There are usually 4 mem slots, and the 4 operate in two pairs. Now I know the two memory cards in linked slots must be similar to operate in dual channel but I'm not sure if the two pairs must be matching.
As for memory cards matching, your safest going with a matched pair package like this.

JackKelly

hmm confused now. I get you but Just looking at my existing ram. Its PC 3200 DDR SDRAM at 200Mhz. If im doing up the system it might just be worth buyin a new set of 2X 512 DDR2's. They aren't that badly priced. I presume i cant mix PC 3200 with DDR2 Pc 4300 etc? Is DDR2 worth the upgrade?

uberpixie

TimAy wrote:

hmm confused now. I get you but Just looking at my existing ram. Its PC 3200 DDR SDRAM at 200Mhz. If im doing up the system it might just be worth buyin a new set of 2X 512 DDR2's. They aren't that badly priced. I presume i cant mix PC 3200 with DDR2 Pc 4300 etc? Is DDR2 worth the upgrade?

No you can't mix ddr 1 with ddr 2.

ddr 2 is not worth it at the mo and amd 939 mobos only seem to support ddr 1 at the moment.

Ciarnan500 wrote:

Are current SLI boards Nvidia only? Will they work with ATI SLI cards when the come out?

Yes SLI is an nvidia only technology. Thats why ATi are releasing AMR.