PC Questions

[smidsy]

Hei Guys,
It's been over 3 years since I built a box so my hardware knowledge is somewhat rusty, but this PC is getting slow and I'm thinking about an upgrade. Budget is tight so I'm thinking CPU, Ram, and motherboard - the existing board is P4, so the case and everything else should be fine.

My theory is that the ram is the working memory, so more is better - is this correct? I'm thinking 2 gig of ram and I can get Legend 1024 meg DDR fior $150 - is this decent ram?

A big question I have is the CPU - I can get a celeron 2.4 for about $100 or at the other end a P4 3gig for $280. My pc use is mainly surfing, word processing, music and video and converting video files I get off the net. Is the substantial cost different worth the extra performance of the P4?

For mother board I only need something basic and the Asus P4P800S-X seems to have everything I need if I go with a Celeron CPU.

Thoughts and comments on this lot would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Paul

[Redback]

Next months PC user is going to have a fairly big write up on components and the best bang for your buck.

But, for me....

I have 1.5 gig of Ram, but I play for some fairly CPU and Ram intensive games, so unless you are doing a lot of video editing, then 1 gig of Ram is more than adequate, you won't notice any difference above that. Corsair and Kinigmax are considered the higher end Ram. I wouldnt get a celeron, my personal preference would be AMD, cheaper and equivalent or better performance.

This place has good prices in Perth and will deliver free in the metro area of perth. I have used them several times and they have been brilliant.

http://www.simline.com.au

you can also check
http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html

for components....

RB

RB

[B.J.Honeycut]

I'd go with Redbacks suggestion. AMD are good value chips. You could go for something like the AMD XP2800(approx $120) an Asus motherboard with the nForce chipset(approx$125) and a Gig of Ram(approx $135 for corsair). Not a cutting edge machine, but probably quick enough for what you'll be using it for. The AMD chips do run fairly hot, so make sure your case has a good fan and air flow.

[Waldo]

G'day Smidsy,

Nah, forget the PC, go for a 2.7GHz dual-processor, liquid cooled G5 with 64bit power and find out what a computer is all about.

Couldn't help myself sorry.

[kiwigeo]

G'day Smidsy,

Nah, forget the PC, go for a 2.7GHz dual-processor, liquid cooled G5 with 64bit power and find out what a computer is all about.

Couldn't help myself sorry.

Apology accepted

[smidsy]

Hei guys,
The current box is a P4 with 512 meg of ram.
I can take the ram up to 1024 for about $150 or I can replace the board and CPU as well.
Not sure I can stretch my budget for a P4 CPU, and the heat issue makes me wary of the AMD's since my room does get fairly warm - is a Celeron 2.4 much of an improvement over a P4 1.4?

I'd like to upgrade this box, but finances don't allow an all out upgrade so any advice on how to get the best bang for limited buck would be appreciated.
CHeers
Paul

[Bob Willson]

Hi smidsy

What are you doing now that has slowed down your PC so much? Are you trying to run programs that you weren't running before or have you just not cleaned the system out?

Just remember, this box used to fly when you first got it and you were very happy with it, so unless you have radically changed your usage it should still be capable of the same performance.

My pc use is mainly surfing, word processing, music and video and converting video files I get off the net. Is the substantial cost different worth the extra performance of the P4?

The only thing here that would require any sort of processing power is the video processing and that could possibly be taken care of with extra memory.

It is also possible that the P4 board that you have could run a much faster CPU. Check out the manufacturers site on the net and see what upgrades are available for that board. Apart from this, the biggest present you could give it would be to upgrade the memory. The advantage of doing this first is that whatever memory you buy, you will be able to use in a further upgrade should that be deemed necessary.

XP can use whatever memory you throw at it but there is also a law of diminishing returns and so it is doubtful that any more than 1.5 gig of RAM would be fully utilised and even this would be far more than required for a bit of word processing.

So to sum up, I would suggest that you first but extra RAM rated at 400 Mhz or higher. (So as to future proof it a teensy bit.)

Next, Reformat the HDD and reinstall your programs. This alone will often double the speed of most computers.

After this, check for board upgrades to see if it will run a faster CPU.

If all this fails to satisfy you, then is the time to buy a new CPU and board.

[zymurgy]

The AMD chips do run fairly hot, so make sure your case has a good fan and air flow.

That used to be the case, not anymore. The AMD CPU's run much cooler than Intel. Have a look at the temperature image charts for an idea.

[smidsy]

Hei Guys,
The main change in PC habits is that we went to broadband about 2 months ago so I am playing with way larger files, and I'm using video conversion software to convert mpegs to DVD. DVD Santa takes about two minutes per minute of video to convert files.
Cheers
Paul

[Daddles]

Hei Guys,
The main change in PC habits is that we went to broadband about 2 months ago so I am playing with way larger files, and I'm using video conversion software to convert mpegs to DVD. DVD Santa takes about two minutes per minute of video to convert files.
Cheers
Paul

See, internet was invented by the computer industry

Richard
I only download wooden boat ... honest

[vsquizz]

Paul, Talk to these guys about an AMD machine, faster and cheaper:

http://bentech.com.au/

or

Going over 1 Gig of Ram makes little difference, will actually slow some machines down and is a waste of money (according to a couple of articles anyway) most, but not all of the time.

Try an MSI 865Neo board
P2.8 H/T
1 Gig Ram (2 x 512)
Leadtek or better FX 5700 (256Mb) Video card

The video card is important if you want the performance and it has to be at least 256 Mb or the rest is a waste of time.

This will give you solid performace without breaking the bank. Get a good powersupply.

Cheers

[Bob Willson]

Sorry Squizzy but I have to disagree.
The older operating system slowed if you had too much memory. WindowsXP doesn't. Also, the only reason for a high amount of RAM in a video card is if you are running high demand games. Ordinary graphics (such as is used in word processing etc) don't use much in the way of video RAM at all.
If you've git billions of colours then that is all you need. Processing video in RAM isn't going to go any faster for having mor video RAM, only for more system RAM.
But on th epower supply you are spot on. A good 400Watt power supply will provide stable power that will provide a stable system.

[vsquizz]

Best I explain better Bob. Going over 1 Gig does improve performance but only marginally. 512 to 1 Gig is a quantum leap but there after, most of the time the improvement is hardly worth the dollars for most home and office users.

On the card I disagree. Smidsy said he's playing around with video stuff and web sites are becoming increasingly more demanding with more an more bits of stuff to play with. I found going from a 128 Mb card to the 256 a real performance boost without touching the rest of the system.

Cheers

[smidsy]

Hei Guys,
I got my parts today, as with everything else it was a compromise between desire and budget - the aim is to give me semi-reasonable performance for about 12 months and hopefully I'll be working and can afford a top end box.

I ended up going with the Asus MB P4P800S-X mainboard, this has all the slots and USB's I need and has the intel chipset.
CPU is a P4 3.0 gig, I looked at the Athlon but there was very little cost difference so I went with what I know.
Ram is 2 x 512's and I added a 120gig Western Digital SATA HD since I was spending less than the budget on RAM.

The plan is to keep the existing HD but have the new one as the primary drive (formated probably 20/50/50) so I need to work out how to get the data over and avoid a full reload.

In terms of video, I will be recycling the 128meg Asus card that I bought about 3 months ago. Sqizzy mate, I would agree with you if I was running games, but the hardest work this card does is running 1152 x 864 DPI.
I was fine for years on a 64meg card and only went to 128 because I wanted video out.

Thanks for all your advice on this guys.
Cheers
Paul