I'm getting rid of my K6-233 what should I buy ?

[fzs32]

I'm finnaly getting rid of my 7 years old K6. I will use the computer for Internet, Word, Excel and mostly Solidworks (this is the main reason why I' getting rid of the K6)? I don't know a lot about todays computers since I wasn't following the development much in the past few years.

What should I get ? In the old times I would probably get an Intel chipset based motherbord&processor (I didn't because of $$$)because of the crappy (slow, somethimes buggy) chipsets offered by VIA. What about today is a VIA&AMD combo ok ? What I really need is a very stable system that I will be able to use for the next 3-4 years without an upgrade.

[dead_man311]

About how much you looking to spend on this upgrade. i take i your gonig to need , CPU , Mother board , Ram , video card , and maybe new hard drive and power supply

Id pick up a AMD Athlon , with some 512mb PC-3200 , A nice Nforce 2 mother board , and a 9600 or better video card

then for hd a 40gb 7200 rpm or bigger and a good 350 watt power supply

Welcome to The Forum !

[theELVISCERATOR]

Originally posted by fzs32
I'm finnaly getting rid of my 7 years old K6. I will use the computer for Internet, Word, Excel and mostly Solidworks (this is the main reason why I' getting rid of the K6)? I don't know a lot about todays computers since I wasn't following the development much in the past few years.

What should I get ? In the old times I would probably get an Intel chipset based motherbord&processor (I didn't because of $$$)because of the crappy (slow, somethimes buggy) chipsets offered by VIA. What about today is a VIA&AMD combo ok ? What I really need is a very stable system that I will be able to use for the next 3-4 years without an upgrade.

get a 3.0 ghz p4 abit mobo and run it about 3.8 ghz with a gig o ram..and get some oxygen for when it takes your breath away.

without the lengthy debugging amds often take

[fzs32]

I'm willing to spend 900$.

[n2]

KT600 motherboard... Soyo is pretty stable and a solid performer, the KT600 Plus is $57 at newegg. The "Ultra" version has some extras and overclocking abilities, but it does'nt sound like that's what you're after.

Grab an XP processor, the "Barton" cores are great, XP2500, 333FSB w/512k

Or, save about $30 by getting a 266FSB TBred-B, say... XP2400

From where you're at now, you'll be awe struck with this. And the Board/BIOS will seem familiar to you also.... no real big "surprises"


Go for a single stick of 512Mb Buffalo, or Kingston RAM... PC3200 is the best value. Kingston.com had the right price, otherwise go to Fatwallet.com forums and search for "the official memory thread" and/or check out Anandtech's hot deals forum. Expect to spend $80-$120 for a decent 512mb stick of DDR PC3200 right now.

Grab an OEM Audigy sound card, about $42 at newegg. Don't bother with audigy "2"... but the $42 card is well worth the money... seriously.

Logitech Z-560 is the speaker deal of the year IMO. Check Amazon.com for a deal on those... you won't beat bang for the buck with Logitech's "Z" line... just make sure you get a minimum 4.1 system.

Video cards are subjective, but the Radeon 9600 is probably the "sweetest" spot.... at around $65 for a refurb @ newegg, keep your eyes open! Make sure you get 128Mb RAM on the vid card.

Hard drives, well... 120Gb and 160Gb may seem like alot of space, but they are DAMN CHEAP.
NOTES on HDD:
look for 3year warranty!!!! (most important)
look for 8mb cache <-- good for hdd to hdd xfers especially
look for fluid bearings <-- quieter/cooler operation
buy from newegg. all details easy to compare.
Should be about $92 for 120Gb 7200RPM
(anything smaller than 80Gb isn't cost effective)

SATA is nice, but get IDE for now (cost effective) and get two SATA drives for RAID later. (kt600+ has sata raid onboard)


Have i forgotten anything?

You've got enough left over for a 17" LCD monitor. Cheers! :beer:

[wicked-one]

This is a great budget system thread:
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=101822

A64 is still being standardized and prices are high so I would not go that route right now. Intel prices, as always, are very high. You would not need either for basic applications.

AMD lacked stability in the past, because of the motherboards the chips were designed for. With that, I have to say avoid the VIA boards mentioned above. Have had two personally and both had major issues. nForce2 boards are rock solid.

If you don't plan on overclocking (you're in the wrong place for that already), go with the retail Barton 2500+ mentioned above. Otherwise, I think everything listed in the budget thread should be able to quickly run any app you throw at it. Upgrading from a K6-233 should be an amazing difference :)

[Yuriman]

Chaintech VNF3-250 (Nforce3 250) $100
AMD Athlon64 2800+ $175(get the retail one, not oem)
Radeon 9600xt $150
2x512mb PC3200 cas2.5 ~$150
2x120gb Seagate Serial ATA hard drives $200
Case of your choice, $50
Sparkle 350w powersupply, $25
Cd-rw/dvd combo $50(or splurge and get a Dvd burner for about $25 more)

[ctty]

Take the A64 3000+ instead of the 2800+. Reducing clockspeed on the A64 kills its performance badly.

[ctty]

If you are going with an AthlonXP, take the NForce 2 over the KT600. It is a much better and faster chipset. The Abit NF7 is one of the best NF2 boards. As for the A64, using the Nforce3 250 would be good.

[stan03]

Originally posted by ctty
Take the A64 3000+ instead of the 2800+. Reducing clockspeed on the A64 kills its performance badly.

its 50 dollars more expensive, and the 2800 really isn't that bad http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2038


Our makeshift measure of relative price/performance has shown that the 2800+ is a solid value for the money. The processor performs similarly to the slightly faster 512kB L2 Clawhammer based 3000+, and it offers consumers another entry point into the current generation of Athlon 64 processors.

[chaosdriven]

Originally posted by fzs32
I'm willing to spend 900$.

This might be the best bang for the buck ( with an easy overclock):

DFI NFII Ultra Infinity $83.00
- reported to be good at hitting high FSB's

Athlon Mobile 2400 $74.00
- unlocked multiplier, most users getting to at least 2.4

Zalman 7000Al-Cu$35.99 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-118-108&depa=0)
- excellent and QUIET cooling solution

Good PC3200 memory ~$150.00
-get CL2 memory that can maintain good timings
(run at 5:4 ratio if need be)

Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 Series Varies with capacity desired (get 8mb buffer version)
- strage review "leaderboard" (http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200310/20031007HDS722525VLSA80_1.html)

or if you want THE fastest SATA drive:
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD reviewed here (http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200401/20040126WD740GD_1.html)
These are a bit more expensive at about $200.00

The rest is up to you!

[SimGuy]

April Value Gaming System @ SharkyExtreme.com (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/10708_3345381__8)

Although I don't 100% agree with the use of a P4 2.8 533 FSB (should have used a P4 2.8C 800 FSB), but everything else looks respectable. :)

[Yuriman]

512mb of ram? It wont run the newest games smoothly, farcry uses all 1024mb of mine, and gives me a Page file not large enough error if its set under 384mb.

[JDXNC]

Farcry runs fine on 512MB for me, as he said though, it will be mainly an office use rig, not a gaming rig, so 512MB of ram is plenty for that.

[fzs32]

Thanks, I got this:

Asus A7N8X-X
1 stick of 512MB RAM
Athlon XP-2600 + Zalman 7000 AlCu
Radeon 9600
and a Seagate 120 Gb drive (wow !!, I don't know what
to do with all this space, my old machine had a 1.7 Gb drive).

Everything works great except some minor issues with the floppy drive -> when I try to acess the floppy (winxp) for the first time I get an error -> Floppy not found, but if I try again everything works fine until I reboot (any clue what is the problem ?).

[Steven4563]

Originally posted by theELVISCERATOR


without the lengthy debugging amds often take

AMD is not at all buggy if u know how to build a AMD system

which i guess u can coz its not hard :p

back on topic i would get the A64 over the XP because the A64 is much faster