Help Datajack upgrading his PC

[MRT144]

well theres a lot more to just replacing the chip. you need a new motherboard...and possibly new ram to go with it. 2 gig p4s costs about 100 bucks.

[Traianvs]

well, datajack, you might want to get an AMD, which is a bit cheaper than p4, of course, you will need a different mobo for that (socket A) but hell you'll need a new mobo anyway me thinks... you could get a Abit MB Socket A (5 PCI, 1 AGP) ATX (NF7)

which has a network card+ soundcard in it already so you don't have to buy those anyway... i got it for €138, and an AMD2100+ processor for €113

you should definately get 512 ram... i got DDRam 512 MB 400 MHZ - PC3200 for €174, but that was pretty expensive ram, there is much cheaper ram (but not at 400mhz then)

then you should get a gef2 or so (they are very cheap now, while the gef4 etc are still nasty) and you will be okay.. you could sell that gef2 on ebay later on, and upgrade to a better graphics card if you have more money...

I think the rest you already have (case, monitor, speakers, mouse, HD, cddrive etc...) and with these new trinkets you will be around €500 i reckon

[Giovanni Wine]

Yup

AMD works very well too

Saluti

[Urban Ranger]

I say just add more RAM and replace the video card. Your system can still handle most games.

[alva]

Upgrade the OS too.


How high did the P3 go?, maybe try to buy one second hand.

[Urban Ranger]

P3 goes to 1.4GHz, something like that. W98 is fine with games, you don't want XP to slow you down.

[alva]

W98 is fine, but more modern want lot's of memory. That's where w98 breaks down.

[Urban Ranger]

Games? Nah, games don't need much memory.

[Paul Hanson]

I'm holding out that the university will forget I owe them £950 in residence fees. If they do, then I'm buying me a new computer to replace my P166.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Paul Hanson
I'm holding out that the university will forget I owe them £950 in residence fees. If they do, then I'm buying me a new computer to replace my P166.

Hull Uni is usually very good at forgetting things, but they have just remembered I "owe" them £1345...well if they will pay sums of money into my bank account I never asked for, what do they expect?



Which reminds me, I need another advice thread

[Datajack Franit]

Games? Nah, games don't need much memory.

I'm more confused now than before posting this thread

[Traianvs]

Hmm, games require lots of RAM and cpu power, I reckon UB is thinking of games such as civ3 etc? There you might not need that much, but if you are going to play games that were released this year, a p700 will not suffice

It's true that nowadays the graphics card does most of the work in games, but nevertheless your cpu is still important.. as I said, if you want to play games that were released this year, you will have much lag with a p700... besides, a cpu (amd anyway) doesn't cost much compared to the rest

I told ya, i bought a 2100+ AMD for just €113
Of course you will also need a new mobo, but at least you will have the latest technology so you can go on again for a few years.... i think upgrading all the time is not worth it, because you will pay just as much, and you will have to keep buying stuff and installing them constantly, which is annoying imo
And, you will never have a good (optimal) system anyway...

[Urban Ranger]

No, most games don't need much memory. 128MB is a lot, and 256MB is more than sufficient.

[alva]

Even civs can make swap files up to 500Mb, so having some extra Ram is quite usefull.

I'd say 256 is a minimum nowadays.

[Traianvs]

256 is an absolute minimum i would even say..

On top of that: having loads of ram simply boosts your computers performance on the whole, did ya even know bad ram can cause computers to crash more frequently?? hehe I didn't know until quite recently someone told me!

But everything depends of course on what you are going to play, and if you want it to look all nice and sweet, or perhaps that doesn't matter that much for you, and you can do without too many trinkets...