System upgrade

sean.ferguson

OSNN Veteran Addict
Joined
4 Jul 2003
Messages
1,693
I need a little advice, i am hoping to have some money possibly this time next year for a decent system upgrade. At current im using a fairly mid-range system (see the sig), and im happy with it, this has also been the highest (in comparable specs) spec'd machine i have owned.

If i do intend on upgrading i would probably be looking at a 3.0GHz processor as a base, no less than 1Gb or memory and no less than 160Gb of storage. But because up until now i have not thought of any upgrades, i haven't looked at any of the newer technology such as DDR2, SLI, NForce 4, Dual Core Processors or even 64-bit. But looking at the high end market today, this would appear what i will be aiming for.

I have a couple of questions, some of which you probably cant answer because in a year alot can change. But take these questions as of now, at least that way I can attempt to get up to speed with todays technology.

SLI? Am i right in thinking that this is two graphics cards side by side making for a huge amount of GP power? Is SLI systems really only targeting heavy gamers, or are there any other advantages of having an SLI system?

DDR2 I have had a quick read on this one, but again, is there really any need? Is DDR going to dissapear in favour of DDR2? Is there any advantages/disadvantages that would make or break a system?

Dual Core and 64-bit? I understand 64-bit, i did do computer architecture at college. But, my main query would have to be: Will there be much point in having a 64-bit system for a 32-bit OS? Is the 64-bit market going to be much different in a years time? Again are there advantages?

Other quirks, S-ATA? Im still using EIDE P-ATA drives is it advisable to upgrade the drives to SATA?

Lets say, taking todays prices in GBP (£), what would i be looking at for lets say £1,250 if i were to be building it myself?
 
Last edited:
im sorry to say that i dont have any advice for you. i just get really excited when i see a post i can learn from. im also confused on the SLI advantages, as well as other info you posted about. sorry to piggy back your thread. but i am doing the same and will watch this thread as it will also help me as much as it helps you.
 
Well there is not much of a performance gain in GP power etc using SLI from what I've read.

nForce 4 don't know

64bit good for a bit of future proofing but not really useful yet since not everything works on Win64
 
Depending of what games you play, you can expect to get around 1.5 times the FPS (frames per second) on gameplay. For example, you currently get (say) 70 fps on HL2 on a single 6800GT graphics card. You could get upto 110fps using two SLi cards together but the main question at the moment would be - is it really worth spending double the amount of money to get a 50% increase in frame rate? I mean 70fps is not bad - on some maps you can get much higher frame rates with a single card.

DDR2 memories have higher bandwidths (if I'm not mistaken), so it would allow the system to run more efficiently. However, I'm not sure what noticable difference it would make for a typical home user.

64-bit is the only way to go nowadays. Running a 32-bit OS on top of a 64-bit processor may not seem that important but at least you've got everything in place to enable you to switch between 32-bit and 64-bit whenever you need/want to.

£1,250 (excluding monitor?)
you can get AMD64 Athlon 3700+ 1mb cache
250GB HD SATA/EIDE
6800GT/Ultra PCI-e graphics
Nforce4 Ultra/SLi motherboard.
2GB ram....

and many more stuff... just looking at the prices of different brands.
 
Thats a little better info, thanks Ming :)

As for my 1250 budget i have decided that i want to make a monster of a machine, so im now looking at 2500. Bearing in mind this wont happen until next year, however i took a look over what i would get and i have come up with this. Suggestions / Criticism is welcome :)

Athlon64 X2 4400
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
2GB Ram (DDR400 - running dual channel)
2x BFG 6600GT OC PCI-e running in SLi
2x Western Digital 250Gb S-ATA's
Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS
JBL Creature 2
Pioneer 109 DVDRW
Dell 2405FPW
MX100 Mouse / Logitech Keyboard
Antec Case/ PSU


Now it came to roughly £2800 including software (XP Pro, Office) and a new wireless router/pci card. The 2405FPW wouldnt be an immediate purchase either, i would use my LG1715S until a time came to purchase the FPW. But that i think is a lovely system and it would enable me to play some very good games as well as some video editing which i am hoping to take up in the not so distant future. :) Its something to work towards at least :)
 
Last edited:
You can get two 2005FPW's for less than the price of one 2405FPW, may be worth considering, dependant on how much screen estate you're after. :)
 
SPeedY_B said:
You can get two 2005FPW's for less than the price of one 2405FPW...

I did take a look at that option, but i think what put me off was having an impressive system capable of most i throw at it, but then having to look at a horrible black join down the center of my desktop. The 24-inches is still huge, its widescreen and i wouldnt have a join down my screen :)
 
nix said:
Thats a little better info, thanks Ming :)

As for my 1250 budget i have decided that i want to make a monster of a machine, so im now looking at 2500. Bearing in mind this wont happen until next year, however i took a look over what i would get and i have come up with this. Suggestions / Criticism is welcome :)

Athlon64 X2 4400
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
2GB Ram (DDR400 - running dual channel)
2x BFG 6600GT OC PCI-e running in SLi
2x Western Digital 250Gb S-ATA's
Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS
JBL Creature 2
Pioneer 109 DVDRW
Dell 2405FPW
MX100 Mouse / Logitech Keyboard
Antec Case/ PSU


Now it came to roughly £2800 including software (XP Pro, Office) and a new wireless router/pci card. The 2405FPW wouldnt be an immediate purchase either, i would use my LG1715S until a time came to purchase the FPW. But that i think is a lovely system and it would enable me to play some very good games as well as some video editing which i am hoping to take up in the not so distant future. :) Its something to work towards at least :)


2GB Ram (DDR400 - running dual channel)
2x BFG 6600GT OC PCI-e running in SLi

Think carefully about the memory as you may not actually require so much memory (unless you're doing video editing/3D creation), and could channel the money to get a better GFX card instead.
As an example of what I wanted to get - consider Corsair TwinX1024-3200XL Pro (in your case it might be TwinX1024-4000XL).

 
Well like i said, i will be starting to play with video editing and within that some 3d Blender applications may be neccesary. I would be considering upgrading to the full 4GB that the board supports, however to start with a 2GB sounds far more realistic in my mind.

Im going to start with some video editing with my current system, simply because byt the time i need to work with video, i wont have the cash for the new 64-bit system :p
 

Members online

No members online now.

Latest profile posts

Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
Electronic Punk wrote on Sazar's profile.
Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

Forum statistics

Threads
62,015
Messages
673,494
Members
5,621
Latest member
naeemsafi
Back