Author Topic: Upgrading Advice? (Read 653 times)

Horn · « **on:** July 23, 2003, 12:07:04 PM »

It's time.

I'm currently running:

p3/500
512 RAM
gforce4 ti-4400
400 watt ps
13 gig drive
ch products gameport HOTAS (fighterstick/pro peds/pro throttle)
4-port USB hub (only Sandisk attached)
SBLive! Sound card
TDK CDR
full size tower
Win 98

I would like to:
stay Pentium
keep all HW possible (gfx card, case, etc.)
Keep win98
get a bigger wini

My questions are:

What's the best Motherboard for the fast P4's?
Should I get a different brand soundcard? (Heard bad things 'bout SBLive altho it works OK for me in AH)
Is it possible to stay Win98 w/ P4's?
Can I use the RAM I currently have w/ the P4?
Is the Western Digital brand a good wini?

Thanks for the input ya'll.

h

bloom25 · « **Reply #1 on:** July 23, 2003, 12:57:15 PM »

Windows 98SE is typically the oldest OS supported with any new game, and more importantly, drivers. It's important to note that Microsoft will be discontinuing support for Windows 98 later this year, so future Direct X revisions (and thus gaming support) will not be around much longer for this OS.

Windows 98 (first edition) is no longer supported.

The short answer on the ram is "no", but that's not the whole truth. Your memory is going to be PC100, or maybe PC133, SDram. There was a PC133 supporting i845 chipset for the P4, but its performance was so bad that there was literally a class action lawsuit against HP, Compaq, and Gateway because of it. (The resolution was credit for those customers who had one of these.) PC133 SDram so badly bottlenecks a P4 that it was a very poor choice to use this type of memory. This chipset is also now obsolete, and does not support any P4s currently in production.

Personally, I'd recommend a Springdale (i865) chipset based board, like the Asus P4P800-E. These are very fast boards which support the newest "C" type P4s (800 MHz FSB with Hyperthreading support, available at 2.4, 2.6, 2.8, 3.0, and 3.2 GHz). I'd recommend a 2.4C - 2.8C, as the higher end CPUs are quite expensive. This board, as with any newer Intel P4 supporting board, is going to use DDR SDRAM. You should be using DDR400 if you can afford it, but DDR333 is acceptable. Get two matching sticks of memory, either 2x 256 MB for 512 MB total, or 2x 512MB for 1 GB total. 512 MB is typically more than sufficient for most computers today. (It's worth noting that Windows 98 will report an out of memory error if you exceed 768 MB.)

bloom25 · « **Reply #2 on:** July 23, 2003, 01:11:43 PM »

Something else to note is that only Windows XP Home and Pro can take advantage of hyperthreading.

Reschke · « **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2003, 01:34:07 PM »

Just found this at Newegg.com for you.

ASUS Motherboard for Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron Processors, 800Mhz FSB Model# P4P800 Retail $120.99

CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, Low Latency 256MB 32MX64 PC-3200LLPT With Platinum - Silver Heat Spreaders. $83.00 * 2

Intel Pentium 4 / 2.6CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB - RETAIL $217.00 Free Shipping

Shipping to Alabama $0.00

Total Cost $ 503.99
-----------
Add WinXP Pro from Newegg for ~$140.00

qts · « **Reply #4 on:** July 23, 2003, 02:15:21 PM »

Bloom, I believe you are incorrect. I've read that W2000 makes use of HT, but sees one HT CPU as two seperate CPUs, with concomitant licensing restrictions - a dual HT machine gets seen as 4 CPUs and W2000 will only use 2.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2003, 03:15:33 PM »

Bloom,..just a FYI. All operating systems that have multi CPU support in them will recognize the hyper-threaded P4's as two CPU's.
W2K, XP, and virtually any UNIX will make use of them at the operating system level. At the application level,..another story.

Horn · « **Reply #6 on:** July 23, 2003, 03:37:26 PM »

Thanks for the replies!

Bloom25--I've read good things about the mb you mentioned--Any thoughts on the Western Digital wini or the sound card(s)?

I've messed w/ several users' XP home systems and it seems like a car with six catalytic converters; way too much unnecessary stuff going on and using way too much in the way of resources to do it which is why I liked 98se (if it is possible to actually *like* a MS product). Oh well--grin and bear it, I guess.

Reschke--I looked at the system you found--very nice and thank you--I've been told that I need a large amount of fannage/cooling for the P4--When you buy a processor, does it just come with it (the little fan) or is it a separate item?

Thanks again fellers.

h

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** July 23, 2003, 04:01:46 PM »

Generally, the P4's come with the Intel HSF, which is a pretty HSF. I would remove the tape from the heat sink and apply a nice coat of Artic Silver if you intend on any overclocking though.

Wanker · « **Reply #8 on:** July 23, 2003, 04:11:06 PM »

Quote

I've messed w/ several users' XP home systems and it seems like a car with six catalytic converters; way too much unnecessary stuff going on and using way too much in the way of resources to do it which is why I liked 98se (if it is possible to actually *like* a MS product).

Horn, you do realize that you can disable most if not all of the eye candy fluff that comes enabled by default in XP? There a lots of tweaks that will help it not be such a resource hog.

Personally, I think it's worth it to have to go through all the tweaks, to get the rock-solid stability of XP.

Horn · « **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2003, 10:53:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by banana
Horn, you do realize that you can disable most if not all of the eye candy fluff that comes enabled by default in XP? There a lots of tweaks that will help it not be such a resource hog.

Personally, I think it's worth it to have to go through all the tweaks, to get the rock-solid stability of XP.

As I'm now discovering after doing a bit of google on the subject--I'm amazed by all the stuff going on in that OS.

For Skuzzy:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/943355.asp?cp1=1#BODY

Seen this? Large security issue in all versions of DirectX (has to do w/ malicious MIDI files of all things. Must upgrade to 9.2 to get rid of it. Worth the while?

Thanks,

h

Skuzzy · « **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2003, 04:39:58 PM »

Uhmm,..thanks for the pointer Horn. I am trying to get more information from MS DX Web site about this.

bloom25 · « **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2003, 08:21:16 PM »

I'd recommend the P4P800-E over the excellent P4P800. That's because the P4P800 has superior onboard networking and can probably support the next Intel CPU released. The non-E board will likely not be able to support the 3.4 GHz P4 (maybe called a P5).

Even though Win2k shows a Hyperthreaded CPU as two physical CPUs, I cannot tell any meaningful difference in benchmarks I've ran under Win2k with HT on and off on a 2.4C. (Test system was a 2.4C, P4P800, 512 MB of DDR400.) This leads me to believe that even though Win2k sees the "extra" CPU, it isn't doing much with it. One thing is for SURE, Windows 98SE definately will gain absolutely nothing from HT. Linux has supposedly been able to take advantage of HT since the 2.4.18 kernel.

I personally still prefer Windows 2k SP4 over Windows XP SP1.

(I just set up a WinXP SP1 system today and when I was done I had to download 27 critical updates totalling 37 MB! That's not even counting the new Direct X midi file vulnerability...)

bloom25 · « **Reply #12 on:** July 24, 2003, 08:32:34 PM »

Western Digital harddrives and I have not been getting along recently. I've had around 6 of them die on me in systems I've done in the past 2 years. I'm currently using mainly Seagate drives, they are not as fast as Western Digital drives, but they are a LOT quieter and run a bit cooler. If you decide to go with Western Digital, DEFINATELY get a Special Edition drive so you have a 3 year warrantly vs 1 year on the drive. I haven't had a SE drive die on me yet. This goes for any make of drive, typically the 8 MB cache drives have a 3 year warranty, vs the 2 MB cache drives with a 1 year warranty. Right now, I'd say the average lifetime of most IDE drives is about 18 months.

I don't have much to say on Creative's soundcards. When they work, they work fine, but they have been plagued with buggy driver releases in the past. They also tend to come bundled with a lot of bloatware utilities which typically are not the slightest bit useful IMO and only serve to fill up the system tray with icons. Unfortunately, there really aren't many alternatives to Creative's cards. The Soundblaster Live! 5.1 is a decent card for the money, or for a bit more you can get an Audigy 1 or Audigy 2 card.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #13 on:** July 25, 2003, 07:33:11 AM »

Gotta agree with bloom25 about IDE drives. I have started putting a label on the case with a adate to replace the drive. 2 years seem to be the longest they will last now.

bloom25, I recently went from a DBLive to an Audigy 2 Platinum. I was blown away. My frame rates in the games I played increased by about 10 to 15% across the board. Sound, of course, is better. It appears CPU requirements for the Audigy 2 is much less than the SBLive.

Have not had any real issues with the latest driver from Creative, but I did not install the utilites they ship.

Thank goodness the latest drivers have an option for only installing the drivers. This is what anyone should do and avoid the utilites like they plague.

bockko · « **Reply #14 on:** July 27, 2003, 10:04:26 AM »

I've been looking at upgrading to the 800mhz fsb p4, question for you expert types: if you are not planning on overclocking do you need the memory heat sink? And how much of a performance pig is the on-board sound?

thks