PC upgrade suggestions?

Dr.Jass

Dr.Jass

Pastor of Muppets
When my dual-proc motherboard took a dump, I pieced together this old Dell XPS-R450 (Pentium II 450) to get me by for a few days.

That was two years ago. [smilie=e:

Anyhow, it's time to upgrade to a new motherboard, processor, and RAM. I have a large ATX case with a 450W power supply, so I should be OK there... I think. Come to think of it, I'll probably need a new sound card and network card to go with it (mine are both ISA :D).

I'm not a gamer, so I don't need top-of-the-line stuff here. I do some photo, sound and video editing (slowly) and CD burning (my current setup can't even allow my burner to run full speed). I'm running Win2K and have no plans to change that. I'd just like something that will be suitable for such purposes for a couple of years.

I used to be up on all this stuff; I went back to using my brain capacity for Mopar stuff so I haven't even so much as priced it lately. I'm essentially in the dark. Any of you propellerheads are welcome to chime in with your recommendations.
 
If you're willing to spring the $'s, the 64 bit AMD stuff is kick-ass. No need to be concerned with replacing sound & ethernet cards because most of the new mobo's have them on-board
 
Your power supply is fine, you can run a top of the line vid card with that. If you think you might go into gaming or alot of vid editing, you might want to update your mother board to support PCI vid cards, instead of AGP. All the amnufactures are going to PCI Express. I'm running a AGP baord right now and im fine with it, but when I update I'm going to PCI Express so I can run 2 vid cards at once lol. I have a GeForce 6600 GT OC and I like it.
I am upgrading my Ram to 1 gig, I have 512 DDR now and it was good untill BF2 came out and drained my system. Its unplayable unless you hit , alt tap delete and close all the back round task, which if you have XP try it when your buring it will do alot of good.

Sure I'm leaving alot out but as more post come alone I will add stuff lol.

I never shoped from here but alot of gamers do, they have fair prices http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Category.asp?Category=20
 
I already have a fast-enough video card for what I'm doing--video editing seems more concerned with processing power than video-card capability. [smilie=e:

I'm running an older Matrox dual-head with a pair of 17" CRTs that's perfect as far as I'm concerned. I might upgrade the card, but it would have to be dual-monitor as I'm not willing to give up desktop real estate. :D

I won't be going into gaming. If I do, I'll buy a game system like Xbox or PS2. On the PC, it's just a continual upgrade process... you spend as much in new hardware throughout the year as you do on the games themselves. [smilie=e:
 
You should wait for PS3 or XboX 360 then :D.

I love playing online games and this is the 1st time I have upgraded since I bought my PC 3 yrs ago lol. Trick is not to by the hotests and newest item. I paid 150 for my new card which was 300 a yr ago. The newest geforce is around 800 - 900 [smilie=2:.
Must Vid cards allow you to run 2 monitors as well has having S cable hook ups.

I like [url]http://www.nvidia.com/page/home.html[/url] cards over Radeon because Nvidia are less buggy just make for a better over all performance.
 
Whatever you do, buy as much RAM as your wallet and motherboard will allow. It's the best bang for the buck as far as performance is concerned.

As for Motherboards, I'm out of the loop these days as well. I'm partial to Intel and Asus boards with Intel processors, but I don't really do any huge gaming - which seems to be where the AMD stuff shines and at a better price.

Since you want to keep your video card - and I would too with Win2K - you need to make sure you get a board that has the right slots - but you know that already. What kind of card is it? PCI I'd assume...

An alternative is to upgrade the OS and get a pair of video cards that work with the new motherboard. WinXP can "twin" video cards. What's that buy you if you don't care too much about graphics - nothing.

The only kick that I've come aross with Matrox video cards is that a lot of the gaming developers don't code for them and that causes problems. Not a big deal for you unless you want to run some EA sports games. Specifically, Tiger Woods - you'll see his head on backwards and his arms swing about a foot in front of his body... :D

A good site to reference is www.tomshardware.com always lots of good reviews and they seem to tell it like it is...
 
Since you arnt in a big hurry, get on tigerdirect and neweggs mailing lists and wait for something to go on special. I recently picked up a celeron P-4 board and 512 ddr ram and a 3.9 gig processor for 150 plus shipping. I would go XP because its so much simpler to deal with, it is more virus prone but theres freeware out there to keep it secure, majorgeeks has anything you need for nothing.
 
Here's my 2 cents (overpriced):

If you are editing video, you should think like a gamer. You want as much processing power as you can afford.

I'm old school and tend to stick to the tried and true Intel stuff. My only experience with AMD was a long time ago and it put me off (take that for what it's worth which is nothing, since I have NO experience with the new AMD chips) to the products.

Here's a list I saw online and agree with:

Pentium4 3.0GHz (roughly)
1GB dual-channel DDR or DDR2 RAM (minimum)
i915 or i945 chipset mobo (the 945 offers dual-core upgrades)
lower-end PCIe x16 vid card (or perhaps an AGP vid card)
120GB+ SATA hard drive(s) w/NCQ
DVD dual-layer burner
video capture device (PCI card or external?)
ATX 3.0 PSU (400W minimum)

This is the source for that: http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?p=23913

The basics still apply. Get the most you can of everything.
If you get SATA drives now, you "should" be covered for at least 5 years (I'm editing with IDE...but will soon move to SATA myself) With the rest of the components, you should be able to get away with the "last generation" so you can save hundreds of dollars...get the video card that was all the rage LAST MONTH, (I believe that would be one of the ALL IN WONDER cards), etc. The above list is good...

I just got a DVD burner at newegg (dual layer) for 60 bucks...great deal works great...can't remember the brand right now NEC maybe?

I am in the market for a new build myself, and after being out of the game for just a couple of years (I edit on a friend's AVID, so I'm mostly not thinking about my own computer) it is amazing how much research there is to do to carch up on all the new shit. I don't have time!
 
Well I used to run AMD now I'm an Intel guy but I have no experience with the new AMD chips. I have 2 gigs of DDR400 ram waiting for my new mobo/cpu upgrade. I have a P4 2.6 at 400mhz now and bought a board and the ram not realizing I can't run the 400mhz ram with the 400mhz cpu. Go figure! [smilie=e: I put my old board and 1.25 gig of pc133 ram back in and it's steady overclocked to 2.86mhz.
I was just looking at new setups myself so if your interested in my old setup let me know.
This is where I go to check prices.

[url]http://www.pricewatch.com/[/url]

Oh, I buy a lot from these guys, good prices.

http://www.geeks.com/
 
Not sure what kinda vid card your looking for or how new. But I have a Geforce4 Ti4600 128MB DDR, its yours if you want for the price of shiping, and if it sounds fair a mopar nuts 3 cd.
Its AGP. If you want me to take some pics just ask. Nothing is wrong with the card, I just had to update because Battle Field 2 will only support cards in the 6600 class and higher.
Specs.
core clock = 300MHz
Memory Clock= 650MHz effective DDR memory
RAMDAC= 350MHz
Connectors= VGA, DVI, TV in/Out.
10.4GB/second memory bandwidth.
 
Dr.Jass said:
I already have a fast-enough video card for what I'm doing--video editing seems more concerned with processing power than video-card capability. [smilie=e:

I'm running an older Matrox dual-head with a pair of 17" CRTs that's perfect as far as I'm concerned.[/quote]

Once again, I'm not interested in a video card... but thanks for the offer. My AGP Matrox does everything I need it to perfectly, and since I don't game (thought I'd mention that yet again) I don't need the latest go-to-hell double-throw-down PCIx mega-polygon hoochie-pow gitchasum.

I'll probably stick with an Intel setup as it's always been reliable as a stone ax for me since the get-go... my only motherboard failure was a broken CMOS battery clip. [smilie=e: Damned shame... I had those 433 Celeries crankin' over 620 at one point.

I'm not downgrading to XP, either. I've had it on three machines thus far (all of them considerably faster than this beater), and it was less reliable than this same installation of W2K I've been running since late 2000. I know I'm in the minority, but I had nothing but problems with XP... and no, it wasn't the hardware.

Realistically, if I'm going to have to replace my hard drives and all that stuff, I think I'll just skip it. I don't want to get involved in another full build because I'll end up geeking out, spending too much to get top-drawer everything, and just end up right where I am now in 18 months. [smilie=e:

I'll be in the garage working on my outdated car...
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