johne

hehehe, Ag951 that was really funny. I was going to say something about the "tack" of Fishey's remarks but I think you covered it. Hehe man I'm still laughing.

John

Chris_924s

Man what spirited bunch! I have been building my own computers since 1979- yep the good old Sinclair 1000 days. I opted for the 64.99 RamPak, a whopping 16K of Ram! and I saved my programs I wrote on a portable cassette player. My first big system backups were done on a VCR. (cheap media. period It's all magnetic tape) Been building my own ever since- made a pretty good living off that for several years.

Fishey- I had to convince people NOT to duct tape you to a post at Willie's in Cinci.. I guess THIS is that post.

I'm still shaking my head. Athlons are NOT faster than 2.0Ghz celeron's. Period. Look at core processing speeds. Clock the results and prove it to me. When you have benchmarked as many brands/ processors/ os's as I have some stuff does stick with you.

I guess when you run Windows 3.1 it don't matter anyway.. j/k

2+2

I knew there were some computer heads in this forum! Thanks for the info. Sounds like different people have different experiences/opinion....

Fishey, I believe my case is a Full ATX case.XPS-R450...there are no "riser" boards (I think that is what they are called) and it looks pretty standard with ATX connectors in the panel etc. so that should not be a problem.

cjeckert, if I do upgrade, I will take the advice and upgrade the power supply to 350+ Watts to make sure I can exand further. I was under the impression that mobos these days can autodetect most of the hardware plugged in and there are only a couple jumpers that need to be set??
Is that inaccurate?


I won't go into the Intel vs AMD debate since I am not qualified....but I must admit, AMD's cost significantly less...cost being a major factor (hence the piecemeal upgrades) since every penny saved is slated toward my 951!! I still want to tint, get a chip upgrade and not sure what else!!

Ag951, I will look into the mobo and cpu you recommended as well.

Maybe I should just can the whole thing and get my damn chips.....

2+2

j_overly, what is wrong with TigerDirect? Have you had bad experiences with them?

savage944

Hemm you have a lot of options with upgrading.

I been building my own systems for a long time, just short of forever seems...

Their are advantages Intel and to AMD I prefer AMD.

IF you need help let me know. I was in the buisness and I still have my license and tax Id number, I can get you nice discounts on everything. Since it isnt a bulk order, wont be as nice as true wholesale.. but would be glad to help... got some power supplies and cases still in Boxes in the spare bedroom, I didnt bring them up on the move...

I got my Geforce 5200 with 256MB DDR Ram for under 80
Cases with powersupply 300-450 average 20-40 or cheaper... been a while
lets see I got 512MB DDR Ram 2100 for like 65.00
Last MSI pro motherboard I bought was 30.00
AMD XP 2200 was like 40

Barebones where like under a 100.00

If you need retail outlets, use Newegg as recommended by others, they have a reputation for delivering, I have personal experience with them and never had a problem or with others I referred to them.

let me know if I can help... Might be able to sell you some of the stuff I got laying around... boards still have warranty, new in box etc... I could give you a powersupply, I got enough of those... maybe a case... cant remember if I have mid towers or full towers...

Fishey

hey SmartAss....I practice being a ******* its what I live for becuase I have no life
From reliable tom.
http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20...eleron-06.html

Now that 1600+ will beat a 1.4ghz T-bird but marginaly... And from what It looks like the 1600+ can more then hold its own against the 2.0 celeron. Also from a site like Tomshardware I would take it with a grain of salt...

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...JsX3BhZ2U9NQ==

Notice the 1600+ kicking some major butt there...
So... Basicly the 1.4ghz would be "on par" or better then the 2.0ghz celeron....

(BTW my Athlon 1.4ghz runs at 1.82gh)


Ohh and as far as the geforce 4.....

What I really ment is it has no Direct X 8or9 support...
The diffrence is the TSMC went from .18 to .15...

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...force4-06.html


NV17 - GeForce4 MX series, Continued

Based on the GeForce2 MX design, GeForce4 MX has an acceptable background, even though it lacks the new vertex and pixel shaders. Fortunately, NVIDIA did several things to make Gefore4 MX more powerful than GeForce2 MX.

Based on GeForce2 MX GPU
Manufactured in TSMC's .15 µ process

everything after this was on other model gefoce 2's....
Chip clock 250 - 300 MHz
Memory clock 166 - 550 MHz
Memory bandwidth 2,600 - 8,800 MB/s
Accuview Anti Aliasing
nView
VPE

Except this one
Light Speed Memory Architecture II, stripped down version of GeForce4 Ti


Also the heat from a 2500+ Is in comparison to older athlon's an extremely cool running chip...

Fishey

Fishey, I believe my case is a Full ATX case.XPS-R450...there are no "riser" boards (I think that is what they are called) and it looks pretty standard with ATX connectors in the panel etc. so that should not be a problem.


Right it look's it.. But Trust me... Dell uses there own custom ATX wireing design....

http://www.upgradingandrepairingpcs....ade3_01_01.asp

Fishey

Basicly If I come off as an *******..
A. I didn't explain everything out..
B. Am not being serious (sarcasm)
C. Just messing with you...

savage944

I used to work for Dell as a Onsite repair technician and their desktop setup with powersupply is a pain compared to standard ATX, you cant just upgarde or replace it with a universal setup. The older riser boar setups suck. Then of course the power supply has an additional plug on a lot of models that goes to the motherboard... Dont get me started, if you want a warranty with onsiter repair, dell is good, but you have to deal with Tech support wait times, and generally some guy in India (yea the country) who doesnt speak the best english... dell moved bulk of the personnel PC tech support to India, they still have dedicated support in US and Europe for Buisness customers and Gov' users... but just imagine a 1 hour wait, followed by trying to understand someone take you through trouble shooting, step by step... yes they have a onscreen system, they pick an option based on your response or the diagnotic lights on the back of system or beeps at power on sequences etc... even if you tell them you are this or that, certified etc.. as a home user they will take you through about 30 steps to many, then issue a service order.... laptops are worse... but once they send some one out service is usually outstanding, unless its a contracted service tech....

Like I said warranty good, tech support bad.... less headaches with building your own system...

Fishey

Chris 924s you need to clean out your PM box..

Chris_924s

Will do fishbulb.. Thanks- I didnt see all the old buggers as thew were set to "only last 60 days" instead of "from the beginning".. Hmm, I love EL&P...

You know I'm taunting you Fishey.. no harm no foul.

elvisizer

tomshardware can be bought. sometimes his results don't really match up with everyone else's . . .
fishey and ag951, why are you guys talking about such old stuff? celeron's have so little cache, they really aren't very good compared to p4's and athlons (not to mention opterons and athlon64's) . . .
if i was building a system right now, i'd probably go for a p4 based system in the mid to upper half of the 2 ghz range, with 512 mb of ddr 400 ram, say, 120 gb hd (maybe sata, but probably not. how much are those 10k rpm raptor sata drives now? those are only 36 gb, tho), radeon 9800 pro (or 9600 pro to save some money), and a nice 800mhz FSB mother board.
that's a system that will play directx 9 stuff like half life 2 very well, and at this point (now that the athlon64 and p4 extreme edition (lame name) are out), it's not all bleeding edge components, so the total price wouldn't be too bad. oh, yeah, and a nice antec or enermax ~400 watt power supply, and a 20 inch lcd montor and . . . . and . . . . and . .. .
it's hard to stop, once you get started

Fishey

I have a 3200+ but anything over a 2.6ghz(W/HT) P4 is faster

Dan87951

I second newegg. The best prices and service I have ever received from a computer vendor. They get my hard earn dollar every time I need to upgrade.

Brian McCoy

One of the Biggest issues with AMD vs. Pentium is HEAT. AMD likes to run blazingly hot, which isn't necessarilty a good thing. I know a lot of people who have had problems with them in cases that were poorly designed (didn't flow air well) or had bad fans. Shoot, I have whats considered to be one of the best flowing cases (Antec 1040 SOHO), FULL of some expensive fans and if I let the CPU run at more than 80% for more than 10 minutes or so I start seeing problems.

P4's just don't seem to do that. They stay cooler and take longer to fry themselves if something fails. For what it's worth, my system is not ocerclocked and has Never been clocked.