Boring Computer Question...

[Karma Supra]

I use computers as work and toys, and have little to no interest on how they work....

However mine is old slow and decrepid, and its upgrade time!!!

what processor should I get?

I hear the athlon 64s are good, but not that much can make full use of them yet..

how much of a difference does the l2 cache make etc etc?

Ta!

[Yarisboy]

Athlon 64's are the fastest at the moment, and forget what people tell you about 'not making full use of them'

If you 'upgrade' your processor to a compeltely different platform.. you have to upgrade your motherboard, ram & processor

You don't need an A64 processor, a fast SocketA will do fine.

off the top of my head;

processor - £60

motherboard - £30

ram £50-100

and while you're at it you'll probably want to upgrade your hdd to something faster, 80gb with 8mb cache at 7200rpm will do.

another £35

[VTRick]

yeah, sams got it pretty good there.

all i can say is, DONT GET A PENTIUM, they are poo. AMD processors rock your socks.

you wont need a new motherboard if youve already got a socket A board either.. so best to check.

[Karma Supra]

cheers..

I know about whats bits need upgrading as I have done it all before (the only original part of my pc is the floppy drive and the old cd rom)

I know I'll need a decent psu, new processor, new ram, new mother board.. think my hard disk is ok (for now), and getting a new graphics card anyway,

currently running a 1.4 (clocked at 1.6) athlon, never had any problems before... just gettinga bit past it now!!!

I have heard pentiums are poo (same basic structure as the old pentium from prehistoric times), and they seem a tad over priced....

[sotal]

you'll be suprised what a difference a new hd will make to the speed. The hd is the major bottleneck in the computer so you want as fast as possible.

The new SATA hd's are good but a little expensive. A decent ATA133 7200RPM with 8MB cache really speeds a system up!

I got an ATA133 7200 200GB with 8MB cache for £72 (!Removed! place went bust about a week after though!) but it really sped my machine up - I had upgraded a few months before and figure my ATA 66 40GB drive would be fine

[Karma Supra]

I'm not sure what spec my hd is, but its the last stage of the last upgrade that I bought, its a seagate barracuda, and at the time was the fastest in its classI like it as its silent!

I'll eventually replace it too, but want to do the other bits and bobs at first, and don;t want to do it all in one hit for cost reasons! (also getting a 19" tft, as I'm fed up with crt)

[Yarisboy]

I find www.ebuyer.com are very good to deal with

[Karma Supra]

Don't start me on %$(ing E buyer

they are actually excellent, very good value and a very good service......

-untill you get locked out of your account, and they have stopped the telephone support, the only way you can message them is when you are signed in!!!

frustrating!!! especially when I'm probably going to be spending a couple of grand on my next order (also after a vaio laptop +wireless network), I was so annoyed I decided to go somewhere else... then saw Pc world, shuddered and decided to sort it out with ebuyer

[Karma Supra]

The athlon Xps seem to have wuite a low clock speed, and less cache... I take it they are still faster though???

its either that or "Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Prescott Skt478 FSB800 1MB Cache "

or "AMD (Newcastle) Athlon 64bit 3200+ 754pin 512kb L2cache " (clock speed 2200) no bus speed listed....

AArrrgggggg

[Yarisboy]

how do pc world get away with it, they're almost as bad as the local puter shops round here - one of them charged a friend of mine £70 to fit a new fan..........

anyway good luck with your upgrade :)

here's my suggestion:

AMD Sempron 2500+ (sda2500box) Processor 256KB Cache FSB333 Retail boxed with 3 year warranty £47.99 inc VAT

MSI KM4M-V SKT A 8xAGP Onboard VGA/Sound/LAN ATA133 MATX CPU support Up to XP 3200+ (FSB333) Retail Box £34.26 inc VAT

Kingston 512 ECC DDR333 PC2700 Dimm £64.99 inc VAT

£150 all in :)

[Yarisboy]

ignore the clock speeds, that's not important now

what is important is how many processes cpu's can complete per cycle (and the AMD processors can do more than intel - hence lower clocks)

[Karma Supra]

cool... cheers mate!!!!!

[Jesus]

If you're motherboard will take it...

AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+ (unlocked) which will overclock to ~2.6/2.7ghz with the right memory and a decent power supply. (My power supply was around £70).

[norm]

If you're motherboard will take it...

gygabite motherboards are probably the best they are a little more expensice (about £100 when i got mine). but they do solf unlocking of AMDs (no little bit of wire under the processor). plus they are great for overclocking. mine has 4 IDE channels so when i've got the money :( i can fit upto 8 hard drives in it (@ 250 gb each thats 1.5 terrabite :) ) imagine the !Removed! you can fit on that.

[Karma Supra]

Right for now I've ordered a few bits (new screen, graphics card, 500w psu internal 3.5" media card reader/front usb port etc etc)

I still need to make my mind up on which motherboard and cpu!!! and I'll order a gig of ram then.. (never have toooooo much)

tempted with the p4.. but I so often hear pentium are poo... decisions decisions!

[Jesus]

Motherboard... Abit NF7-S ver2... with a lapped southbridge. Can't go wrong for overclocking.

But then there's... nah... too many choices.

1gb ram.

How much you want to pay for processor and mobo combined. I can give some options then.

AMD all the way!

[houston]

www.scan.co.uk

i cant fault them, used ebuyer a lot but they have sent me a lot of items that were broke on arrival (i swear :D ) and their returns are a joke, i sent back an asus a7v8x and had to wait 2 month for a replacement, they said it was due to testing, spent a **** fortune on phone calls and never got back the postage fee :(

[sclark]

Ive always believed that AMD are better over pentium, which I suppose there is a lot of truth in, although I think that at the top end of the 32bit scale AMD seemed to 'give up' and pentium seemed to be catching up. However I do believe this was because AMD decided to let pentium have its fun at the end of the 32bit scale and make some kick ***** 64 bit processors, which they have done!! the L1 and L2 cache can make a hell of a difference, thats what makes intel celeron and intel duron not as good as their mummys and daddyes (pentium, athlon etc.)

Your best going for a 64bit processor now, it will last you a lot longer!!

Also Microsoft have designed/designing their 64bit editions on the AMD chip, so if you are running windows your definetly best to go with AMD.

[System~G]

I remember when AMD first came out everyone was saying they were crap. even a couple fo years ago people were telling me to avoid them.

It seems that everyone has now changed their minds

Why?

[Tom.B]

AMD are better. Always have stuck with them ever since I started making my own pcs. They seem to be a lot better and problem free. (Also ebuyer is the best place to get stuff as mentioned above numerous times lol)

[Karma Supra]

AMD appears to be the route to go then!!!!

As for price, as long as its not sillily expensive, its not too much of a problem..

I don't want to spend tooo much over £300 for ram, chip and motherboard

[Yarisboy]

£300 :o

AMD (Newcastle) Athlon 64bit 3000+ 754pin 512kb L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor with 3 Year Warranty and Fan Included £95.99 inc VAT

Gigabyte GA-k8VNXP SKT 754 VIAK8T800 Sound Gig lAN 1394 USB 2.0 FSB800 SATA Retail Box £93.21 inc VAT

Kingston 1GB 400MHz DDR Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM (Kit 2) £108.20 inc VAT

now THAT's what you call a PC :D

£297 total

[Karma Supra]

right current spec:

AMD (newcastle) Athlon 64 3200+ 754 pin, 512 l2 cache (and fan)

Asus K8C-Se Delux mother board

kingston 1GB 400mhz DDR Non ECC ram

all comes in at £311.66 (incl vat.. the buggers don't tell you about that one until later lol)

Sorry to bleat on, but I rarely spend on things so when I do I try to make extra sure I get the good stuff!!!!

cheers for all your help so far

[Yarisboy]

looks great, you're gonna have to get a SATA HDD drive though to keep up with the rest of the system!

might as well get a DVD-RW while you're at it, only £40 now for the NEC-3500!

and get an aluminium case & plasma screen at the same time.. why the hell not :)

[Karma Supra]

I still have the ali coolermaster case from last time round.... (big square thing, sounds like a hoover )

ordered the 19" tft, vid card yesterday, and picked up a sony DVD dual layer rw jobby last week

(from pc world, spit, bought half life 2 then realised I don't have a CD rom )

I'll look at a Sata hard drive once I have all this setup... and have seen what a state my bank balance is in