<-- nOOb trying to update his computer

[rilzic]

I came to my beloved civ site to ask you all a few questions about updating my PC since you all are always helpful.

Anyway I have a dell 8300 and am doing a MAJOR upgrade and am going to eventually strip it of the upgrade and start a computer from scratch but can't afford to do it all at once so here goes.

2.8 Ghz, 1 GB of ram, 128MB 9800, 250 PSU, and crap dell 160 GB storage.

And I want to upgrade the CPU and the PSU and already bought a new Video card.

I want over 3.0 Ghz CPU and I’ll need at least 520 PSU and the video card is from a friend and I can't believe it but it's a X1900XTX 512mb and I got it for cheap.

My question to you guys is where can I get the PSU and CPU? Is that all I will need to upgrade? Or is there some card or wire that I’ll need to buy?

Can I buy almost any PSU cause I saw some for 60 bucks and others for $200 is it that important to get the good one and how do I know that it will fit in my case.

My CPU is a intel 2.8 Ghz bought in '03 do I need the right socket so it fits ... it is a 939 right, is that all I need to know?

for the things I am looking to buy what are good brands but not toooo much money.

lastly (for now) where are a few good places on the internet to buy/bid on stuff? I know about ebay and newegg but that’s it.

I know all this is a lot but say what ya can and I will be very thankful

P.S. I am a nOOb at this and am a little overwhelmed but am trying to study up. I plan on doing all the installation myself sort of a learning experience so bare with me please.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

I won't be the best at anwering this, but i'm sure someone else who is will want to know...

What's your budget?

 

[Speedo]

I want over 3.0 Ghz CPU and I&#8217;ll need at least 520 PSU and the video card is from a friend and I can't believe it but it's a X1900XTX 512mb and I got it for cheap.

You won't be able to use it without a motherboard upgrade (assuming that that Dell will take standard ATX motherboard). That card uses a PCI-Express interface, and your computer only has AGP.

Can I buy almost any PSU cause I saw some for 60 bucks and others for $200 is it that important to get the good one and how do I know that it will fit in my case.

It's important to get a quality power supply, especially with a high-end graphics card. I would figure on spending at least $100-120 on one.

My CPU is a intel 2.8 Ghz bought in '03 do I need the right socket so it fits ... it is a 939 right, is that all I need to know?

Your CPU will not be a socket 939, those are only AMD processors.

I'm not extremely familiar with Intel, but I would hazard a guess that your system is Socket 478. I don't think LGA775 was around 3 years ago. If it's S478, I think the fastest CPU you'll find for that series is 3 or 3.2GHz. Not positive. What you will be able to upgrade to also depends on what your motherboard's BIOS supports (if you don't buy a new mobo) with Dells and etc they're usually fairly limited, so your board may not be able to support a faster processor, but with some looking you might be able to find a BIOS that will let you do an upgrade.

You really need to dig out the paperwork on your PC or look it up somewhere to figure out exactly what you have.

 

[rilzic]

So pretty much i need to start all from scrach if i want to use my video card. Or is it worth it to try to put a new mobo in my dell.... just did a quick search and they don't seem to be too much money 130 for a pci-e mobo or should i be looking for more quality. i can always use my old video card for now. whats your thoughts?

Lozzy- My budget is unlimited but i will be doing it over time maybe not till the end of the year to get all the parts. the video card took all my money for now costing me $400 bucks which is a really killer deal for a $600 card.

total i would be spending like $900 or a little more right. just so i have a ball park to know if 1. i am getting ripped off or 2. i am not buying good enough stuff.

I am using http://www.pugetsystems.com/configgaming.php to get base prices for finishing my system. Do any of you know anything about them? price or quality of product or service?

Also i don't know how the athlon 64 chips stand up to a intel as far as i can tell a 3700 is something like 2.2 Ghz but it is around a 2.8 - 3.0 intel chip. How do you know whats good and whats not with the athlon chips?

 

[rilzic]

1. Asus A8R-MVP $95.99

2. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ DUAL CORE $358

3. Corsair XMS 1GB DDR400 (2x 1GB) $190

4. Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Case w/ side panel - $93.99

5. Seasonic S12 600W $139

6. Windows XP MCE 2005 ~$120?

Total from newegg: $996.98

Already have the X1900xtx and planning on using the DVD, HD, mouse, keyboard , and screen from my old dell (8300 from '03)

Am i missing any parts? is there any flaws? do all these parts go together?

 

[Speedo]

Looks good overall to me. I'm not very familiar with that particular motherboard or that ATI chipset, but overall Asus makes quality stuff. I would look up few reviews on it though before committing to it. Btw, you can use an S939 board that has PCI-Express (nForce4, Uli or whatever chipset), but you wouldn't be able to do Crossfire, if you had any desire to down the road.

Good choice on the PSU. That's the one I use, it's very stable and extremely quiet.

Unless you have a particular reason that you want/need XP Media Center, I would just go with Home or Pro.

Unless you have any plans to overclock you could drop that memory and get something from the ValueRAM line (by Corsair, of course other companies have "value" type memory too). There's a slight performance difference, but we're talking very small, maybe 2%. That would cost about half as much as what you have listed, so you could save a bit of money or consider getting 2GB.

You should also consider getting a dedicated sound card. The performance hit caused by onboard sound is fairly significant (15-35%), and a decent sound card will only cost $60 or so - something like an Audigy2.

 

[rilzic]

The new list!

1. ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket - $163.49 (not going to use crossfire... won't have the money after this LOL)

2. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ DUAL CORE $358

3. Corsair XMS 1GB DDR400 (2x 1GB) $190 (i'm sticking with this ... it fits my budget)

4. Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Case w/ side panel - $93.99

5. Antec TruePower 2.0 TRUECONTROL II-550 ATX12V 550W - $109.99 (was told this is a good better know then the other one) --- my x1900xtx is a new card and it says that i need a 450w PSU min. is this 550 cutting it close or and is it more then enough?

6. Windows XP MCE 2005 ~$120? (again fits in my budget)

Total from newegg: $915.47 (even managed to save some money)

(Sound card i am taking from my old computer aswell its a stock dell card so i think it would work. Maybe upgrade later but sound isn't that important to me.)

 

[taper]

The new list!

1. ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket - $163.49 (not going to use crossfire... won't have the money after this LOL)

SLI and Crossfire are roughly the same thing. You can save yourself quite a bit of money with a different board.

5. Antec TruePower 2.0 TRUECONTROL II-550 ATX12V 550W - $109.99 (was told this is a good better know then the other one) --- my x1900xtx is a new card and it says that i need a 450w PSU min. is this 550 cutting it close or and is it more then enough?

550 should be fine, and Antec usually makes good stuff.

6. Windows XP MCE 2005 ~$120? (again fits in my budget)

Media Center doesn't really have any advantages over Home, and Pro is better than either. I believe Home and MCE are the same price.

EDIT: Just realized your motherboard doesn't support dual core processors. Take a look at ASUS A8N-E.

 

[Speedo]

EDIT: Just realized your motherboard doesn't support dual core processors. Take a look at ASUS A8N-E.

What gives you that idea? Aside from the fact that practically any S939 board all the way back to the nForce3's can run dualcore with a simple BIOS flash, the A8N-E you linked to is actually an earlier model from the A8N line - it just uses the nForce4 Ultra chipset instead of the nForce4 SLI shipset.

If the A8N-SLI Premium doesn't work with dualcore, it forgot to mention it to me 6 months ago, and hasn't said a peep since then.

 

[taper]

Yeah, I don't know how I did that. In my defense, Newegg doesn't list it as supporting X2, and I didn't dig any deeper than that.

My advice stands though, if you're never going to use SLI, why not save $60 and go for the A8N-E?

 

[Turner]

MCE is pro with the media center software installed. At least, on my new computer it is.

If it's the same price as XP Pro, get pro. Unless you plan on putting a TV tuner in and TiVO or somesuch. If it's cheaper, no worries in getting MCE.

 

[bhsup]

MCE is pro with the media center software installed. At least, on my new computer it is.

Er, it's based on Home, not Pro, but with all of the media add-ons. Pro is still the only one that has the capability to log into a domain.

 

[bhsup]

Cripes, I KNOW I found a Microsoft page once that said it's based on Home, but now this site says it IS based on Pro. I'll keep looking.

Home vs. Pro comparison Could anyone with MCE look at the list and see if MCE can do all of the stuff in the Pro column?

EDIT: Okay, as I was using the 'domain joining' issue as my personal test of whether MCE was Home or Pro (as I consider that the most important addition to Pro from Home), I guess I wasn't being fair. I found a Microsoft transcript of a chat which stated that MCE was a superset of Home...but then said it had everything Pro does with the exception of domain joining. Linky.

 

[Turner]

I don't know much about MCE, but I've got a little power toy that puts my Windows version on the desktop, and it's reporting it as Windows XP Professionall Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519 (Service Pack 2).

Could it be that the versions before 2005 were based on Home?

I'll have a look at the page and see what it says.

Edit: Casual glance at the list, and I do know that I have Remote Desktop on here, because I specifically disabled it. It does appear that I cannot attach to a domain, as that option is greyed out and I can't seem to activate it.

 

[taper]

I can make the OS decision easy. If you plan on using your computer as a "Media Center", as in hooking up a TV cable, frequent streaming, and aren't worried about Microsoft's DRM, get MCE. If you plan on mostly gaming, with other basic tasks like internet, word processing, etc, go with Home. If you're going to have an advanced network, or want to be able to remotely connect to other PCs, get Pro.

For the majority of users, Home will do everything they need, don't believe the hype about needing a special version.

 

[Turner]

Indeed. I have MCE simply because it came with my machine. I'd rather have XP Pro, since I've had it before it was released and it's what I know and work with. From what I understand Home is just as good if you don't need the networking features.

 

[taper]

Just to clarify, you can still set up a home network, i.e. printer sharing, folder sharing, etc with XP Home.

 

[Turner]

Right, but you can't join to a domain, which is what I was refering to.

Sorry for the lack of clarity.