upgrading p3 for less than $400?

[Gravija]

currently i have a
P3 500 @ 560
256mb PC100
256mb PC133
ATi Rage Fury 128 GL
ASUS P2B-s
18.4gb SCSI
(cd-roms and the like)
and a 200W PSU

now is it worth upgrading this? and what can i upgrade with $300-400

i just want to turn it into a decent machine. i think i might need a new HDD along with it, probably only gfx card, mobo, proc, ram, PSU is all, and possibly fans for the case (doesn't matter how loud, and maybe a new case, main concern is the gaming performance).

i currently get a whopping 608 3dmark with that system

thanks

 

[FrustratedUser]

Hmmm.

NForce2 + XP1800 + mem + PSU.
Use the onboard video, it should be decent.

Cheapest option.

 

[Pariah]

Looking at Newegg:

Antec Trupower 330 $53
128MB Radeon 8500LE OEM $94
256MB DDR multiple brands $85
Retail Athon XP 1700+ $68

$300 total, leaves you up to $100 for a motherboard which someone else can recommend.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I think "decent" would be an understatement compared to a Rage128.

As for whether it's worth upgrading, that all depends on what you're doing. For games, definitely a need to upgrade (I'm surprised you lasted so long). Grandma would probably be more than happy with the performance of a P3/500 to browse emails from her grandson who never calls or writes and could be dead for all she knows (I haven't slept yet ).

Your hard drive may still be okay, depends on exactly what it is. Many ATA100 drives today would outperform a very old SCSI drive, but at 18.4GB yours doesn't sound that old, and 18GB is still a good size drive, no matter what marketers and MP3 pirates would have you think.

The A7N8X & Athlon XP 1800+ would be a good combination, combined with decent PC2100 memory or PC2700 if you want to put a few bucks more in it, though you probably won't see a huge performance improvement from it (likely unnoticeable relative to the improvement of the processor and graphics). Just make sure you get two identical modules to reach the total memory desired, in order to make use of the dual-channel memory controller.

Go with a quiet fan such as a Panaflo for the case, put it right behind the CPU if your case has a fan mounting area there. That gives the best cooling boost overall, and for that use, a quiet fan is just as good as a noisy one.

Your case MAY need to be replaced though. Be careful of the type of PSU you get. A dual-fan PSU has to be mounted a certain direction to work properly, and a lot of older cases don't have the PSU properly oriented (you can look at pics of whatever PSU you get in order to compare to the orientation of your own, make sure the internal fan will face downward). Of course, when you replace the case, you can get one with nice front-mounted USB ports and stuff like that, and they usually come with a decent PSU if you get a decent case (many many threads about what is a good PSU and/or case).

 

[hungrypete]

there arent any nforce2 out with onboard video to my knowledge, and you desperately need a video card

so i would go bare MSI nforce2 board ($110), athlon xp 1600+ to 2000+ ($60-100), 512mb of pc2700 ($125) and buy an old geforce 2 or 3 ti200 if you can find one for a good price

edit: don't put too many cards / drives in, that xp will probably pull about 65W by itself, and the geforce cards like to suck some juice as well. you can probably find a 300W for a reasonable price, just make sure if its a cheap PSU that the retailer is good about RMA

 

[kgraeme]

Evercase w/300W PSU $53
2x 256MB PC2100 $56ea
Asus A7N266-VM $73
Seagate 40GB IDE drive $78 (or PCI SCSI controller for current drive)
AthlonXP 1800+ $78

Total: $394

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: hungrypete
there arent any nforce2 out with onboard video to my knowledge, and you desperately need a video card

so i would go bare MSI nforce2 board ($110), athlon xp 1600+ to 2000+ ($60-100), 512mb of pc2700 ($125) and buy an old geforce 2 or 3 ti200 if you can find one for a good price

edit: don't put too many cards / drives in, that xp will probably pull about 65W by itself, and the geforce cards like to suck some juice as well. you can probably find a 300W for a reasonable price, just make sure if its a cheap PSU that the retailer is good about RMA

My bad.
A 1'st gen NForce would still do the job.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Oh crap. I forgot about the current nForce2 boards not having onboard video. It's Pariah's fault!

I would NOT consider the PSU to be something you can migrate. Older PSU's had extra power on the 5V line because that's what processors used then. Current processors use the +12V line for their power; 15 amps on the +12V line is a good PSU.

kgraeme's setup sounds good and will still be a significant upgrade. If you don't need to upgrade the hard drive and can get a cheap PCI controller for your SCSI drive (assuming you haven't got one handy), you could put a few more bucks into getting an nForce2 board. You could also go even cheaper with another board that uses DDR memory with a VIA or SiS chipset, though that will only save about 20 bucks, and the A7N266-VM is a well-respected board. The hard drive upgrade is very dependent on exactly what you have now. If by some magic you're using a 10K RPM drive, then you'd better get a PCI controller. The Seagate Barraduda ATA IV is a good value in IDE drives though.

 

[bacillus]

depending on your boards' revision suppose you could get a 1.4GHz celeron tualatin & a SLOT-T adapter
I'll leave others to suggest a videocard & psu