For those who don't know, it's been 5 years since I got a desktop, and now I'm pondering if I should overhaul my rig (getting a new one is NOT an option). I'm going to fuse both old and new parts together to overhaul my current rig. My main concerns are: speed, durability, extendability and cheap. My budget is approxiately $500 max.

My current rig:
Intel Pentium 4 2533 MHz Northwood 512KB L2 Cache 130nm process 61.5W (pre-HT)
ASUSTek P4B533-VM Socket 478
120 GB Maxtor ATA-133 (8MB Cache), 7200 RPM
80 GB WDD ATA-100 (8 MB Cache), 7200 RPM
1 GB Kingston PC3200 (running @ PC2100 speed)
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 AGP (running 4x)
1x DVD burner
1x CD-RW
WEI: 3.7 (CPU, lowest)
(Inside of my current rig)

Planned rig:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.0 GHz Windsor 512KBx2 L2 Cache 90nm process 65W
ASUS M2A-VM Socket AM2 (w/ Integrated ATI Radeon X1200, 256 MB shared)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA NCQ 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache (OEM)
120 GB Maxtor ATA-133 (8MB Cache), 7200 RPM (external)
Corsair DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz Value Select 2GB KIT (2X1024MB) 240-pin Unbuffered DIMM
1x DVD burner
1x CD-RW
Cost: $386.41 (price and parts from canadacomputers.com. All Sales Tax Included.)

ALL CURRENCY IS IN CANADIAN DOLLARS.

xboxrulz

To me it doesn’t sound that your current setup is too bad. I will be glad to take that process and board off your hands. The one that replaced current machine finally died so I am looking for a new “in the closet PC.” I run also sorts of things that do not take up that much processor power but needs to run all the time.

I have a AMD 64 dual core right now and I am very happy with it. I got it about a year ago. I hear that Intel is currently the best game in town now. They have dropped their prices and the performance is better than AMD (I’m still a AMD fan). All in all it sounds like you are getting a pretty good deal.

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 is a great processor! I have one myself and have had no problems with it - it is very fast and deals with what I do like nothing!

Your choice of 2x 1GB memory is good also and corsair is a great brand!

One question though, when you say

does this mean that the ATI Radeon is built into the m/b and it is using 256 of the system memory?

Good Luck with the computer
-jimmy

P.S What are you doing with the two old Hard Disks?

It sounds good to me, but im not a computer technician, and i have no idea whats good and whats not good. I should probably go learn lol. I dont know what series processor im getting but itsa

4200+ AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor

Its good im sure but i dont know if the one he mentioned is a higher series or what

Exactly what u said above.

I'm going to retire my 80GB HDD and use it for my experiments or I'll also use it as an external HDD to install other OSes. As for the 120GB, I did say that I'm going to put it as an external disc to replace my 80GB as the data drive =)

Anyways, thanks for your comments guys =)!

xboxrulz

externals are good if you are using for projects or between machines. (Typically everytime I start a new video project for a client, I get a new External firewire drive) But if you are going for biggest bang for the buck, I just picked up a 160GB HDD (EIDE) for USD $94 with local sales taxes. The old 80GB in my G4 tower died and I replaced it with this. I saw a SATA drive for $120 that was 300GB.

Well I must say that your current PC rocks. I'd love to have one like that!

Don't upgrade

I have had the same one since the 80s until recently.

This post has been edited by Nintendo: Jun 3 2007, 10:01 AM

Your PC you have right now is almost as good as mine...

If you are a gamer then upgrade is recommended to play the latest games. (eg Halo2 and Farcry 3) Your planned rig would handle these quite well however, the graphics card could be upgraded too. I understand you have a limited budget but just from my experience. I recommend nVidia 7xxx or 8xxx series.

If it's just for general use then upgrading the video card isn't necessary

Problem is that it runs Vista. However, I can't even play Battlefield 2142 at 1280x1024 on lowest settings, the fram rates are jumpy and laggy.

The AGP4X and PC2100 RAM is lagging me behind. My bro has a newer machine with full AGP and PC3200 and it runs great. Also, the processor is the one that is ranked the lowest of them all.

xboxrulz

Remember that Vista eats up 57% of 1 GB RAM with nothing running! Be sure to calculate that in your plans since you are a Vista user.

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