[Airborne Butters]

OK, I'm gonna get a new Processer/MotherBoard. Now I've got my proccesser centred round the AMD XP1800, now what will I need wiht it? I know a new motherboard, but what would I need for the mother board?

[Bleuachdu]

Whats in your computer now, and what kind of motherboard are you getting?

[Arkan]

[quote="Airborne Butters":64236]OK, I'm gonna get a new Processer/MotherBoard. Now I've got my proccesser centred round the AMD XP1800, now what will I need wiht it? I know a new motherboard, but what would I need for the mother board?[/quote:64236]

You got me a bit confused. Are you asking WHAT mobo you should get to support the AMD 1800 processor? If thats the question, i'd say get the ASUS A7V333 mobo. You can snag it for around $125 and it supports DDR memory. Make sure you have a decent power supply if yours is old.

[Airborne Butters]

Right now my comp is 450 p3, not sure what kind of mobo I have. I was looking at Soyo mobo's. I really wanna get somtin that'll support my ram I have right now. I think I have the cheaper ram DDR?

[garasaki]

Um, I guarantee you that's not gonna work like you think it is.

You're going to need a new Power Supply, New RAM, and probably a new case. You'll need new cooling. You're gonna have tons of conflicts with your HD unless you do a total reformat. And you're HD is gonna be really slow and turn into a big system bottleneck. You really need to put some more thought into this project of yours...you're heading for a really frustrating time!

[pest]

Yep, the post above it right. I thought I could upgrade a part or two here or there, but basically built a completely new system with only a couple of canabilized parts off the old pc. My new pc IS upgradable. Try http://www.tomshardware.com for their pc building guide. Its not all inclusive, but it is a good place to start your research.

As far as the motherboard goes, I would go with asus over soyo, but that is just my opinion.

I need to disagree here.

The only reason I had to get a new motherboard, was because my old one only supported so much CPU speed. I used the SAME Ram I had and the same HD I had in my old Computer. I had to get a new vid-card, cause the old one was On-Board.

The ONLY operating system I know that will CEASE to work if you switch your tech is Windows XP, so unless hes got that on his computer NOW, there really shoudlnt be a problem.

If his motherboard ONLY supports DDR then yes hes gonna need to get DDR, but the memory he has now and other shit should be AOK.

[garasaki]

Well, what it'll be is A O slow!!

Why buy an 1800+ then cripple it with SDRAM and a slow HD?? If you're gonna do something, do it right. He'll need a new PSU and case because he's no doubt got a Dell with some weird form factor, and his PSU certainly does not have enough juice for a modern motherboard. I didn't say anything about the OS, but he's gonna run into SO many driver issues unless he reformates his HD that he wont get that thing running right for weeks! And, the HD he has is most likely a small, 5400 rpm, ATA33 (66 at best) drive that's gonna cripple his system too.

His plan of simply switching out his mobo and PIII processor can work, but in the end, he's not gonna have a system thats not worth what he spent on the mobo and 1800+, and all the headaches he's gonna have are gonna turn him off to working on his own computer.

I think I had 2 days of headaches before I realized I needed to slow down and pay attention. I'll adress some issues -

Drivers: If he gets Windows XP, he'll be fine. Most drivers for any devices he chooses to connect will be installed during Windows installation. Those that wont, should come with a drivers disk. If he swaps ANY hardware from his old setup to the new, theres about 90% chance that Windows will have the correct driver for it.

RAM: Dunno about you, but I've not used DDR since it came out, and my system still runs fine. Do I need 1 gig of DDR or 512? Hardly, I'm not doing video editing or the like. I cant imagine any gamer running into any memory issues above 512 SDRAM. If they are - I'd love to play this game that uses so much memory for its textures and applications.

I have an XP 1600, and it has hardly been crippled by SDRAM and a Hard Drive running at 2mb buffer. There isn't any kind of noticable slowdown in games or otherwise. Files and folders open as quickly as usual, and copying chunks of files from one area to the next is the same. Bigger is of course better in principle, but not neccesarily needed.

The things I suggest save money, and still provide an above average functionality for someone looking to build another system, and pinch some pennies.

[garasaki]

I still think he's going to have driver headaches, XP or not. XP will help (tons) but I still don't believe it'd go smoothly. Not nearly as smooth as if he did a full reformat.

It's not the quanity of ram that makes the difference, it's the speed. DDR ram is over 2x as fast as regular SDRAM. The motherboards that use DDR ram are much more advanced then those using SDRAM. Just because you use SDRAM still does not make it a good option.

I just don't see the point of half assed upgrading a system. Headaches for minor improvements...just dosent make sense to me. I went thru the same thing not too long ago when I built my comp. Decided there was no point to trying to piecewise upgrade, because the benefits did not seem to justify the expense. However, spending a few extra bucks to gain signifigant performance improvements seems like the way to go for me.

What are your Sisoft Sandra memory scores, cpu scores, your 3dmark scores, and your PCmark scores ED?? I have a 1600+ as well, we can compare and see if DDR ram really does make a big difference. I have 256 megs of it, and a Ti4200. I'll turn my fsb back down to where it should be at and we can go head to head! I'd like to do that just for curiousity's sake....

I honestly dont have a clue what most of those "Benchmark" programs are, but I get FPS's of about 30 average on MOH, and 50fps on Battlefield which are the only games I play. With 512 megs of SDRAM at 34 bucks, MOH loads fast as does Battle and I get no lag with my 1.5 DSL connection.

Here's the thing, SDRAM is hardly obsolete. If you can afford it and you really think it's gonna improve your specs that much, go for it. I can afford it but cannot justify buying it since I have no problems on my system.

The only "driver" headache I have ever had from swapping a hard drive, is with software that REQUIRES a cd for installation (scanner and digi cam being the culprits), and if he has those hes fine. Maybe you should post your horror stories so we can see where you're having the problems.

a AMD XP1600 with 512 SDRAM, 100gig 2mb HD, and an ASUS mobo is hardly half assed and obsolete in my opinion, but some people want the best of the best, irregardless if its NECCESARY.

[garasaki]

Aight dude, save 20 bucks on your system...

Of course, a 100 gig HD is NECESSARY

[pest]

If you go with the sdram, buy the cheapest mobo you can. If your going to bottle neck the computer on the ram, there isnt much point getting a top notch mother board with a fast chipset. Your computer is only as fast as its weakest link. SDram would be that link.