Good time to upgrade?

[gf4200isdabest]

My friend has a pretty shotty computer. It's some old P3 with 128 RAM. It doesn't really deliver *acceptable* performance in games like Warcraft3 for him and he's looking to buy a new computer. I said I'd look into it and help him build it. He has about 950 dollars and he won't be needing optical drives (cd burner, dvd) or a hard drive. Would he be able to get a pretty good gaming machine for that money? He also said that he wanted nice speakers and I have no idea what to recommend on such a limited budget. Any suggestions would be helpful.

If it matters, i have more experience with p4 machines than AMD but I could assemble either...

 

[buckmasterson]

Take a trip through newegg.com, read the reviews, and build one in your shopping cart. Stick with AMD and you'll get more machine for your $$.

 

[xSauronx]

could do a nice p4 setup for that
2.4 or 2.6c, nice asus or abit mobo, 512-1 gig of ram, a 5900 (these are, i read, moddable with just a bios to a 5950 ultra) audigy 2, midiland (or some other nice speakers) and a good case w/ a good psu.

should go in around a grand or so, and would be a rather nice machine. the p4's have a good chance of ocing to 3 ghz or so with the retail cooler

 

[BenSkywalker]

$950, no optical drives, hard drives.

A64 3000+ Retail- $236
512MB OCZ 3200 DDR- $81
ECS 755(Socket 754) mobo- $91
Antec True430 430Watt- $77
ThermalTake XaserIII Lanfire VM2000A- $106
eVGA FX5900SE- $188
CL Audigy ES(OEM)- $46
Klipsch GMX A-2.1 $126

Total- $951

All prices shipped from NewEgg. Went a dollar over, but I think your friend would find this to be a decent gaming rig with good speakers.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
$950, no optical drives, hard drives.

A64 3000+ Retail- $236
512MB OCZ 3200 DDR- $81
ECS 755(Socket 754) mobo- $91
Antec True430 430Watt- $77
ThermalTake XaserIII Lanfire VM2000A- $106
eVGA FX5900SE- $188
CL Audigy ES(OEM)- $46
Klipsch GMX A-2.1 $126

Total- $951

All prices shipped from NewEgg. Went a dollar over, but I think your friend would find this to be a decent gaming rig with good speakers.

You could use better memory than that, and the 5900se is not near as good as Radeon 9700 pro for about $30 more. You could save by getting x640 Logitech speakers at $66. Other than that, this system will kick a P4 3.2c all over the place in gaming.

 

[Johnbear007]

I would go with 1 GB of ram. you can get a gb of kingston hyper X 3200 6 2 3 2 for 176 great stuff for the money pc3200.

 

[JBT]

$950 is a limited budget??? damn. So far everyone has given suggestions that are awsome machines. Times of changed you can get a SWEET machine for damn cheap.

 

[gf4200isdabest]

Why $106 for a case? I bought my Lian-Li for 120 back in "the day" but I was going overboard...

 

[DaveSimmons]

If he can wait until next month, intel has a price cut scheduled where prices will all shift down by one (3.2C -> 3.0 price, 3.0 -> 2.8 price), and hopefully AMD will drop the A64s a bit more to match.

Right now an A64 3000+ is currently by far the best deal for gaming if you don't overclock. (And I'm typing this on a P4 so I'm not anti-intel.)

 

[SpeedFreak03]

I built my P4 rig (specs in sig - Main System) a month ago, and I love it, but I really really wish I bought a A64 instead, just because it would be better for gaming and it would be faster. I have my P4 overclocked to 3.12GHz though, so im happy with it! Anyway to answer your question, either way (P4 or A64) you will be happy, but if you go P4 you almost always get killer overclocks, I run mine on stock voltage and stock cooling 24/7 at 100% load (SETI@home) and temps never get over 50C, even with the heating vent blowing right on the case (lol its the WORST place to have my computer but the P4 stays cool so im happy). BTW if you go P4 definetly get a ASUS P4P800 Deluxe, it is THE BEST MOTHERBOARD in every respect!!!!!! Also go with that Kingston HyperX PC3200 DDR-RAM john-bear is talking about, I picked up a 1GB kit for $176 shipped and I love it! I have had 0 problems with this combo (every other board and memory ive used has its quirks but this one really has no problems)! OK enough being a asus/kingston fanboy lol good luck with the rig!

-Josh

 

[BenSkywalker]

You could use better memory than that, and the 5900se is not near as good as Radeon 9700 pro for about $30 more.

The eVGA 5900SE comes with Call of Duty which is a kick @ss game(many consider it GOTY) and it actually performs very close to the 9700Pro in most titles, beating it in some and losing in others. The R9700Pro will beat it in HL2, the 5900SE will be faster in DooM3. Also, look at the name of the guy who started this thread

You could save by getting x640 Logitech speakers at $66.

Well he said he wanted good speakers, can't get much better then the Klipsch

I would go with 1 GB of ram. you can get a gb of kingston hyper X 3200 6 2 3 2 for 176 great stuff for the money pc3200.

Figured for a GB at first, when the total was over $1K I looked at what could be cut with the least amount of pain(needed to cut almost $100 so trimming back on the case wouldn't do it). I'd certainly agree that a GB would be better then 512MB, but this guy is coming from 128MB so the improvement will be huge for him.

Why $106 for a case? I bought my Lian-Li for 120 back in "the day" but I was going overboard...

The case may seem a bit overboard, but you will likely enjoy working with it and it has a considerable amount of presence. IMO the XaserIII cases walk all over the Lian-Li offerings(best cases available bar none IME). Not bashing your case or anything(Lian-Li is a very good case), and you could certainly substitute it out for a lower cost model. I think your friend would be quite impressed with it though. The case does have excellent cooling and is one of the easiest I've seen to work with. The Super Tower XaserIIIs are even better, but they cost quite a bit more and are very heavy(they suck having to move around).

I looked at the lower priced cases and it freed up about $50 going with a cheap case, which didn't improve much in terms of options. If having a killer case isn't important to him you could certainly change it out, but IME people that aren't geeks(not an insult in any way of course, big geek here myself, I assume your friend isn't due to the age of his rig) look at the case and when they see a killer case they think it's a killer rig no matter what is in the box(and the above configured would certainly be a killer gaming rig).

 

[DaveSimmons]

The Antec Sonata is a good case for this system since the quality 380watt supply is enough for the P4/A64, drives, and high-end graphics.

I currently have a P4 3.2, 1 GB RAM, 2 HD, 2 optical, and a fx5900 non-ultra in mine, and it's been 100% stable.

 

[Markfw]

I agree on the Sonata, good case. And after reading ANOTHER post about bad memory being the problem on an Athlon64 system, I will re-iterate my position: Get Good quality PC3500 CAS2, and you won't be sorry. And I stand by recommending a Radeon 9700 pro or 9800 pro. The 5900se will not keep up with either IMO.

 

[Zinn2b]

GO intel 2.6 $160 Also PC 4000 if your are buying high guality ram its the same price that way you can stay at 1/1 ratio way better than5/4 or3/2 now in gaming performance the cpu is important more in some games than others BUT!!!! the GPU rules here thats whats going to eat your budget up if you get less than a say a ATI 9700pro the way to go is asus MB with ATI chipset with onboard GPU the beuty about this card is if you upgrade your GPU you don;t have to disable unboard GPU and you can hook up a second monitor or even a third monitor depending on your video card nice.....NOW you AMD people get off of it get over it the only Amd cpu besting P4 800 FSB with hyper threading is the IS the FX AT $800 dollars thats a joke so go intel and when there new cpu arrives we shall see I run my 2.6@ 3.25 with $30 sunbeam heat sink and it does go to 55C in hard gaming but thats pretty good and the only AMD that well touch it is the $800 fx

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
$950, no optical drives, hard drives.

A64 3000+ Retail- $236
512MB OCZ 3200 DDR- $81
ECS 755(Socket 754) mobo- $91
Antec True430 430Watt- $77
ThermalTake XaserIII Lanfire VM2000A- $106
eVGA FX5900SE- $188
CL Audigy ES(OEM)- $46
Klipsch GMX A-2.1 $126

Total- $951

All prices shipped from NewEgg. Went a dollar over, but I think your friend would find this to be a decent gaming rig with good speakers.

I'd change the case to a Sonata (save you money and strain on the eyes) and get 1GB RAM w/ tight timings. As far as a good time to upgrade...late summer is usually best, any other time there's usually something around the corner you'll miss...but do you really want to wait?

 

[mrweirdo]

the problem with the athlon64 3000+ or all of them that arent of the fx version is the fact that they dont have dual ddr capabilities so your best bet for performance would probably be an xp cpu or p4.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: mrweirdo
the problem with the athlon64 3000+ or all of them that arent of the fx version is the fact that they dont have dual ddr capabilities so your best bet for performance would probably be an xp cpu or p4.

Someone hasn't looked at the performance of the A64 3000+ (2GHz), 3200+ (2GHz) or 3400+ (2.2Ghz) in reference to FX-51 (2.2GHz) (except for low-quality video encoding and workstation apps, the difference is insignificant!), and has definitely missed out on the last year of Athlon XPs. With a budget of $950, unless an LCD monitor has to be included, anything less than the A64 3000+ is pointless.

 

[BenSkywalker]

If you swap out and Sonata w/PS included for the Xaser/Antec you end up saving yourself $78. That isn't enough extra cash to get 1GB of fast PC3500, it doesn't even get you enough to get the cheapest GB of PC3500 NewEgg has. It doesn't cover the cost of a GB of fast PC3200 either. He could move to 512MB of fast PC3500 with the money saved moving to a Sonata however.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
If you swap out and Sonata w/PS included for the Xaser/Antec you end up saving yourself $78. That isn't enough extra cash to get 1GB of fast PC3500, it doesn't even get you enough to get the cheapest GB of PC3500 NewEgg has. It doesn't cover the cost of a GB of fast PC3200 either. He could move to 512MB of fast PC3500 with the money saved moving to a Sonata however.

OK, so it brings the total to $966. Maybe get 1GB a bit later or drop the case down to a SLK3700xxx. What is the real difference in performance with the PC3500 vs. PC3200? If we're comparing $400/GB OCZ and Mushkin, maybe, but we're basically suck at $180 max here, where CL2-2-2-6 at 200MHz is the best bet.
If $950 is an absolute max, I would have to say that a better case (like the SLK3700s and Sonata) is worth more than the 1GB RAM...especially since RAM will be the easiest upgrade for any PC, and upgrading from that PIII rig, he won't know what hit him.

 

[Markfw]

What is the real difference in performance with the PC3500 vs. PC3200? If we're comparing $400/GB OCZ and Mushkin, maybe, but we're basically suck at $180 max here, where CL2-2-2-6 at 200MHz is the best bet.

The difference is that the Athlon64 like fast tight memory. Several people on the forum have found that out that hard way. And the idiot Tom at Tomshardware has a stupid article about how CAS2.5 and CAS3.0 memory doesn;t work in pairs on all Athlon64 motherboards. They were the ones that stated a while back that you want fast tight timings on the memory, ad then they write an article like this, that just proves their point. (except they dis it as being the fault of the Athlon64)

Go for PC3500 CAS2, and you won't be sorry. Hyperx is what I have, and it works great.