What Upgrades shall I buy?

[Abrax]

Ok, I am currently running this system:

AMD Athlon xp2400+ (Thoroughbred Core) @2000MHz
ASUS A7N266 VM (I think) nForce2 motherboard
256Mb PC3200 (DDR400)
60Gb Maxtor Hard Drive (7200rpm, 8Mb cache) plenty of space left
32Mb Onboard GeForce2 (has own GPU in north bridge, so no effect on processor)
Windows 98SE (better for older games :) )

*The graphics card will be updated on Thursday (It should arrive :) ), an fx5700 U 128Mb

Ok, I am currently thinking of either getting 1024Mb PC3200, and running dual channel because of the nForce 2 chipset, but the motherboard only has two DIMM slots, so I'm not too sure about that. Or, buying a new motherboard, since the one I've got only supports two DIMMs, has 4x AGP, and I'm not too sure if the 5700 will fit (it looks like the memory clips will get in the way.)

So, if I did upgrade the motherboard, I would be grateful as to which model to upgrade to, whether to choose one with an nForce 2 chipset, or a VIA chipset, one with loads DIMM slots, as I said, any recommendations are welcome, I can spend up to £80 at a stretch.

I have also heard that Windows 98SE can only support up to 1000Mb of RAM from somewhere, in that case, I would buy a dual channel kit, but only install 1 DIMM, until I eventually upgrade to WinXP. *crazy*

[The Undertaker]

I heard having more than 512 on 98 does little but it should recognize all of it. And dual channel for the Athlon is pretty useless unless your using integrated video (which you won't be for long). The DIMMS getting in the way of video card is a common problem and means your'll have to remove it to change that DIMM. The main reason to upgrade your mobo would be to upgrade your processor but since SocketA is a dead end path I'd advise against it. Other than the gfx card and some more RAM there's really nothing truly upgrading. The A64 2800 is out at around $180 and the socket939 A64's will be out in a couple of weeks with nForce3 250 hitting shelves soon so I'd say save for that.

[Tyberious]

not only that but if your case is a smaller one then you will have to remove the memory to take out the HDD or to put another one in (which can be a pain in the @$$!) Dual channel does add some performance but not nearly as much on an athlon machine as a pentium 4 (its not noticed as much because the pentium 4 is greedy for bandwidth, athlons are consitered an effecient processor). I think I would take the undertaker's advise because telling someone to stay on a motherboard and processor that will have no more support in the future is not exactly future proof or smart although somewhat cost effective (if you want to save money for a while). I would get the A64 as you wont be disapointed with it. THe Nforce 3 150 is out and when the 250 comes out the prices will lower if you are on a budget but if you want better performance and aren't afraid to shell out for it then get the 250. I would recommend an OS upgrade along with the hardware for better support, especially with the A64, I hear they will release either the 64 bit beta patch or the 64Bit os for the A64 and the Athlon FX 51/53. That will help improve performance although be careful with 32bit and 64bit drivers (until the service pack 2 comes out which features execution protection). Hopefully this will help.

[Abrax]

I changed my order from that 5700U to a Radeon 9800pro, which I can get a few £'s cheaper than the 5700U now, and its a better card.

I'm going to wait until the card arrives before I decide what to buy, although I have my eyes on a nice looking MSI motherboard, which can take up to 3Gb of RAM, and that supports dual channel memory. I think that even running dual channel on an athlon is better than not running it at all, after all, the memory I'm planning on buying will be PC3200, even though my FSB isn't that high, for future proofing, and I should expect that it would have some sort of an effect on the latency. I might try overclocking my FSB, but I'm not too sure about reducing the multiplier, and increasing the FSB speed, neither am I sure of the 2400+'s overclocking capabilities.

I am on quite a tight budget, all the parts I've got, I got at Christmas, and the money and Radeon (I hope that email got through), are for my birthday.

All the peripherals I have are from old systems I had, the monitor is from my old 233, internet keyboard from my dads old 500, nice Yamaha speakers, that need their own power supply (very loud :) ), and an optical mouse that my mum bought, and I 'aquired'.

My dad says that he'll give me his monitor from his 1.1 GHz machine 1600x1200, yay!

[The Undertaker]

400FSB=3.2gb's DDR400=3.2gb's
Dual channel gives more bandwidth than the Athlon needs and may make a measurable differnce but unlikely it will be noticable. The AthlonXP will be moving to Socket754 (which will be A64 with the 64bit extensions disabled) which would be a good time to upgrade CPU/mobo.

[Abrax]

400FSB=3.2gb's DDR400=3.2gb's
Dual channel gives more bandwidth than the Athlon needs and may make a measurable differnce but unlikely it will be noticable. The AthlonXP will be moving to Socket754 (which will be A64 with the 64bit extensions disabled) which would be a good time to upgrade CPU/mobo.

Its better to have more bandwidth than needed though, and do you mean that the Athlon xp processors that are availible now will fit into the A64 socket. *book*

[The Undertaker]

No, there taking the Celeron approach but with the 64bits instead of cache. New core, same name and since the 3700 will be the last socket754 Athlon64 they need something to fill the void.

[Abrax]

Celerons were awful, thats all I have to say about them, same goes for Durons really, but if you have a limited budget...

[Mr. Chris]

Get another 256 or 512MB of RAM, I hope your new card will bring you more up to date.

[Abrax]

Just to say I got my Radeon 9800pro, now I'm planning to upgrade to a 64-bit Athlon, new motherboard (for the new proc) and 1Gb DDR400.

[Tyberious]

good for you! I am glad to hear about your upgrade (not that your previous hardware was inferior) but its a good idea to stay current, you wont be dissapointed. When she is all put together let me know how she runs (such as performance). I would like to know.

[Abrax]

Don't worry, I will Tyb, I'm going on a bit of an earner in the holidays, (4wks work, 2wks in France). I am expecting to earn just over £1k in those 4wks, I'm going to be working with my dad. Its not all that bad for poor college students. (I do need a Radeon 9800pro to to my coursework, honest!) *Dodges a smack round the head*

[Tyberious]

yeah right *grin* just like I needed taht 5900 XT graphics card for my school work. Atleast I admitted that I don't need it, my parents know very well that I don't need a card that powerful for college but they respect the fact I tell them the truth (read: I will be playing games) and they (not being spoiled) decided I should pay for it as always and I agreed, I game short of a $100 give or take so I worked my ass off and the rest is history.

I also need a newer processor with hyper threading (I have already maxed mine out and usually use the run in realtime in the task manager. I need a faster hard drive (western digital 36.7GB raptors in a raid 0 and maybe switch to DDR 400Mhz that can give me timings of 2-2-2-5-8 without choking. All for school work because I want to run my word processors at 1 million frames a sec. :p

[The Undertaker]

Just tell them you'll need it for Longhorn. Just don't tell them you got 3 years till it comes out.

[Tyberious]

nah! They are computer litterate for the most part, they aren't up to date so much but they are pretty smart folks, being honest works to my advantage anyway and I am a crappy liar anyway. It doesn't matter to me much that they know the reason why I WANT something so I think I have it great right now.