Everyone except me has 1Ghz

[villerk]

I own a relatively old computer (K6-2/500) and for what I have read nearly everyone here has a 5 Ghz Turbo-Athlon @10 Ghz B-). How does the CPU power affect on different Matrox's cards, I mean, should I first upgrade my CPU before I buy a new G450 (or G400) (BTW my current card is i740)?

[Kruzin]

Relocated to General Hardware/Software forum.

[Greebe]

The cpu/MB solution would be first on my list.

Once you hit ~850-900mHz you saturate the G4xx/Max fillrate limit. So what your running now is about half the proformance of what a G4xx will do. The best proformance is with a G400 Max then the G400 (many OC this easy to Max levels), then the G450, fastest to slowest respectively.

Now do to the slow FPU of the K6-2, for example the Athlon (all variations) of the same speed spec is much more powerful. For example yours compared to an Athlon @800 is roughly equal to twice the power to render such complex scenes found in games today.

What is intended use for the system? All around MM power house, Gaming solution, Video editing, Graphic design???

As much of the above as possible?

[villerk]

Just look at the prices: buying a new Duron/700 and (e.g.) Asus A7V would cost double compared to buying only G450! If I wasted the same amount of money that goes to new motherboard and CPU, I'd get brand new G450, 128 MB memory, a new cooler (the old one is going to brake down...) and some software also. In fact, as I don't play much, the latter option sounds far more reasonable than the former.

Changing subject, there's a little bump on the road. G400MAX costs twice compared to G450 (here in Finland). I'd get it cheaper by ordering it from China than from local store...

[Topha]

i only have 750 mhz
what graphic card do you have right now? maybe you could keep it, then you will only have to get the new cpu/mobo which would probably give you a big performance gain.
if you are lucky you can sell your old cpu/mobo and get enough money to buy a new graphic card, especially if you sell your old graphic card as well.

edit: even a 500mhz athlon (if you can still get one) is quite a lot faster than the k6-2 in most applications. if you are lucky, you might get a k6-2+ (or k6-3+, im not sure). they are a little difficult to get, since they are designed for notebooks, but they are faster than the original k6's and they also use less power and radiate less heat. from what i know you could keep your old mainboard. then you would be able to get your g450 and some ram

[This message has been edited by Topha (edited 27 March 2001).]

[villerk]

I already have bought a new K6-2. The first one was 300 Mhz (which I 'accidentally' used as 350 Mhz...), so I'm really not interested in buying yet a third one. I presume that my CPU is about as fast as PII 400 Mhz (or at least all the tests show that); I can think only two or three games that need *more* power than that. In fact, I'm never even going to play those games (some Microsoft bullshit), and as I'm not extremely wealthy I go on the cheapest route (buying a G450, and possibly more RAM).

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AMD K6-2/500 Mhz
A586B, Ali Aladdin V
128MB 100 Mhz SDRAM
20GB Maxtor DiamondMAX VL 20, Quantum Fireball EX6.4A
HP 9110i, Creative 32x mx
Intel i740 8 MB (laughter...)
SB64PCI
Winbond W940C (or such, 10MB/s)
Yakumo EN1570DO (15")
Mice, keyboard and stuff
Kenwood amplifier and stuff
Win98, RedHat 7.0 (sometimes also BeOS 5)

[cjolley]

If you want DualHead go with a G400 or 450.
If not, a Voodoo3 (they specialize in working with the sort of rig you have).
chuck

[Jammrock]

Don't feel bad, Villerk. I'm a professional computer geek (i.e. I get paid to play with computers) and I'm still running an Athlon Classic 650! Eventually I'm going to finish tearing it apart and redoing to thermal cooling for it so I can overclock it, but it's still an Athlon Classic.

As for upgrades...always start with motherboard, CPU and RAM. Thos are the key components that are going to give you quick boosters right off the bat. A video card upgrade will speed up gaming at higher resolutions. Right now you can get very overclockable Athlons dirt cheap. A good Abit or Asus board will run about $150, but it's worth it.

Jammrock

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Athlon 650
256 MB PC133 CAS3 from Crucial
87 GB storage from WD & IBM
Matrox G400 (it's not dead yet!)
SB Live! the original full retail, still going strong
Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400, the PC speakers that goes BOOM!
Hope Matrox releases the G800 before rebuild time, becuase the end is near!

[Greebe]

I'm still running my legendary Athlon 500@850... and when shopping last week was talking to a guy who was upgrading to a P3 600 because it was sooo cost effective (I about fell out laughing). Stupid "by the book" analyst/programmers

[tuco]

running an athlon classic 600 @ 750, just waiting for ddr solutions to mature a little.

[Technoid]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">... and when shopping last week was talking to a guy who was upgrading to a P3 600 because it was sooo cost effective (I about fell out laughing). Stupid "by the book" analyst/programmers

[/B]</font>

cost effective is to buy a Duron 700 and run that @ 933 on a 133MHz board as I am doing now!

No need to unlock or worry about "RE-Locking" effect!(i can run it at 1000 and abouve but the neccesary volts makes the heat rise vith about 10 degreas and it's soon summer!)

[Greebe]

Not when they must buy MB, CPU, HS and possibly new memory to get all working together.