Seeking Hardware Advice (Mobo/CPU)

[CerebroDragon]

Hello Tech-minded Ironworkers,

Recently my ol' Radeon 9800 SE video card broke down, forcing me to go to onboard video on my rather ancient system. (Celeron 1.2 ghz.)

The general traumatic slowdown as a result has convinced me that it might just be the time to consider upgrading.

There's a computer swapmeet this weekend in town which I'll visit to peruse some new hardware - particularly a
motherboard/CPU/case/RAM.
However I'll be on a limited budget. (About $700 AUS).

To start me going, a mate has kindly donated for free a hand me down of sorts - an AGP Leadtek Winfast 256 meg Video Card. Thus, I'm considering building around this part to save me going for a PCI-e from the outset.

Some questions:

1) Are there any AGP users who can reccomend a middle range motherboard that will comfortably run most modern RPGs (the Witcher/NWN2) (an Asrock/Gigabyte?)

2) Which has the better support for AGP, Intel or AMD? What's your opinion on what is the better way to go if I'm to use the Leadtek card as a base?

At this stage, I'm leaning more towards a dual core/Intel build - in the light of the fact that my dad's current intel quadcore beastie is a pleasure to use.

Any other thoughts/advice would be appreciated - even very obvious information, as I'm not especially knowledgable on modern hardware!

Cheers,
CD

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

I'm a little out of it, since my PC is about 5 years old, but running very well. There have been a few upgrades. My wife's is over 9 years old, but I think she's due. I'm going to give her mine, since she only emails and does word processing.

So, I would like the same advice really. I see nice laptops going for under $500cdn. A desktop must be dirt cheap now.

[Ilander]

Do yourself the great favor of not sticking with AGP...if you do that, you have the entire realm of modern graphics cards to choose from...plus, there are precious few (I'm not really sure if they exist) AGP motherboards that support intel dual core processors.

I'd say something like this:

Motherboard $88 AUS

Processor $112 AUS

RAM $28 AUS per gigabyte

Power Supply $85 AUS

Radeon 2600XT $95 AUS

That's one heck of an upgrade for you, and it hits the $400 AUS mark...

If you're comfortable building them yourself, that is...or having a friend help out.

Thankfully, there's always instructions.

Now, as far as the case goes....you probably want to get that in a place where you can touch it, and ensure it won't bend or break.

Edit: found a useful link for the sites that sell hardware...

List of Online Aussie Computer Retailers

Second Edit: Looks like I found the best site before I found that list... www.pcparts.net.au was the highest ranked site you could buy a processor from...and if a site doesn't carry processors, then they won't have motherboards, either.

I feel awlful that www.newegg.com and www.tigerdirect.com are not really outside North America :S

[SecretMaster]

To be quite honest you are much better off just building a cheap intel/amd rig from scratch, and you'll get significant performance gains. Most motherboards nowadays don't even have AGP ports anymore, it is such a dead-end for technology. I remembered a year back looking for decent AGP motherboards and having little/no success.

AGP Leadtek Winfast 256 meg Video Card

I've never even heard of that kind of card. Is it Nvidia or ATI based?

At this stage, I'm leaning more towards a dual core/Intel build - in the light of the fact that my dad's current intel quadcore beastie is a pleasure to use.

Stick with a dual core. No more, no less. Unfortunately software still hasn't quite caught up with hardware; when I built my dual core rig a few years back I thought by now things would be making full use of it but it still isn't the case. Unless you are doing heavy video encoding or workstation things, two cores shall suffice for a long time IMO.

AMD/ATI is releasing derivatives of their wonder 4800 series GPU's. The price market for both of them is in the sub $100 range and they should be released either next week or in two weeks. I'd say pair one of those bad boys (which perform extremely well for 'budget' chips) with a nice intel set or AMD depending on pricing and you can have a great build.

[Lavindathar]

Don't take your mates GFX card, tbh, its a piece of junk in the modern world.

I just got this today, which I consider a budget GFX card.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...ory_oid=-31463

£170 = around $350 USD? Meh when i say it like that, looks around like half of your budget in total.

Recently been using this - http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...ory_oid=-31463

As a really budget one, as my last one fried itself.

The thing with PCs, is you can spend 700 USD (like 400 quid), and in a year it'll be a piece of junk again.

Save up and do it properly, build a pc that will last the next 5 years and play anything that comes out.

Like that GFX card I linked first, will handle anything for the next 5 years without any hassle.

[SecretMaster]

Originally Posted by Lavindathar The thing with PCs, is you can spend 700 USD (like 400 quid), and in a year it'll be a piece of junk again. Save up and do it properly, build a pc that will last the next 5 years and play anything that comes out. Like that GFX card I linked first, will handle anything for the next 5 years without any hassle.

To be honest I think that is a bit of an exaggeration. Technology advances at an incredible rate, but 1 year won't have much a difference. Nowadays $500 on hardware alone can buy a damn good PC. The last 6 months or so have been the best time to put together a system; you didn't have to shell out 1.5k on a top of the line rig. That is going to change with Nehalem (Intel's new CPU architecture) but even so, current gen is still kickass and has lasting power.

Secondly, I don't think saving up money is much of an option for him. And even if it was, I currently see no reason to wait. In terms of up-coming hardware, now is the perfect time to buy. The only thing coming out really is Intel's new CPU architecture, but the cheapest mainstream product is going to be $300 which isn't very attractive at all. There is nothing wrong with his current budget and goal IMO.

[Ilander]

I'm going to revise my video card pick from that website and say the 8800GS is probably the best graphics card you can get for around $100 AUS.

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

I certainly wouldn't bother with an AGP MB at this point. The Abit KT600 MB, The Geforce 6200, AMD 2500+ Barton, 1 GIG ram and Maxtor 100GIG SATA drive have really served me quite well.

I would even keep the drive and put my wife's 40 gig in my PC. We use very little storage. I even have another 40GIG drive in there that I never use. I think it may have a problem though. It asked to be formatted a couple of times.

I thought of getting the AMD 3200 cpu for it on ebay, but they're pretty expensive anyway.

PCIe is the way to go now.

[Lavindathar]

XFX PCIe 2.0 8800GS 384MB I really can't see holding up very long. I know i keep harping on, but impo, 512mb gfx cards are getting to the point where they don't perform very well, or they over stretch and fail.

A 384 one cant last impo.

But then again, i like things perfect

And anyway bro, do what you want, your pc your money All i can do is offer my advice and say "save and build a beast".

[Ilander]

...in my experience, 256 MB is plenty for a graphics card that 1) does no antialiasing and 2)runs at 1280x1024 or lower.

Plus, I don't like to perpetuate the myth that more memory is better...there exists a limit to the effectiveness of memory. A graphics card with 2 GB of memory will not necessarily perform any better than one with 256 MB or even 128 MB...dependent, almost entirely, upon its specific application.