Athlon XP motherboard Upgrade

macca

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Jul 22, 2004
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Hi,

I am looking to squeeze the last possible performance out of my system by
replacing the motherboard. I am tryig to delay when i have to replace most
of my main components.

My current motherboard is an ABit KR7A-RAID motherboard. I have an Athon XP
2600+ proceesor.

I have an AGP 8x Geforce 5600 Ultra graphics card and 768MB of PC2100 DDR.
My hard disk is a 180Gb IDE Seagate Barracuda.

I would like to upgrade my motherboard and want to keep all the above
componets although I have some 333Mhz memory that I can use

I am looking to spend £50 maximum as this is a stop gap before i have to
sheel out on replacing everything with all the new shiny components that are
coming out now.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on what would be a good motherboard to get?

Thanks In Advance
Macca
 
G

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On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 22:32:40 +0100, "Macca"
<asbc31@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I am looking to squeeze the last possible performance out of my system by
>replacing the motherboard. I am tryig to delay when i have to replace most
>of my main components.

In general you could expect less than 10% benefit and in
some applications, little to none.


>
>My current motherboard is an ABit KR7A-RAID motherboard. I have an Athon XP
>2600+ proceesor.
>
>I have an AGP 8x Geforce 5600 Ultra graphics card and 768MB of PC2100 DDR.
>My hard disk is a 180Gb IDE Seagate Barracuda.

If you're a gamer, replace the video card instead.


>
>I would like to upgrade my motherboard and want to keep all the above
>componets although I have some 333Mhz memory that I can use

This is even worst then, because the "333MHz" (actually
166MHz, DDR333) PC2700 memory won't even allow you to run
the fastest bus speeds that socket A allows in *stock* speed
tiers. I mean, at the very least someone shooting for
utmost performance from socket a would want
200MHz/DDR400/PC3200, and then the adventurous users would
overclock past 200MHz.



>
>I am looking to spend £50 maximum as this is a stop gap before i have to
>sheel out on replacing everything with all the new shiny components that are
>coming out now.
>
>I'd appreciate any suggestions on what would be a good motherboard to get?


Asus A7N8X, Abit NF7 (multiple versions, choose carefully),
Biostar M7NCD, Shuttle MN-somethingorother. Abit NF7 is one
of the best, but again I wouldn't waste the time or money at
this point... better to leave system alone as there are so
many areas were an extra £50 would only get you 10%, so for
a really viable upgrade you'd need replace most everything.

Then again you didnt mention the uses of the system.
Your PC2700 memory should run at faster timings at the lower
bus speed you currently use so it's not as much of a
difference as FSB for CPU. nForce2 has dual channel though
so you could run memory slower than FSB, but we dont' even
know if your CPU is unlocked, has adjustable multipliers.
Not worth the effort IMO, even if you had the board already,
if it were free, it's still arguable whether it's worth the
time to reconfigure or reinstall the OS to accomodate the
new board.
 
G

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"Macca" <asbc31@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:WLSdney-pv3tfMPfRVnyjg@pipex.net...
> Hi,
>
> I am looking to squeeze the last possible performance out of my system by
> replacing the motherboard. I am tryig to delay when i have to replace most
> of my main components.
>
> My current motherboard is an ABit KR7A-RAID motherboard. I have an Athon
> XP
> 2600+ proceesor.
>
> I have an AGP 8x Geforce 5600 Ultra graphics card and 768MB of PC2100 DDR.
> My hard disk is a 180Gb IDE Seagate Barracuda.
>
> I would like to upgrade my motherboard and want to keep all the above
> componets although I have some 333Mhz memory that I can use
>
> I am looking to spend £50 maximum as this is a stop gap before i have to
> sheel out on replacing everything with all the new shiny components that
> are
> coming out now.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions on what would be a good motherboard to get?
>
> Thanks In Advance
> Macca
>
>

You could get a performance boost by putting the RAID to work and some over
clocking,
JPS
 
G

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In article <WLSdney-pv3tfMPfRVnyjg@pipex.net>, Macca says...
> Hi,
>
> I am looking to squeeze the last possible performance out of my system by
> replacing the motherboard. I am tryig to delay when i have to replace most
> of my main components.
>
> My current motherboard is an ABit KR7A-RAID motherboard. I have an Athon XP
> 2600+ proceesor.
>
> I have an AGP 8x Geforce 5600 Ultra graphics card and 768MB of PC2100 DDR.
> My hard disk is a 180Gb IDE Seagate Barracuda.
>
> I would like to upgrade my motherboard and want to keep all the above
> componets although I have some 333Mhz memory that I can use
>
> I am looking to spend £50 maximum as this is a stop gap before i have to
> sheel out on replacing everything with all the new shiny components that are
> coming out now.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions on what would be a good motherboard to get?
>
For £50, nothing thats worth bothering with. You'll not get any
noticable improvement anyway. Unless you stick in a faster CPU then
you're at the end of the line for what you can do.

--
Conor

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." O.Osbourne.
 
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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

The best upgrade you can do at the moment is replacing your ram modules.
533MHz ones will be useable on your next machine.
Replacing the videocard is another option, but it will limit you to an AGP
MB on next upgrade.


Tal




"Macca" <asbc31@dsl.pipex.com> wrote in message
news:WLSdney-pv3tfMPfRVnyjg@pipex.net...
> Hi,
>
> I am looking to squeeze the last possible performance out of my system by
> replacing the motherboard. I am tryig to delay when i have to replace most
> of my main components.
>
> My current motherboard is an ABit KR7A-RAID motherboard. I have an Athon
> XP
> 2600+ proceesor.
>
> I have an AGP 8x Geforce 5600 Ultra graphics card and 768MB of PC2100 DDR.
> My hard disk is a 180Gb IDE Seagate Barracuda.
>
> I would like to upgrade my motherboard and want to keep all the above
> componets although I have some 333Mhz memory that I can use
>
> I am looking to spend £50 maximum as this is a stop gap before i have to
> sheel out on replacing everything with all the new shiny components that
> are
> coming out now.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions on what would be a good motherboard to get?
>
> Thanks In Advance
> Macca
>
>
 
G

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"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:mos06119esbs24h22jrdqdea47gmpeaktu@4ax.com...

>
> Your old 10GB drive is SO old that the best strategy is to
> not use it at all.

I'm old too :-0
I have been only storing the families MP3's, JPEG's & AVI's
on this drive.

>
> IF your SATA is supported by a southbridge-integral
> controller, an SATA drive is a fair choice. If the SATA is
> by a separate chip, SATA will be slower than PATA.

Abit AV8

>
> Partitioning a large drive is no substitue for multiple
> drives, but those multiple drives must be fairly modern too.
>
> HDD strategies though are best considered after the system
> has far more than needed memory, an excess of it.

2 x 512 megs Corsair PC3200

> Reason is
> that HDD files are cached in memory when you have enough,
> and even the most high-end drives possible are no match for
> reading a file out of memory... and on average tasks the
> majority of file accesses are reads, with writes (user data)
> being relatively small and insignificant.
>
> Browser cache files and temp files are best stored on a
> ramdrive. Email, typical office files (excluding very large
> databases) might as well be anywhere, they are so small it
> doesn't matter much except in some kind of repetitive
> benchmark rather than actual use.
>
> Still, the idea is to look at the most demanding use of the
> system, that with significant file I/O. When possible,
> split that I/O between multiple disks rather than
> partitions.
>
> All of this is secondary though, compared with your current
> situation of having a dreadfully slow 10GB drive.
> Eliminating use of it, replacement with the new drive is the
> most significant performance boost.
 
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On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 10:31:19 GMT, "Gary C"
<Clem_Kadiddlehopper@CrazyGooginhiemer.com> wrote:

>
>"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
>news:mos06119esbs24h22jrdqdea47gmpeaktu@4ax.com...
>
>>
>> Your old 10GB drive is SO old that the best strategy is to
>> not use it at all.
>
>I'm old too :-0
>I have been only storing the families MP3's, JPEG's & AVI's
>on this drive.
>

While some would argue that such storage doesn't need
high-performance (and they'd be right) there is an
altogether different reason to replace the drive, that it's
already at the end of it's expected lifespan. Some of them
keep chugging away for a decade but others less than half
that... either way as it ages, it's age itself becomes the
liability to data.


>>
>> IF your SATA is supported by a southbridge-integral
>> controller, an SATA drive is a fair choice. If the SATA is
>> by a separate chip, SATA will be slower than PATA.
>
>Abit AV8

OK, so it is soutbridge integral.

>
>>
>> Partitioning a large drive is no substitue for multiple
>> drives, but those multiple drives must be fairly modern too.
>>
>> HDD strategies though are best considered after the system
>> has far more than needed memory, an excess of it.
>
>2 x 512 megs Corsair PC3200

Depending on tasks, might be enough or might not... keeping
in mind that I mean enough to have extra memory to cache
files, the use most often ignored by those suggesting
amounts of memory only to handle application demands.
 
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"kony" <spam@spam.com> skrev i melding
news:mos06119esbs24h22jrdqdea47gmpeaktu@4ax.com...

----------------

> Your old 10GB drive is SO old that the best strategy is to
> not use it at all.

My choice (because I hate recycling things that still works):
Such a drive has generaly three disadvantages: It may be noisy, it's slower
(both search time and read speed) than a new drive, and it is probably the
first drive that will go down. Personally I would store files that is not
important and doesn't require high write/read speed. Typical files is:
temporary internet files (has other names in other browsers than IE), the
recent documents folder.

If getting the maximum peak of speed out of the system for now isn't the
most important thing, you could also store folders like temp, inbox folder,
paging-file, IE cookies, IE log folder. And there is a lot of other apps
that have an option to change their temp dir to an other foder than where
the app is installed.
 
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> "Macca" <asbc31@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>I am looking to squeeze the last
>possible performance out of my system
>by replacing the motherboard. I am tryig
>to delay when i have to replace most of
>my main components.

>I am looking to spend £50 maximum as
>this is a stop gap before i have to sheel
>out on replacing everything with all the
>new shiny components that are coming
>out now.
>

Try this MSI mobo out.
i love it & it should work well with your system & is well with in your
budget.

S_H

MSI K7N2GM-V
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K7N2GM-V&class=mb