help needed time for upgrade

[bobby boy]

hi peeps looking at upgrading my pc i have a atx case with all the components i am using at the mo and not to much money to spend seen this Intel Celeron 352 + Foxconn 945G7MA bundle on a site called misco for about 55 dobs is this any good and would it fit straight in my atx case with no probs just want to upgrade nothing wrong with anything else in my computer it is just slow now as it is old would have posted a link but no sure if allowed to

 

[digicol]

What kind of memory are you going to be using? If it is DDR you will have to make sure you get a motherbaord that accepts DDR and not the newer DDRII.

Also are your opticals and hard drives IDE? The reason I am asking is if your going for something new then you will need a splitter as most new boards only have one IDE socket.

To be honest with you I would not build a PC using older DDR ram, you can sell your current ram and it will cover the cost of the newer faster DDRII.

An example is DDR 400mhz 1gb sells for £30+ banrd new, wheres DDRII 800mhz 1gb sells for £10ish.

 

[bobby boy]

acording to the mboard it has two ide slots and 4 sata not bothered about memory get new got ddr2 1gb for my boys computer @ 18 dobs the memory in this computer is ddr pc2100 i know it's not compatable just want to upgrade mboard and proccesor link to what i'm looking at is here
http://misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=295918&Tab=0&NoMapp=0
if not allowed please remove

 

[oneman]

That is an old but OK motherboard. You should be able to do a straight swap of hardware which is the easy part.

I don't know what M/B you have at the moment but the chances are that your storage driver is different thus you won't be able to do a straight swap over. I would take this chance to backup you data and install from scratch on the new M/B. If you don't want to do that then there are a couple of options depending on what you current M/B is.

 

[digicol]

For £50 it will do a job, but what are you upgrading from?

In all honesty I think it is pointless upgrading at to a single core. For a few quid more you can get a dual core setup and really see the difference for your hard earned.

Gigabyte GA M61SME S2 GeForce 6100 Socket AM2 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard
£31.73
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132273

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2GHz) Socket AM2 Energy Efficient L2 1MB Cache OEM Processor
£36.58
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136444

Throw in a cheap heatsink and you have a dual core for about £70ish.

Or the Intel route, again dual core coming in at £70:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136639/show_product_reviews
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127249

 

[bobby boy]

thanks just to let you know i am running mobile athon xp-m 1800+ on a ecs m825vxx motherboard with 735mb of memory s3 graphics pro savage ddr i just thought with the single core with it being more ghz it would be better than dual core with less ghz i use my comp. for doing films for my boys plus a bit of cable stuff. igot my boys 2 comp. for chrimbo these have got a foxconn p4m8907ma mboard and a intel celeron d proceessor running @ 3.06 ghz and it walks all over my comp. lol only got 40 gig hdrive anyway not bothered about reformating it if have too as long as i can use it for a while

 

[oneman]

thanks just to let you know i am running mobile athon xp-m 1800+ on a ecs m825vxx motherboard with 735mb of memory s3 graphics pro savage ddr i just thought with the single core with it being more ghz it would be better than dual core with less ghz i use my comp. for doing films for my boys plus a bit of cable stuff. igot my boys 2 comp. for chrimbo these have got a foxconn p4m8907ma mboard and a intel celeron d proceessor running @ 3.06 ghz and it walks all over my comp. lol only got 40 gig hdrive anyway not bothered about reformating it if have too as long as i can use it for a while

If you are doing video editing, definately go for dual core if you can afford it. Core2 would be even better plus you can massively overclock them very easily.

The following web page has CPU benchmarks for a varity of application. Just select the application that you want to use and you can do a comparison verses your current CPU. It does not go as far back as your CPU but take a AMD Sempron 3200 and halve the performance to get an indication of how quick for current process is.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

For example in Studio 11, render time for their sample file
- Current CPU - 6 minutes
- AMD X2 3800 - 2 minutes (don't know how well these over clock)
- Intel Core2 6420 overclocked 50% (will not be a problem to overclock this much) - 1 min, 10 sec

 

[digicol]

If your burning dvd's mate then I would spend the extra few quid and get a dual core, you can burn DVD's and do other tasks like watch a film, or browse the net without any slow down or any real chance of making a coaster as each core will take care of seperate tasks.

Also those Celerons are the older ones based on older technology, if you were to go for a Celeron always go for the new M series as these are based the Core 2 architecture, just they only have the one core and less cache. Not sure if they have crippled cycles either, but they are better than the Celeron you posted even tho they only run at about 1.8ghz depending which one you opted for.

Anyway I am babbling on again, so just go for a cheap dual core with cheap motherboard and onboard graphics, similar to what I posted above.

 

[bobby boy]

thanks for the advice had a look at the athon am2 just been on one of my local dealer sites and they have this deal.
http://www.web-systems.co.uk/?page=Computers&gid=105
would i be better getting one of these because you get the job lot just get abit more memory if so which one would you go for thanks

 

[acer1]

Go for the Intel Core 2 Duo deal, it should last you longer than the other deals.

 

[digicol]

Mate you can get the same setup with a much better motherboard and ram for £100 from Ebuyer delivered direct to your door.

That ECS board is old school, get the slightly bigger brother I pointerd to, with the e2140 processor (same as you have listed from your local supplier), and with a full 1gb of DDRII 800mhz delivered all for just over £100.

But personally if you would like to overclock then you can not touch the ECS at all, and trust me, we will tell you how to overclock it just by pressing a few buttons on your keyboard, and to do this you overclock you will need an Intel chipset.

Obviously every board has it's limitations but I would spend your £100 with advice from us on here.

For £100 I would go for:

This motheboard:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136368/show_product_specifications
£36
It has the Intel chipset which you would need for any chance of an overclock with that processor. It also has a much better built in sound (7.1) than the ECS.

Processor:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127249
£41
Dual Core using Core 2 Duo technology and has great clocking possibilities if needed, a little less cache than Core 2 but that has nothing to do with what you need, in fact this is the best you can get for the price for what you need. It will still cripple any Celeron/Athlon you have posted and will benefit you when burning DVD's due to it having 2 cores.

Ram:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/91121
£12.99
Kingston 667mhz DDRII 1GB module (1 stick)

Case:
http://www.ebuyer.com/search/?strSe...&intCatID=23&intSubcatUID=418&bolShowAll=true
A massive choice of cases from the above link, loads of cases with bult in PSU's for less then £20, some are less than £15 with 400W psu, and trust me for what you are using your PC for a generic 350W/400W PSU will be perfect, so just add another £15 to the total.

We are talking £105 for the above, all from one company delivered to your door within 5 working days.

Much better than you posted mate, you have a better motherboard, a full 1gb of ram with lifetime warranty over the 512 you posted and a varied choice of cases.

I think a fair few would agree the above is what you need for your £100.

P.S.

Any Dominoe players on here, if so P.M. me.

 

[trbd]

I'd go with what the guys say above. Bit of a backwards step going from an AMD athlon to a celeron chip. We have some 3.2Ghz celerons at work and the performance is pitiful, pretty much outclassed in every way by some of the 2400XPs we have lying around.

 

[bobby boy]

just like to say thanks for the help ordered the componets above but had the dual core 1.8 ghz as it was only a few pounds more and had 2 x 1gb ram i will use my case might just have to upgrade the psu hope the build goes as smoothly lol

 

[digicol]

Nice one mate if you need any help just give us a shout.

How many IDE devices will you be running on that board? If it just one optical and one hard drive you will be ok to run it off the same cable, if any more you will have problems as there is only one slot on the board.

 

[bobby boy]

just recieved my bits n peices to start my build 1st question is do i need the thermal past for the cpu noticed on the underside of the fan there are 3 strips of something thermal tape i think and also do you think that my case will be ok for cooling the cpu i know i have to get a better psu thanks in the cpu instructions says nothing about thermal paste

 

[digicol]

The heatsink should come with some thermal compound underneath, does it not have a plastic cover over it? Normally you just remove the cover to reveal the paste, but whatever you do, do not touch it with your fingers.

The case will be fine.

 

[bobby boy]

got it all done could not see no plastic over the strips so just put fan on chip tried to unclip it it's stuck to prosesor so must be ok now for the next quest need some help on motherboard coz now me mates seen this setup he wants me to build one the problem is the motherboard is not avalable just wondering is this the same or better.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139587/show_product_specifications?spectype=extended