Calis does the Upgrade Thing

w00t, I just upgraded my rig

I currently have:

MSI KT3 Ultra ARU mobo (5.1 sound, 8 USB ports, RAID)
Athlon XP 1800+ CPU (just below the Pay A Lot More For 100 Mhz Extra Point)
256 MB 333 MHz DDR RAM
Maxtor 80 GB 7200 RPM HDD
Geforce 2 MX 32 Megs

And I'm loving it. MPEG2 encoding, 100% CPU usage, only 45 degrees C. You bet I'm gonna overclock this one.

Planned upgrades:
Another Maxtor 80 GB 7200 RPM HDD for a sweet 160 GB RAID setup
More 333 MHz DDR RAM as soon as it gets cheaper (it's $100 per 256 megs right now, where I live. It was a fait bit cheaper for a while, so I'm holding out for the next price drop)
new graphics card

What graphics card should I get? That ATI Radeon 9700 looks damn sweet. 2.5 times as fast as a GF4 4600 with 4x FSAA in UT 2003 for only 300 $ retail, in about a month. What would you guys suggest?

I also need a DVD player. Any suggestions for a good DVD player that can be made region free with a simple BIOS flash?

 

*Is jealous*

Well, about the graphics card, I would say that if you want power now, go for a GF4 TI4600. If you can wait, it's either the Radeon 9700 from ATI, the next card from nVidia or the WildcatVP from 3Dlabs.

The WildcatVP is a very powerful and somewhat expensive card. On of my friends says he's getting one soon...

But in the end, it's your choice!

 

I'm not a big graphics card type of guy, i usually only play games with old graphics. One question though, how good is a Geforce2 MX 64MB? Bad, below average, average, above average, good? I have a feeling it's either average or above average, but i'm on the blind side here

 

geforce 2 mx... average.. depends on what you are comparing it to though... for older games.. it's more than enough...

check out http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020418/index.html
for a good comparison of what's out there now...

and I would second that .. for good power now go with the G4 TI 4600 .. a little pricey but it delivers pretty well.. I'm holding out for a bit, I'm pretty interested in what ATI's gonna be bringing to the table soon...

 

I wish I could afford to do a nice, big fat upgrade. I'll get my dad to bring back some cheap stuff from overseas . Of course, there'll be no warranty, but it'll be cheap and good.

 

*in a small voice*

I have a Pentium 2.



so... yeh.

 

I've had a GF3, Athlon 1.4 and a K7 master for over a year now, heh, I got myself some more ram recently because I have only 256, and you know what? After 3 days of trying to get it work, replacing the bought ram with new, I gave up. It just didn't want to work. I'll get more ram in my next upgrade which is none too soon. Oh, and I've had 3 40 gig hdds for over 2 years now.

Another thing is, I just don't understand people who buy such high end cards with shitty 15 inch monitors. I took a loan from the bank to buy mine. What's the use of getting a top notch graphics card if you will run it on 1024x768 or 800x600?

 

800x600 at 65mhz refresh rate on a Geforce 4 Ti6400 with a 15" monitor..

and to top it off the person knows absolutely nothing about pc's (if that isn't obvious)

I was going to break into their house at night and pickpocket the card and replace it with on of my crappy ones I have laying around, and then I realized that I wasn't in Arcanum and my Magical Inversion Tophat would'nt protect me from the bullets from their gun... so instead I just went home and cried...

 

Well Morrowind doesn't lag at least

 

:teeth: :minigun:
:thinkof:

:nod:

 

Did that refer to me?

 

Alrighty,

My overclocking mileage so far: I got it up to Athlon XP 2100+ speed, just by increasing the FSB. I still need to try 'n multiplier-unlock the CPU. It's not a simple pencil trick anymore with the Athlon XP's, is it?

The CPU ran nicely with the increased clock speed. After about an hour of heavy CPU work (more MPEG-2 encoding) it was still below 50 degrees Celcius. Cool enough for me. I can probably get it even higher, but that won't do me much good if I can't unlock the CPU, because my other cards already had trouble with the FSB increase... pure CPU work was fine, but 3D gaming would lock up my PC, presumably because my graphics card couldn't handle the increase in AGP clock speed.

So. Anybody know how to unlock the multiplier of an Athlon XP?

 

Overclocking voids your warranty. Murphy's Law says, as long as you don't void your warranty, nothing bad happens. As soon as it runs out, or you void it, it breaks. So I don't overclock.

Check Tom's Hardware (link could be wrong), he'd probably have an article on it some where. Also try AnandTech or Sharky Extreme (if that site is still running). Any of those 3 probably could tell you how. In fact, if they couldn't, I'd be very surprised.

Well, my graphics card isn't high-end anymore (GF2 GTS) but it was at one point. And I run it at 1024x768. On a 15" monitor. Mebbe I don't get a bigger monitor because it would screw up my desk arrangement and I couldn't afford it anyway. What I don't understand is people getting loans from a bank to buy the latest and greatest video card and/or monitor which is going to be outdated in the next month anyway. I also hate being in debt to anyone.

 

Last time I overclocked, I had to rip off the plastic casing off my slot A CPU. It made me feel l33t, and the CPU never broke down.

Besides, these days AMD only gives, like, a three-month warranty on its chips. Fuck their warranty. I know what I'm doing.

And I found the OC article on Tom's. Looks like it's a bit more involved than with the older Socket A CPU's... you have to fill up a gap first, then use silver paint to connect pins. Not sure I'll do it...

 

What kind of speakers do you have?

 

Shitty-ass Creative Labs 4-point surround thingies. I need to get me a nice 5.1 set. It's just that I have so much other stuff to spend cash on...

 

I don't spend money on beer. Computers take up lots of my time. And I do my best to have some quality, rather than having to look away from the monitor every 5 minutes with tears in my eyes because the 65 refresh rate is burning my eyes.

About your outdate thing, man, I hate that sort of aproach, WHY BUY ANYTHING NEW AT ALL? If it will be outdated? When you get married, your wife will get outdated too, so why bother? There is no point in getting anything new cause it will be outdated so lets buy stuff that's been around for 3 years... Swell.
And next month? Man, I got my Samsung last upgrade over a year ago while a lot of people still own tnt2 saying "why bother an upgrade if it will be outdated next month anyway"?

 

Arghh! Please, change your way of life. Any healthy human being need at least one alcoholic drink each 10 min.
Anyway I understand Jarinor. This computer hasn’t even 1 year, was near top line then and now I have to run Neverwinter Nights at the worst configuration possible. It’s very frustrating.