Need help with PC upgrade. (I'm sure this is the first post EVER like this.)

aunsoph

Greetings, I'm upgrading my computer and could use some pointers. I'm not tech-savvy, but I can research your inputs as I'm a fast learner.

As it is, I have a very old P4 1.7 Ghz, probably one of the first iterations. An older ASUS AGP-only mobo, that's around 6 years old, and two 512MB RAM modules, of which the salesguy that I'm dealing with mentioned it's ancient GIMM or something and would be incompatible with current mobos. I got two HDs, a 20GB one and a 100GB one, I want to ditch the first. As for a video card, I got an ATI x850XT AGP 256MB.

From my bantering so far, he suggested a new P4 3.2 Ghz, two 1GB DDR2 RAM modules, a HD 160GB 7200 RPM IDE and for the mobo, he initially suggested a ASUS P5S800-MX AGP when I mentioned I wasn't comfortable changing my video card just yet. But now that I think about it... perhaps it's time to get on with the times and just get a PCI-E mobo, seeing as AGP is pretty much defunct.

He now suggested an INTEL D945 GTPL PCI-E mobo, and at first, when I changed my mind and told him I would need a new PCI-E video card that would be on par or superior to my ATI x850XT, he came up with a Radeon 9550 PCI-E... that appears to be a terrible, terrible card... all forum posts I goggled talking about it as a viable possibility dated as far back as August 2005. I told him so, and he now listed me an ATI RADEON X800 GTO PCI-E 256MB.

I could use some help pinpointing if and about what he's bullshitting me, if that processor, mobo, RAM and card are worth getting for as a gamer and so forth; keep in mind I can't get most top of the line cards in Brazil, the price for the card he mentioned being roughly 340 US dollars down here.

Anyway, thanks for any help beforehand.

Insider

A pci express card thats equivalent to your ATI x850xt AGP is the ATI x850xt PCI-E.

aunsoph

Insider wrote: »

A pci express card thats equivalent to your ATI x850xt AGP is the ATI x850xt PCI-E.

Would the card the salesguy came up with compare? What about the rest of the system specs, mobo, processor and RAM? Are they all a considerable upgrade? I would like to play newer games, (Neverwinter Nights 2, I'm looking at you.) and preferably get better framerates from World of Warcraft and City of Heroes.

stigweard

Ditch your sales guy and read through the sticky thread in H/A. He is either incompetent, or maliciously trying to sell hardware they have sitting that they can't sell. It is hard to give you a good estimate on what to get without knowing your budget too. Socket 478 is dead. There is no upgrade path. It is even hard to get in processors for older machines that use that socket motherboard.

Quantux

If you want a quick, cheap fix, find out the highest cpu your mainboard can do and get that (if you can, see above post), also grab whatever agp vid card is around $150 this week. Also as much "GIMM" as you can fit in there. Now if you want to completely rebuild, I can't buy a pack of smokes without running into nine guys telling me how great core duo's are. (bonus points if you get the reference). And you would certainly want a new mainboard, ram and pci-e vid card. as for the drives, get SATA, not IDE to replace your current ones if you really want to. Personally my IDE drives are fast enough for gaming while serving crap to my xbox and what not. I have two (80 and 250) One for system crap and programs, the other for /home and \my documents.

For reference, half life 2 runs flawlessly at 1600x1200 with everything up all the way and quake4 runs great at the "high" (I think, it's the one right below the one that asks if you are in fact insane) setting with everything turned on. And I cobbled this thing together from all the best parts I had at the moment.

My system:

Celeron D 325 2.53Ghz
2Gb DDR1 PC-3200 Ram, 400Mhz
Nvidia 6600 256Mb, AGP 8x
80Gb WD IDE-100, 8Mb cache
250Gb Maxtor IDE-133 16Mb cache
Sblive 5.1
Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 sp1 (don't ask)

stigweard

GIMM was probably RIMM - Rambus ram. Good luck finding it cheaply anywhere. It has to be paired and it was extremely expensive new.

aunsoph

First of all, thanks for the responses so far.

stigweard wrote:

(...) It is hard to give you a good estimate on what to get without knowing your budget too. Socket 478 is dead. There is no upgrade path. It is even hard to get in processors for older machines that use that socket motherboard.

My budget would be in the range of 800-1000 dollars most likely. Although parts here tend to cost more, the import taxes often causing the prices to skyrocket if it's bleeding-edge. On another note, it's good to know the mobo would be dead-end. What would be a good PCI-E alternative?

Quantux wrote:

If you want a quick, cheap fix, find out the highest cpu your mainboard can do and get that (if you can, see above post), also grab whatever agp vid card is around $150 this week. (...)

I'd rather not. Keeping AGP at this point would just be wasting money upgrading it in a year or so. Also, if I were to do that, I'd just use the x850XT I got... which would mean I'd have to keep a ~6 years old mobo that only supports pre-historical PIV processors... not to mention the subpar RAM.

Quantux wrote:

Now if you want to completely rebuild, I can't buy a pack of smokes without running into nine guys telling me how great core duo's are. (...)

(...) as for the drives, get SATA, not IDE to replace your current ones if you really want to. Personally my IDE drives are fast enough for gaming while serving crap to my xbox and what not. I have two (80 and 250) One for system crap and programs, the other for /home and \my documents.

I have two HDs as well, a 20 GB and a 100 GB one. Both are IDE and quite old. I'm getting a 100GB + to replace my current lower-capacity one, and intend to use one for Windows, image editing software, utilities... and perhaps a single-player game or two. The other, for online games, videos, music and image galleries. So I should aim for SATA if I want more oomph, or is the difference really negligible? I'd rather upgrade in a way that I won't have it come back to haunt me later.

stigweard wrote:

GIMM was probably RIMM - Rambus ram. Good luck finding it cheaply anywhere. It has to be paired and it was extremely expensive new.

Well, talking over the phone I couldn't tell. And yes, it's probably RIMM. I'm ready to ditch those without looking back. Are the twin 1GB DDR2 RAM modules worth it? I could produce the brand tomorrow.

Seeing as the suggested mobo is pretty much obsolete and the processor probably is as well; what would be proper upgrade-worthy parts? What about a video card?

stigweard

The first board he recommended was socket 478, but the second was socket 775, though the first revision that might not be compatible with core duo processors. The sticky in H/A is relatively current and will give you a good idea what to look for in high / med / budget ranges. If Robaal is around, he will likely help out with good information on what you could do to get more for your dollar too.