Need opinion on next upgrade for comp!!!!!!!!

silicon-thumb

New Member
I got done with building my first computer a while ago and I realized that some of the parts on it are not exactly good enough for what i want to use it for.

It contains,
-A terribly cheap in quality Chaintech P4 mobo cost me 89$ and i regret it
-Intel Celeron 2Ghz processor with stock fan
-80gb western digital Serial ATA harddrive
-Some unknown used DVD Drive
-256mb pc2100 kingston DDR-SDRAM
-windows xp professional
-400watt powersupply
-1, soon to be 3 case fans with 4 dollar exaust card through pci slot in back.

:confused: I was leaning towards upgrading processor so I can get faster ram (pc2700+ without overclocking) Is this all i really need to make this into a gaming machine?
and by the way- I dont want to overclock at all... even if it means paying more.

:confused: For gaming and school use, should i even bother spending double to get 1 gig of ram or should 512mb be enough?

:confused: I want to get a 167 dollar P4 2.8ghz proc. with 800mhz fsb and 1meg cache, would that overheat easy and if so what should i get for cooling if i were to upgrade my processor?

Thank you for hearing me out... if you have anny suggestions please let me know.
 

kalson

New Member
try changin ur ram first , then start thinkin of mobo and cpu , for cpu dont get chaintech , i recommend asus or msi , asus most
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
What kind of budget do we have to work with here? :)

- You can probably hunt down a P4P800 running the i865PE chipset for $100USD. If your budget allows for it, grab the Abit IC7 MAX3... superb Intel board.

- Depending on your budget I'd hunt down a lot of stock RAM ... now unless you're gonna go with Kingston's high end memory, stay away from them. Their lower ranged memory isnt so great -- at least not for the cost. You should be able to hunt down 512MB of PC2700 for ~$100USD ... with that new mobo I'd recocmend getting either a single stick of 512MB or two sticks of 512MB as opposed to 2 sticks of 256MB for the latter. This is because, when you upgrade in the future, what are you gonna do with 256MB?? Dual channel support isnt life-threateningly that big of a performance enhancer. As for whether to go 512/1024 .... if your budget allows for 1GB go for it but its not horribly critical.

Now ive just read that you dont want to OC ... in that case get PC3200.. costs more but hey, whatever works for you.

- Intel procs dont have the same heat problems AMD ones do so unless you plan on OCing then a stock cooler should be fine.

- The last thing you need to round off this system is a decent midrange videocard: Radeon9600/GFX5700 are more than good enough (just dont get the 9600SE unless you really mean to)
 

Viper_86

banned
i think if u want a good gaming machine...u should start out by gettin the RAM...im saying this from experience. my dads computer is currently running an AMD athalon 1.53 GHZ with a 2-3 yr old mobo and 512 RAM...a while back he went from 256 RAM to 512...o man it made a HUGE difference in my gaming performance! next mayb look at a new mobo then cpu...but like i said my dads cpu is only a 1.53 GHz...so i really dont no wut u should go for after the RAM,,, which i highly recommend gettin 1st!
 

Blind_Arrow

New Member
Motherboard is most important factor (besides RAM) in performance, as its the base of this highlt controlled environment. you SHOULD have spent some extra on buying a good motherboard. Like Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, ABIT.
as these companies spend huge on buying japanese transistors (happened with ABIT in past, boughta load of cheaper transistors, and they leaked out after few months of usage, resulting in company's reputation down, but not they realized the thing, and are using high quality components), now U can see ABIT being bought by extreme level games. Product quality speaks for itself.
 
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