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Thread ID: 53147 2005-01-08 21:15:00 To PCI E or not dipstick01 (445) Press F1
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312232 2005-01-08 21:15:00 Hi All,
the time has come to spend some $$ and do a bit of an upgrade on this machine. The main question I have is should I bother with PCI Express or give it about a year or so and see what develops??

I have several choices for upgrading, I need a new Graphics Card as my poor old G4 mx440 is starting to show the strain which also means upgrading my motherboard as it is only 4x AGP.

There are some attractive upgrade packages out there which include motherboard and CPU upgrades such as this one from QMB computers

www.qmb.co.nz

Add on a Radeon 9600 pro card and the system should do me nicely for a while longer till PCI Express becomes more mainstream.

Does anyone know of any better deals out there?

I do not care about AMD versus P4 as for the use I require would not make much of a difference. I Mainly play online games with photo editing and then general surfing and PC use. P4 with hyperthreading may actually be more of an advantage as I have a bad habit of trying to get many things running at once and my poor old AMD1900xp does not like that too much.

Currently I am running
Amd Athlon 1900xp
1.25Gb DDR ram
MSI K7T266 pro Motherboard
G4 MX440 64mb Graphics Card
XP pro

I know I will have to upgrade my PSU also and am looking at a new case as the pretty new desk the wife brought is causing heat problems......I am currently running a 40cm fan to keep things nice and cool.

HELP my brain is turning to mush trying to decide which way to go

$$ wise I would like to keep it to about the $800 max but maaaaay be able to stretch a bit further.
dipstick01 (445)
312233 2005-01-08 22:13:00 nah, id say wait if you want pcie, go for agp at the moment, maybe in 6months to a year it may be a different story Prescott (11)
312234 2005-01-08 22:19:00 Go for it! Anything you buy now will be a complete different story in a year, 6 month, and even 3 months!

I'd get it while you are in need of an upgrade. Don't waste your money buying now and then again in half a year or a year.... unless you have plenty to spend.
~sy~ (95)
312235 2005-01-08 22:23:00 I would suggest you let your budget dictate, Upgrades a crock anyhow as they usually require a near complete rebuild...

Mobo's with pcie are pretty expensive, I personally would get an agp board and a grunty card rather then go the pcie way route and get newer tech with less performance.
Metla (12)
312236 2005-01-08 22:34:00 Amds are still new to pcie not like Intel chips which have had them since it was released , also the socket 939 on Amd's are very expensive and if you decide to go for a pci express version there will be more price to pay. New technology is always coming out but as pci express is a new one it is expensive and therefore currently not worth your money. IMO in the next year there will not be a game etc that will suffer a preformance lost with a grunty AGP card so take Agp now and upgrade later noone (22)
312237 2005-01-08 22:40:00 You can get Video cards that work in AGP4x MB. Before you think that 8x makes a big difference read this article Measuring the Benefits of AGP: Is PCI-Express Necessary? (www.sudhian.com)from Sudhian. Summary, most games don't stress AGP 2x. PaulD (232)
312238 2005-01-08 22:46:00 I'd say that if you can afford it, go for it. A bit of futureproofing never hurt (unless of course you're bitten by extreme bleeding edge, but I digress)

Just remember that you get what you pay for - I'd rather buy a good AGP equipped board than a crappy PCI-E equipped board. Start to look at computer hardware purchases as an investment, not a means to an end. You tend to get better value for money that way, especially in the mid to long term.
whetu (237)
312239 2005-01-09 00:44:00 OK guys, one setup I am looking at is as follows
Coolermaster Centurion 5 case
Coolermaster Realpower 450w PSU with 120mm silent fan
Asus P5GD1 Pro with EN5750 Motherboard and Graphics Card combo
IntelP4 LGA775 3.0ghz CPU
Legend Twinmoss 512mb DDR 400 ram sticks x2
Samsung TSH542A/WRBH DVDW

all this is as picked form the Compulink website. Price is still to come as I have been offered discount which is still to be advised. This seems to be a nice system which will run me for a few years to come.

Metla what sort of system can you do for me?? If I remember correctly you run a PC shop in Wanganui. I would prefer to deal with PressF1 guys and I realise you also have to make a profit.
dipstick01 (445)
312240 2005-01-09 02:54:00 OK guys, one setup I am looking at is as follows
Coolermaster Centurion 5 case
Coolermaster Realpower 450w PSU with 120mm silent fan
Asus P5GD1 Pro with EN5750 Motherboard and Graphics Card combo
IntelP4 LGA775 3.0ghz CPU
Legend Twinmoss 512mb DDR 400 ram sticks x2
Samsung TSH542A/WRBH DVDW
What's the graphics card with that?

You could benefit from a better PSU, like an Enermax. Twinmos isn't really that good RAM, you could look round for better like Corsair value select.
E|im (87)
312241 2005-01-09 02:59:00 Mobo and Graphics card (www.activecatalog.co.nz)

Ok I will look at better Ram and PSU. I was trying to buy mainly from one supplier so I could get a better discount but I will look around still. Thanks elim
dipstick01 (445)
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