Why do I need a new computer?

Recently I just got myself a new 52X CDrom and LITE-on 40x12x48x CD-RW on my old rig:

-P-III 500, 256mb sdram, Asus P2B mobo with on board scsi.

-9.1 GB Quantum 10000rpm SCSI hd (more than I need just for running Windows XP / progs / games)
-40GB Maxtor (for storage)
-Floppy drive
-CDROM + CDRW described above

-Sound Blaster 64 AWE
-Diamond Monster 3D II

-56K v90 Aopen modem
-10mbps shaw@home cable network card


What I use the computer for:
1. downloading/watching dvd rip divx ;-) movies, VCDs, I don't watch DVDs cuz I've to pay for the rental fees.
2. web browsing, reading/posting on forums, so far so good with IE6.
3. burning mp3s on CDs for car audio, backing up games/progs from cd images or cd, and burning those 700mb divx movies to save space in hd.
4. homework, 10X more than enough.
5. playing new games like GTA3... playing new games is the only thing my comp can't do! arrrghhhhhh!

So... that means... if I get a new P4 rig I'll just be buying it for the games. Is it really worth to dish out $1.5K on a system that'll probably be outdated in a few months?

a new system shouldn't in any way cost 1500. You should upgrade parts imho, starting with the mobo and cpu.

dont forget RAM of course. New mobo means new ram. You can easily build a nice system for under $1000

csu said:

Recently I just got myself a new 52X CDrom and LITE-on 40x12x48x CD-RW on my old rig:

-P-III 500, 256mb sdram, ...

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Welcome to the forums CSU

I hope you enjoy our forums (in a little time you are going to say our too, you will fell like is part of you) I'm going to give an advice and a tip, the adviced is that you shouldn't talk about downloading copywrighted material in the forums (read the policies, I jus got my ear pulled by a mod ) and the tip, is that you computer is OK for all that stuff, exept gamong (I know you said it) but you overall config seems ok The only thing I'd recomend is a faster video card, I dont know if your mobo has agp port, there are many awesome video card for less than 100$ (geforce ti500, radeon 8500le) that would improve a lot your gaming, if you don't have agp port there some pci card in the market that are also powerfull, so would be an A+ to your system.
the other thing that you could upgrade is the cpu, it would help a little bit too, but you must check which highest speed you mobo support. hope this was usefull, any other doubt fell free to ask

Kintaro

PS: link to the policies, take a look: http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/announcement.php?forumid=14

Thanks for the advice

I tried playing GTA3 and No one lives forever but they were running at like 1 fps.

my motherboard is AGP and the last time I checked it said it only had 1X agp. I'm really not sure if getting a ti500 would do any good

1x AGp.. ouch.. I would just gradually get new parts and upgrade till you have a new system

Welcome to the Forums!

And that sounds like a pretty good setup overall- but of course the newest games are what drive the technology, so a lot of them won't run (at least not well!) as you noted.

But you can have a machine that WILL run everything out there for a lot less than 1.5k!

Just get a new cpu, mobo, ram, and case(with power supply) and reuse the stuff from your other system.

You could sell the other system's remaining parts or keep it and put linux on it (Open Source os=free) and then use it to Crunch or Fold, or take part in any other distributed computing project.
Or just learn Linux.
Or just have spare parts in case of disaster!

My list above plus a fancy new video card could be done for less than $400 and you would have a system that is blazingly fast and will last- plus the knowledge that you built it

You can proally pick up a new mobo for around $100 and a cpu for aother $100. Ram another $100, then for a good vidcard another $100

For around $400 you should be able to pull in a nice system to play the latest games on. My whloe compuer cost $800 or less that was everything except cables and a floppy drive and mine can play the games fine.

Just do some bargen hunnting through price watch and other places

You could get a Tualatin CPU and motherboard, that way
you could still use your SDRAM, and get the GF3Ti card.
(Get Gainwards GoldenSample GF3, and it should run UT2003)

http://www.sybercom.com/cgi-bin/sybercom/MB7AIA5EC1.html?mv_pc=PriceWatch

At least 320MB RAM if you plan on 2000 or XP. Seriously, takes my older system(1GHz celeron, 256MB RAM) 5 minutes just to load 95. Same way with the Compaq, only its a 1.2 with XP. RAM RAM RAM! At least GeForce 2(not MX GeForce 2) if you plan on future games.

If you really want to scream cheap, check Newegg: XP1600s for less than $60, and a refurb mobo- I got an Epox 8KHA+ for $41. About $100; spend $50 or so on ram and get a decent video card around $100= about $250 and then add AX7 and a good fan for $40= less than 3 bills.

OC to 1800 or 1900mhz and you have a killer rig.
Then use the remaining $1200 to buy games

i second the use of the amd xp 1600+ with a decent board totaling somewhere around 150. then add 256 or 512mb of ram pc2700 or better for about $85/150 (depends on the size/brand)

video card is a grey area. you can go nvidia route for a ti500 at about 90 bucks or a good radeon 8500 for just a few bucks less. either card will perform very well for that system and should be able to play GTA3 with most of the eyecandy on and still get good FPS. if you o/c to 1700mhz or better and overclock the video card you should be able to play 99.9% of all games with every ounce of detail all the way up (not counting anti aliasing and anistropic filtering)

the rest of your parts look great and you should be able to use them with the parts mentioned above. no sense in getting a completely new machine if you don't need to. if you've never built your own machine just ask some questions! thats what we are here for we'll help you through it.

Penguin4x4 said:

http://www.sybercom.com/cgi-bin/sybercom/MB7AIA5EC1.html?mv_pc=PriceWatch

At least 320MB RAM if you plan on 2000 or XP. Seriously, takes my older system(1GHz celeron, 256MB RAM) 5 minutes just to load 95. Same way with the Compaq, only its a 1.2 with XP. RAM RAM RAM! At least GeForce 2(not MX GeForce 2) if you plan on future games.

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What are you loading with Windows? The oldest computer I've used Win95 on (100MHz Pentium, 16 MB RAM) only takes 3 minutes to start up.

heh I'll keep the cdrom/cdrw and leave the current comp running Windows/Office XP for my Dad if I were to buy a new one. He doesn't play games : )

I got my current computer in 1998:

Upgraded from P-II 350 to P-III 500. $95 CDN (my mobo can't take anything more than p-III 600)
Upgraded from 128mb ram to 256 pc133 sdram. $50 CDN
SCSI cd rom died, got Asus 52X ROM. $50 CDN
SCSI 4x cdr too slow, got LiteOn 40x/12x/48x cdr. $100CDN

That's all I've done throughout the years.


So I'm not into selling (no one wants to buy them!) outdated parts and upgrading every few months. It'll be nice if the system can last for a while, but it seems like the new stuff I see in the market today gets outdated so fast! I'm afraid a cheaper system will no longer be easily upgradable (such as my system now) unless I change every single part inside the case... after 1-2 years of use.

Not saying that buying a more expensive system right now will mean better upgradability but I'll be more inclined to great new products that will have a 1-2 year development down the road. One such example would be buying a mobo that will support processors up to 4Ghz (or as BIOS upgrade can provide). I'll just get a cheap 2.26 now and maybe spend $100 to get a 4ghz chip after 2 years without having to change the mobo.

I'm not against buying cheap products and constantly upgrading but I don't really have my own fundings for big ticket items like a computer My budget only allows me to dish $200-300 per year for new computer parts (as you can see from my "upgrade history" above...). Getting a new computer from Dad is more like a one time thing for me in every few years.

I prefer using non-overclocked Intel CPUs. I heard they are a little underclocked (that's why they can be overclocked more than AMD?) and it's more stable because of that. That might just be B.S but so far I don't have any problems with the Intel chips I've been using. I still have my Pentium 133 32mb ram from 1996 running Windows 2000. My parents are using it.

I leave my computer on 24/7 hosting ftp for friends and downloading. I use my computer quite a lot. I'm a total n00b in overclocking. Will there there a slight chance that I may fry my CPU sometime in the future if I keep it on 24/7 in overclocked speed?

"There will always be something to wait for down the road"

There's a major problem with that sort of thinking; there's a huge difference if that "something" is a few steps or a few miles down the road.

The pace of technological improvement is not steady. It tends to make big jumps quickly, then slow down or even stop for a while. The smartest strategy is to buy after a big jump, not before. You buy now, you're buying before.

-Ed

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Like Ed said in one of his articles, tech improvement isn't steady, and right now I'm waiting for a big jump just so my new system will last. My current rig can do absolutely everything I need except playing games, so I'm not in a hurry. Here's what I came up with in the past few weeks.

CPU:
P4 2.26 533fsb, but it looks like 2.53 is a better buy since it just dropped $150?

RAM:
I hope they standardize it soon! DDR or RDRAM???

Motherboard:
Mobo with good onboard sound/10-100 LAN/firewire/usb2.0, AGP8X, serial (if I can wait that long) ATA.

Video:
AGP8X version of Geforce 4 Ti4200, or kickass onboard video equivalent.

Hard drive:
Fast 120-200GB. 20-30GB for main operating system, rest for storage and public ftp.

CD-ROM/CD-RW:
Already have... unless DVD goes mainstream, and I'll probably wait till a DVD burner drops to $100.


What's your suggestion on a new system that'll just perfectly capture "the next big jump" within the next 6 months to a year?

Long, well thought out post, lost thanks to a DNS error! ARGH!

Suffice it to say this:

As far as cpus go, I would not count on ANYTHING available between now and December being able to support cpus to 4 ghz.

The noticeable, real-world difference between 3 and 4 ghz (Intel. 2.5 and 3.5 ghz AMD) will not be that major either, so..........
For that matter, nothing available requires more than a 1.4ghz AMD(XP1600) or 1.8ghz Intel anyway!! The faster you go, the bigger the difference in speed NEEDS to be to be significant.

It just makes more sense to me to build a system for less than $600 (minus monitor, keyboard and mouse) than it does to spend $1200- since neither is likely to be able to support the Next Big Thing in cpus anyway, and there will be only a small differnce in performance.

Bang for the Buck King right now is stuff based on the XP1600 (AMD) with the Intel 1.8a/2.2a Nortwoods being slightly faster and a bit more costly. Anything beyond those two is definitely dimishing returns: faster, but a LOT more money!

(Note: I am positive about the AMD, but not 100% on the Intel cpus)

Neither is likely to be able to run the top speed cpus a year from now- and neither is anything else available right now.

Thanks for the advice rogerdugans. Don't you think AGP8x and serial ATA are "big leaps"?

I personally don't think agp 8x will have much impact for a while- agp 4x isn't fully utilized by much yet and the visible differences between the two? Well, the difference between the topnotch 4x video cards and lesser cards is noticed only by the most hardcore of gamers that I can tell.

As far as serial ata: again, performance gains and real world differences will not really be seen for a while yet.
USB 2.0 is out- how many people are using it to its full extent?
How many people are using ata 133?

I can see the attraction of having the newest, and for those who the performance gains DO make a difference in their applications it makes sense.
But IMO first generation new technology is just more trouble than it is worth for most things: between bugs and waiting for hardware and software to actually use it- much less the cost of it!- I usually figure 6 month wait time for maturation before it enters my calculations (or thoughts, obviously ).

ahh I see

I would still prefer an Intel CPU.

do you think p4 2.53 (since it dropped $152 recently but 2.26 didn't drop at all), and Asus' P4 board is a good?

I seem to have a thing for integrated functions (onboard LAN, onboard sound... etc)

too bad Asus' board doesn't come with onboard LAN.

so... it'll be

p4 2.53, asus mobo, 1 stick of DDR333 512mb ram

onboard sound (I'm not too pick in this department)
GeForce Ti4200

I don't think I'll buy 2 hds for raid... I'll just get Western Digital 120gb special edition 8mb cache.

do you think the system will be good for at least 3 years?

The 2.53 and Asus P4 board is a sweet setup, but I've got to chime in about your fear of building a system that will be obsolete next year.

There will be faster procs and better video cards next year, you can carve that in stone. But if there will be programs demanding that new hardware is another question altogether.

I haven't seen one game recommending even a 1.0GHz proc. The GeForce 4 is at the end of its developmental life...but the soon-to-be two generation old GF3-Ti500 can generate huge framerates for any title you want to throw at it. A state of the art system in 2000 (a gig proc, GF2) can still play any game on the shelf at EB in 2002.

And the system you put together today will have an even longer shelf life. Its what I call the Daikatana Effect. Seven billion people have forgotten about that cash sucking black hole from Ion Storm and Eidos. But the twenty people who run the major game publishers have not. It is possible to make a game that would make a P4/3.0 with a GF5 or Radeon 9700 sweat. But that kind of eye candy would cost megatons of jack...and after the Daikatana abortion no one is going to try that again.

(Oh, and Will Wright making the best-selling game of all time with an ancient 2D graphics engine won't help, either...)

The only reason to upgrade your system every year is because you love the hardware.

The only weak spot for your system list is the video card. A Ti4200 is a little light to go for three years. For another 20-40 bucks you can move up to a Ti4400, and thanks to the Radeon 9700 prices on the 4600 are dipping to $200 on sale. Its worth the difference.

But everything else looks really good. That is a strong three-to-four year game system.


BHD

(P.S.- If you're not an overclocking fiend, you might want to consider the Gigabyte GA-8IEXP instead of an Asus board. It has the onboard LAN, good onboard audio, and rock solid stability.)

More good points

As far as the price/performance sweet spot on the Intel side right now- I really don't know at the moment, but I'm sure you can find that info in the Intel CPU area

I had a small buying binge when the XPs could NOT be beat cost-wise, so all my newest stuff is there....
I cannot afford a couple of hundred to do an Intel right now, so I haven't been teasing myself by following whats going on there too closely

Last I knew 1.8a and 2.2as were the sweet spot but 1.8as were hard to find. Maybe if I sell my nephew............