Upgrade question

[mdbusa]

Hello

I need to upgrade my sons pc. He has a Duron 700 now and he cannot play some of the new games. I do not want a hard core gamers machine-just something good enough to get by. I only want to buy mainboard and cpu--so can reuse ram etc.. Dont need overclocking or onboard video--unless there is a cheap onboard video for gamers.

Dont need raid or wifi.
Are semprons good enough? and what mainboard to go along with the sempron.
Note: I am in Thailand so can only buy mainstream mainboards.

Thanks

 

[DaveSimmons]

The socket 754 / A64-based Sempron 3100+ is a good CPU, it's faster than all of the old Athlon XP. Chaintech makes a good nforce3 socket 754 motherboard that sells for $75 here in the US.

The other Sempron chips based on Socket A are a little slow, a Sempron 2800+ is maybe as fast as Athlon XP 2500+ ? If you don't want the Sempron 3100+ you can just buy an Athlon XP 2000+ - 2500+.

Your old memory is probably either SDRAM or very slow DDR RAM so you will probably need to buy one stick of 512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM.

Good video cards ($100 - 200 here in the US)
[ slow ] Radeon 9600 Pro, 9600 XT, 9800 Pro, nVidia fx 6600 GT [ fast ]

Be careful not to get a PCI-E / PCI-Express video card, you need AGP.

 

[mdbusa]

Thanks dave thats good info-- I hope to not have to buy a video card or ram for that matter --the existing video card is radeon 9200.

BTW In thailand they have already stopped selling athlons

 

[DaveSimmons]

If you can't buy an Athlon XP, then a Sempron 2300+ - 2500+ is a good budget choice that will play even new games like Doom3, just not as smoothly as the Sempron 3100+.

The System Thread recommends the ASUS "A7V400-MX" VIA KM400A Chipset Motherboard for a socket A Sempron, and a Chaintech for the socket 754.

The Sempron needs DDR333 RAM, or DDR400 for the Sempron 3100+.

The video card might keep him from playing some games. The Radeon 9600 Pro or XT is a big upgrade from the 9200 and will play Doom3 and Half-Life 2.

It sounds like you want to spend as little money as you can, so you can start with the Sempron 2300+ - 2500+, socket A motherboard, and RAM. Then you sell your Duron, motherboard, RAM, then maybe buy the Radeon video card.


Another choice:
Find out what Athlon processors your current motherboard works with, buy one used. For new games you need at least a 1700+ speed.

 

[mdbusa]

Thanks again Dave.

You are right, I don't want to spend a lot. I have another more expensive option which is to trade in my duron for a whole new set--minus monitor-that will cost me a bit more but everything will be new and will have much more disk space.

I need to price all this stuff and make a decision-its never easy.

My mainbord will only support up to thunderbird 1400--not worth it.