Discuss about my current vs my upcoming and previous systems

[McGraw]

Current system:
1.4Ghz Athlon Thunderbird
512Mb PC133
Geforce 3 64mb (not ti)
Abit KT7a Raid

Previous System:
PII 450Mhz
128Mb PC100
Nvidia Riva TNT
Chaintech BX

Approx upcoming system (subject to change):
3000-3500 Athlon 64 (Socket 754 or 939)
1Gb of from PC3200 DDR to 400Mhz DDR2 (obv dep on mobo)
Nvidia 6600 upwards or Radeon X800
Basic MSI neo to SLI Asus board

Okay, here are the points that have been running through my head since I decided to uprade again.

1. Both my current and previous systems were bought when they were absolute bleeding edge. I am on a 3 1/2 year upgrade cycle at the moment. When I upgraded last time and the time before (from a P200), I noticed a large increase in performance. It wasn't surprising as I was pretty much trebling CPU performance, quadrupling memory and the graphics took a quantum leap each time. This time, I think I'm going to be disappointed.

The reason being, is that even though I've waited over three years, I'll only be adding approx 50% to my CPU speed, doubling my memory and adding some power to my Graphics and adding Direct X support. My Dad has a P4 3.2 Ghz with a (admittedly rubbish but still a lot newer than my GF3) FX5200. Some games run better on it (Delta Force black Hawk Down) and some worse (MS Flight Sim 2002 and 2004). I'm so glad I didn't go down the Athlon XP and Geforce 4 route.

2. I know you can always wait a bit longer but is this a good time to buy? The reason I ask this is that for at least the last month, the components that I'm after have stayed the same price. This means I would have been better off buying a month ago. Is the next performance hike around the corner?

3. Considering I have only ever upgraded the core components of a PC once (Voodoo into P200) is it a waste of time to buy stuff that's slightly more expensive with a view to upgrade? Yes it's all very well getting socket 939 with an eye on dual core but by the time they're affordable, they'll be faster than my mobo can support. Getting SLI seems like a good upgrade path but by the time I upgrade, won't there be dirt cheap cards around that beat my SLI'd 6600s into the ground? I'd rather spend £400 twice in three years on new mobo/ram/cpu/gc combos than spend 600 with a view to upgrade and waiting three years instead to get a new rig.

4. Will my 7200rpm 2mb IBM Hard Disk do a new system justice or will I need to go SATA?

Thanks for any advice.

Prices between socket 939 and 754 are close anyway as are the chip prices, so you may as well go 939 for dual channel ram

DDR 2 is very expensive and reviews ive seen now a huge lot faster then ddr http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Corsair_XMS.html top pair nice

3500 venice core would make a nice chip or if you want to spend a bit more either the 3800 san diego or 4000 of the same would do well

The x800 pro is a very nice card if you can find the powercolor it can be unlocked to xt pe (ask bifta about this) To get an nvidia as good your looking 6800gt ish

As far as hdd is concerned they are so cheap now so i would say buy a sata

In my opinion if you go with anything close to what ive said above there is no way your going to be disapointed,64bit chips fly and no doubt

You could keep you old system on a network and use it as a file server or a media centre or loads of other uses

Only problem is £400 will not buy all these parts but it would be money well spent

[bmxbandit]

Originally Posted by McGraw

1.This time, I think I'm going to be disappointed.

2. I know you can always wait a bit longer but is this a good time to buy? Is the next performance hike around the corner?

3. Getting SLI seems like a good upgrade path but by the time I upgrade, won't there be dirt cheap cards around that beat my SLI'd 6600s into the ground?

4. Will my 7200rpm 2mb IBM Hard Disk do a new system justice or will I need to go SATA?

1. the sqstem you're looking at will be quite a lot faster than your current rig, it'll make any game available now absolutely fly, and probably any for the next year or so. The cpu isnt that much more powerful, but an x800 or GF6800 is a big step up in terms of performance.

2. i don't know of any upcoming major price drops. perhaps a little when the dual core hit the shops...

3. unless you want SLI now, i wouldn't bother. as you say, better cards will turn up in the meantime.

4. sata will make no difference, that hdd should be fine.

[Halcyon]

There is no problem putting your 7200 hard drive in to a new machine. New mothereboards have both SATA and IDE connectors.

You could have both a brand new SATA drive. They are so cheap these days and run slightly faster, and then also have your 7200 IDE drive also in there on the IDE controller.

As for upgrading, I think there is never a good time to buy. You just have to bite the bullet.
The 939 is probably your best option as it will be ready for future upgrades. I would reccomend looking at the Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi which has PCI-E and is an all round good board at the moment.

Originally Posted by bmxbandit

4. sata will make no difference, that hdd should be fine.

I disagree the 2mb cache to either 8 or 16 on a maxtor diamond max 10 will make a huge difference

[bmxbandit]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

I disagree the 2mb cache to either 8 or 16 on a maxtor diamond max 10 will make a huge difference

i didnt think it's that much, depends what you're doing i guess. won't have a serous impact on gaming. it might as well be upgraded if cost isn't a problem, but i think the extra £50 could be better spent elsewhere

Its the cache makes the difference 2 mb running an o/s on, in my experience will make quite a difference in general performance

[MovedGoalPosts]

Definitely go down the SATA route for the HD. Playing with the NTHW clan, I'm usually the first or second to connect to a new map (there can be 20 playing online), and a lot of that must be the speed my PC loads up:

Althlon XP3500+ (64 bit), Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 939 motherboard, 1GB PC3200 400 RAM (dual channel), Seagate Barracuda 120GB SATA 7200 HD 8MB(2 in RAID), Powercolor 9800 Pro (128MB) Graphics.

Oh and the PC was an upgrade from an 18 month old XP2800 system. The performance difference is very obvious, so you will see loads of benefit from your proposed jump.

[bmxbandit]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Playing with the NTHW clan, I'm usually the first or second to connect to a new map (there can be 20 playing online), and a lot of that must be the speed my PC loads up:

the speed is 'cos you have two fast drives (i'm guessing) in RAID 0, they'd be just as fast if they were PATA

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by bmxbandit

the speed is 'cos you have two fast drives (i'm guessing) in RAID 0, they'd be just as fast if they were PATA

Actually, just looking at the system, the RAID has come unglued - I appear only to be using one of the HDs at the moment. They should have been mirrored.

Originally Posted by bmxbandit

the speed is 'cos you have two fast drives (i'm guessing) in RAID 0, they'd be just as fast if they were PATA

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Actually, just looking at the system, the RAID has come unglued - I appear only to be using one of the HDs at the moment. They should have been mirrored.

mirroring actually slows the hdd down a bit,get 2 identical machines run 1 off a 2 meg cache hdd then run it on an 8 meg ide or sata think your in for a surprise bmxbandit

http://www.storagereview.com/guide20...cacheSize.html

[bmxbandit]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

mirroring actually slows the hdd down a bit,get 2 identical machines run 1 off a 2 meg cache hdd then run it on an 8 meg ide or sata think your in for a surprise bmxbandit

http://www.storagereview.com/guide20...cacheSize.html

i can't seem to find any decent comparisons, but you're probably right!

[McGraw]

Okay gents, thanks for putting my mind at rest.

Think I will definitely go 939 for the Dual channel.

I also think I will forget SLI and go for an X800.

The DDR2 is probably a waste of time. I will go for PC3200 400Mhz.

So now I have one further question:

1. What is the best value socket 939 mobo at the moment with PCI-E (non SLI)?

Cheers.
__________________

I'm going to rebuild my old system to use as a 2nd PC for Flight Sim 2004.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...CI_Series.html some good prices on x800 pci e here

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...boards_68.html

loads of mobo's here foxconn are the budget brand here

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=85287 the 3D1
may i point you at this beauty, gfx and mobo , look at gigabyte site to see performance. The gfx has a dual core 2 6600gts on one card

[purenuman]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Its the cache makes the difference 2 mb running an o/s on, in my experience will make quite a difference in general performance

The cache doesn't help unless you ask for the same data again.

When a hard drive is accessed, the data is copied from the drive to the cache and then delivered to the calling process.
This is done so that the next time that data needs to be accessed it can be taken straight from the cache, reducing the access time because the platters themselves will not need to be accessed.
It only speeds things up if you are calling the same data over and over....