Budget Upgrade..Suggestions

[Dace]

Old system is:

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
eVGA nForce4 SLI chipset MB (939 pin)
3GB pc3200 400mhz RAM (2x1gb)(2X512mb)
eVGA Nvidia 8800GS
Windows XP home SP3

Upgrade:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400
GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G41 MB
4GB pc6400 800mhz RAM (2x2GB)
BFG Nvidia 9800GTX
Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 64-bit

Everything but the video card came from newegg. (vid card came from eBay)

Total price for upgrade= 426.70



Any suggestions before I swap all this stuff out? This will be the biggest upgrade I've done by myself. Any tips would be appreciated.

[Eagleclaw]

Back up files, after the upgrade is complete and working then you can delete old files. Good luck <S> Know its not much help but Skuzzy and Denholm are pros at upgrades, im more viruses, worms, etc. They will be able to help you more than I will.

[Sc00ter]

Good Luck Dace!!!! Shouldn't you be buying diapers instead?

I just put a Nvidia 9400gt and a 400 watt power supply in mine in running high 50's with full detail. Cost 170.00.  You can see my other post about having a problem with low frame rate and see my old configuration. Anyways good luck see you in the skies 

Sc00ter

[CRYPTIC]

Are you using the same power supply I would check the 12 volt rail and make sure it has enough power to run that card. You can post the specs and we can take a look. Looks like you need 26 amps and min of 450 PS. I would keep XP.

[Dragon]

If you have an XP disc, keep XP for now and update to 7 later.  I don't have any problem with Vista, but I wouldn't spend any money on it at this time.

[Reschke]

As Cryptic mentioned...check the PSU...nuff said.

[TilDeath]

If you have an XP disc, keep XP for now and update to 7 later.  I don't have any problem with Vista, but I wouldn't spend any money on it at this time.

Any new purchase of Vista now comes with an coupon to upgrade to the same version in Windows 7 (Vista Ultimate Windows 7 Ultimate, Basic to Basic...)

[Dace]

Are you using the same power supply I would check the 12 volt rail and make sure it has enough power to run that card. You can post the specs and we can take a look. Looks like you need 26 amps and min of 450 PS. I would keep XP.

Thanks, I didn't even think about it. Mine is just a 420w that came with my case. I did find a 585w PS with 2 12v rails, a PCI-E connector and delivers 30A on Newegg for fairly cheap with free shipping.

Any new purchase of Vista now comes with an coupon to upgrade to the same version in Windows 7 (Vista Ultimate Windows 7 Ultimate, Basic to Basic...)

As does mine.

[OOZ662]

If you haven't been already, this time around split your hard drive. XP needs about 20GB of space (depending on the applications you use, it may only need 12...but 20's safe). I'm not sure about Vista, would need to look into it. By putting only Windows, drivers, and programs that ought to be reinstalled when something goes kaput on the C:\ partition and all of your stuff on a D:\ partition, you go through MUCH less hassle whenever you need to reinstall the OS. All of your documents and programs are perfectly safe and you're only formatting 20GB of disk instead of 200, 500, or whatever you have. I went so far as to make a "slipstreamed" XP CD that installs unattended. I pop the disk in and come back in half an hour to see a fresh Welcome screen ready to accept my password.

[Getback]

What ps are you using?

[BaldEagl]

I'd probably stick to a 9800GT at most with that CPU unless you plan on overclocking the CPU.  You'll be slightly CPU bound by the 1066 FSB the way you have this configured unless you plan on overclocking. 

I'd also limit myself to DDR2 667 memory if I could get it with lower latencies than the DDR2 800 whether I planned on overclocking or not.  If you plan on upgrading the CPU in the future to something with a 1333 FSB then stay with the DDR2 800 regardless because you could OC that futher to match the 800's clock speeds.

My $0.02

[batch]

for the price difference there is no reason in the world to go lower than the pc6400 ddr2 800......... NONE

[BaldEagl]

for the price difference there is no reason in the world to go lower than the pc6400 ddr2 800......... NONE

There is if the latencies are lower.  If they are then DDR2 667 or even DDR2 533 would run faster with that CPU (not overclocked).

That CPU is running a 1066 FSB with a core clock speed of 267 Mhz.  Any RAM faster than 533 Mhz at stock speeds has to wait on the CPU's bus.  If the clock cycles are synced then lower speed RAM with lower latenices will will actually perform better.

Again, if he plans on overclocking I'd go with DDR2 667 since it's doubtful he could exceed it's speed with the CPU.  If he plans on replacing the CPU in the future then I'd stick with the DDR2 800 or possibly even go to DDR2 1066 depending on the CPU and his motherboards overclocking ability.  If there's no difference in latencies then that would be the determining factor and I'd go as high as I could with clock speeds.

Obviously you don't understand why they make different speed RAM.  Faster isn't always better.

[Masherbrum]

There is if the latencies are lower.  If they are then DDR2 667 or even DDR2 533 would run faster with that CPU (not overclocked).

That CPU is running a 1066 FSB with a core clock speed of 267 Mhz.  Any RAM faster than 533 Mhz at stock speeds has to wait on the CPU's bus.  If the clock cycles are synced then lower speed RAM with lower latenices will will actually perform better.

Again, if he plans on overclocking I'd go with DDR2 667 since it's doubtful he could exceed it's speed with the CPU.  If he plans on replacing the CPU in the future then I'd stick with the DDR2 800 or possibly even go to DDR2 1066 depending on the CPU and his motherboards overclocking ability.  If there's no difference in latencies then that would be the determining factor and I'd go as high as I could with clock speeds.

Obviously you don't understand why they make different speed RAM.  Faster isn't always better.

Excellent post Bald. 

[Dace]

Thank you Bald. That's the kind of stuff I'm huntin' for here.