Recommendations on a minor upgrade

[efty]

Hello people,

I thinking that it is time to upgrade my current computer. I am not a gamer or generally a user that needs a very demanding system even though some of the applications I use need horse power (matlab/femlab and other EDA tools) they are not that demanding, at least to the extent I use them.

Anyway, I am basically considering an upgrade path from:

PII300@450 Abit BX6 Ver1 Mobo
512 100Mhz SDR Ram
Marvel G200

I would like to just get a boost in raw CPU performance. My MB is getting old and it can only support P2 800Mhz(abit claims that it does not, however your beloved THW has an article with a BX6 running a P2 at 800).
So basically I just need a new MB that will use my current memory and vid card. I prefer an intel chipset solution for Intel CPUs and AMD chipset for AMD cpus.

Oh and at least 3 fold increase in speed


Any Ideas are appreciated

[lecter]

Perhaps a Celeron 1-1.3 GHz with an i815T board? Of course an option is also an AMD with VIA KT133A, but I wouldn't do that. Your SDRAM limits you from other choices I'm afraid....the only other one I can think of is an AMD with SiS 735 (ECS K75SA) that has both SDR and DDR support, so maybe it would be better for the future...

[Wombat]

Get that ECS 735-chipset board, and whatever Duron/Athlon fits your price/performance sweet spot.

[efty]

Will my G200 work on AGP v2.0? As far as I can remember V2 has 1.5 v signal level and V1 has 3V. Has anyone tried it?If it works then I could go for a DDR /AMD based solution.

[K6-III]

It will work just fine with the ECS K7S5A....which supports both 3.3v and 1.5v just fine...

[Ribbit]

If you want an AMD chipset board, you'll have to go with a dual motherboard, which is probably too expensive for you. (Yes, there are single-CPU AMD chipset boards, but to my knowledge they all use VIA southbridges.)

I don't know much about them, but have a look at the VIA processors as well and see if they are fast enough for you. Cheap, quiet, and won't act as a little space heater on the side.

[K6-III]

Actually there is one AMD-chipset board for socket a with both AMD north and South for single CPU.

It's an older board with only support for the 200mhz FSB and PC100. Uses 751-756 combo.

Gigabyte 7IXE4....

[Gurm]

Hmm.

Keeping your current memory is an issue. It rules out the very low-cost-but-high-performance SiS 745 boards entirely. BUT you could still use a SiS 735. Almost as good. Here's what I recommend... prices are from NewEgg http://www.newegg.com

$54 for an Athlon XP 1600+
$56 for a SiS 735 (ECS) with DDR and PC100/133 support

Both have free FedEx Saver shipping from NewEgg. You'd also need a cooler...

A Volcano9 from NewEgg is $28 + $6 shipping. So your total would be $110 + $28 + $6, which is $144.

Not half bad, considering the speeds you could get that chip up to, especially if you got a tube of Arctic Silver ($6 +$6 shipping, yeah the really small stuff is a ripoff shipping, huh?).

- Gurm

[K6-III]

For a little more, you could upgrade that Volcano9 to a Thermalright AX7, which I'd suggest...

[Gurm]

I wouldn't. The Volcano 9 not only has a much bigger fan but is quieter, with a manual speed control to reduce noise. I hate noise, but I can get mine almost inaudible at 4000rpm, which cools my chip just fine.

- Gurm

[rugger]

I second that

The Sis 735 board from ECS works very well, even with SDRAM.

I just upgraded from a Duron 700 to an Athlon XP 2000 and I used that board to use my SDRAM while I save up for some new DDR-SDRAM.

If you have never set up an Athlon XP CPU before, I also recommend you get an AMD boxed retail CPU. It comes with a heatsink and fan that won't crush the cpu core, and a nice colour poster describing how to attach the damned thing properly It also comes with a 3 year warrenty on the CPU/fan combo. It is only a little more expensive than an the OEM Athlon CPU. However, on the down side, the heatsink/fan AMD supplies isn't the quietest or most overclocker friendly.

A modern AMD cpu (XP 2000 or so) would be about 4 times as fast as your current setup in CPU bound tasks.

[Greebe]

I have to agree with Gurm and rugger here... that combination would be best suited for your needs

[efty]

Thanks for all the replies,

The only problem with the above configuration is that the ECS 735 board has only 2 slots for sdr memory. And I have 4 sticks 128mb each. I don't like the though of running with 256 RAM. So that means I would have to buy 2x256MB sticks. So if I have to buy memory why not buy DDR and get a better system overall?
My only problem is with my G200. How can I quarantee that it will work with AGP V2. Unless there is someone willing to buy it

[DGhost]

i would nitpick the choice of fans tho...

my experience with Thermaltake fans is they pretty much perform like crap... plus for a basic rig i woudn't invest in such a large heatsink... arctic silver isn't worth the cost, just stick with generic thermal compound... between those two things you can save $15 - $20 easy... or follow the recommendation of rugger and buy a boxed processor...

[rugger]

Then

If that is the case,

You might as well bite the bullet, and buy some DDR ram along with a Sis 745 board (the Asus A7S-300 is one I think) instead of the ECS 735 board.

You won't find any new motherboards sporting 4 SDRAM slots. (I may be wrong, there may be a few P4 boards that have 4 SDRAM slots on them, but you definitely don't want to run one of those)