Author Topic: Upgrading a 440Bx system (Read 866 times)

Sparks · « **on:** August 17, 2001, 08:02:00 PM »

I'm thinking of upgrading my system but have limited funds and so a m/b change is out of the question. I currently have a 440Bx board with a Celeron 500 chip on it. Was first thinking of going to a 800Mhz Celeron to get the bus up to 100Mhz but would a P3 be better??
The next thing would be to get rid of my ATI rage card and go to maybe a GeForce or Radeon but what is cost effective?? - the m/b will not support 4X AGP so how poerful do I really need to go before the bus is the bottleneck ??

Any advice would be welcome. The aim is to get the maximum oooomph for the minimum money

.

Oh and will upping memory from 128 to 256 help ?? I'm running W98SE.

Thanks

Sparks

SKurj · « **Reply #1 on:** August 17, 2001, 09:59:00 PM »

It won't hurt to upgrade the memory, and its sooooo cheap right now.
I run a GF2 MX and its great for the money, if you are on a tight budget, for now I would spend the $$ on the processor.
Stay away from the 800 celeron...
I don't know how much you have to spend... but ideally I'd recommend a new mobo and an AMD processor, but seeing as you don't think u can afford that (the duron 800 is cheaper, and much faster than a celeron 800, and its clockable to 1ghz) I'd say go with a P3.

SKurj

bloom25 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 18, 2001, 11:25:00 AM »

I'd look up what processors are supported by your motherboard and check to see if a bios upgrade is needed to do so.

Originally the Celerons were very good, but Intel has heavily castrated them recently. Up until just recently they were limited to 66 Mhz bus and only 128 kb of L2 cache. The newest have a 100 Mhz bus finally.

If you can afford it (and your MB supports it) go with the P3.

filadawg · « **Reply #3 on:** August 18, 2001, 01:28:00 PM »

I have the same mobo on my system. You can upgrade to a p3, but only the 550p3 will work. You really need to look at buying a new motherboard and processor. I was looking yesterday at pricewatch.com, and a 1.4 gig amd was down to 108.00 You dont have to go all out, but the 440bx just doesnt have much future for upgrading. I am in the same boat, so I am buying parts to build.. Good luck.

Filadawg

jihad · « **Reply #4 on:** August 18, 2001, 02:35:00 PM »

A Celeron 600 or 633 overclocked will give good bang for the buck, I get a score of 2200 on 3DMark 2001 and good performance in AH, WB3, and the IL-2 beta.

SKurj · « **Reply #5 on:** August 18, 2001, 03:52:00 PM »

Wow Jihad thats a good 3dmark2001 score

I can get 2300 if i clock my GF2 MX 32mb as fast as it will go without corruption (i'd never leave it there for general use)

Duron 800 @ 1ghz
512 mb ram
ASUS A7V KT133A
SBLive!
GF2 MX 32mb 12.41 drivers
w98se

SKurj

jihad · « **Reply #6 on:** August 18, 2001, 06:36:00 PM »

That wasn't overclocked, when I mildly O/C the card it jumped to 2310 3DMarks.

I haven't bothered to see how high I can O/C yet since I get great FPS in the games I currently play.

easymo · « **Reply #7 on:** August 18, 2001, 09:20:00 PM »

WWW.abit-usa.com

I have the same problem. They say 700 is the max.

Sparks · « **Reply #8 on:** August 19, 2001, 08:52:00 AM »

Thanks for all the replies guys - interesting.

Budget is the key at the moment - I can get a 800Mhz Celeron which will run at 100Mhz FSB for about £75 but a P3 is £160 upwards (ouch). Memeory is peanuts at the mo so was thinking of ditching the 128mB of PC 100 for 256 of PC133 - about £30.

graphics cards - well I can get an Nvidia GeForce 2MX 400 64Mb for about £90 or a Radeon 32Mb for about £75 - which is the better value - Nvidia appears to be but drivers always seem a problem on the BBS.

Think I'm going to end up with more memory and a Celeron and maybe a Geforce2MX - any other opinions gratefully recieved.

thanks

Sparks