School Needs motherboard upgrade advice please

Hi all

I have asked this question in the past here and have always gotten good advice so I have returned again. I need to upgrade about 15 computers that are being built in donated Antec Sonata III cases with Antec Earthwatts 500 PSU in the case already. We have a mix of IDE harddrives, CD and DVD drives and a few SATA hard drives. Yes, we also have a few floppy drives. I don't remember exactly what we have now but it is about four years old and is an ASUS board. They have onboard sound and video except for the couple we installed video upgrades to about two years ago for video editing. I like the onboard stuff as it makes the builds eaiser and faster for the kids.

I only need the motherboard/CPU/ RAM upgraded and only have money for the 15 if they can come in at about $300 or so. I don't mind using slightly older stuff if it is a better value for the money. We don't get money for upgrades but every four years so by then everything has changed anyway.

I understand that the Intel stuff runs cooler than the AMD we use now. Is that correct? That is the only problem we have had with the AMD stuff is overheating.

We also run Windows XP pro and can't run vista on our network so that is what will be loaded on them.

We have an account with Newegg so if it can be bought from them that would help a lot.

Thanks for any suggestions that you might have .........

JW

$300 total or per computer?

On a per computer basis, I'd go with the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128334

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820134488

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115038

That adds up to close to $300/machine.

Best of luck, in your search.

Everyone has their opions so thought I'd throw mine in here:
The 780g boards offer a decent integrated graphics chip and will save you the expense of a card for each machine. You will only need to buy a graphics card for the computers that need the power.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813138105
I believe you'll be disapointed with less that 2G of ram so any pair in this category should be fine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146569 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820134488
Not sure exactly what you need for processing power but the newer 45w cores can provide decent performance within a very favorable and green power envelope and at a low initial investment:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103255

My parts list allows extra for the additional optical and data drives with cables you may need and gives the spare money for video card updates in the machines that need them. The 780g chipset allows hybrid crossfire between the integrated 3200 chip and an ATI 3450 card but only in Vista. Even though your network is XP, there are workarounds with Vista and you may want to have the option open.

Hope this supplies some viable alternatives.

Note: I'm assuming you mean $300 per machine and not 300 total.

This seeems to be the most trouble free amd board, they don't overheat with the proper fans and correctly applied heatsinks. I have a 780g board and 5400 running in a cabinet and it's fine.

The only time I have seen them overheat is when ppl are to cheap to order a couple case fans.

Thanks all for the replys so far

LOL ..... I should have clarified that $300 is for each machine! I will look at what all of you have posted ........

Thanks again!!

JW

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103062
Cheap AMD dual processor - dual core is good enough

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128335
780G at your service for video and audio - 1 ATA plugin

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146693
4 gigs of RAM - RAM will increase the longevity and performance of the machine far more than a faster processor

$230 a machine. Leaves some money left over for beer!

Edit: may even be able to get a price break because you are buying 15 of each. Another note is you may want to order 1 or 2 extra of each and keep them on hand because even though Gigabyte, Mushkin, and AMD make decent stuff, parts do fail.

My 2 cents:

Look for a dual core cpu using newer technology.
Quads are only good for lots of multitasking, and need more memory. Only if the students are runnung cpu intensive multicore optimized code should you look at quads. 45nm manufacturing will run cooler than older technology. Consider the core 2 duo E7200. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115052 It has a volume discount: $118.99 for 10+ units.

A G31 based micro atx motherboard will have what you want. The price will be $45-$80.
Integrated graphics.
ATA capability for two devices.
2 or more sata connections.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813130177
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813186145

A good SATA DVD burner will cost <$30 if you need to free up an IDE spot.

Once you pick a motherboard, you can pick RAM. 2GB of DDR2-800 should be good. It will cost <$50. To insure compatibility, go to the RAM vendor's web site and access their ram configurator. Corsair, Kingston, Patriot, and OCZ have them that I know of. There should be others. Enter your mobo and get a list of compatible RAM parts. Pick the cheapest from a quality vendor. A single 2gb stick is probably better to leave room for an upgrade in the future. The performance difference of using a 2x1gb kit is minor.

I think it's applications like these where it really becomes more cost effective at AMD's camp.

I think OP should seriously consider dirtmountain's AMD build idea, it would free up some cash for other components that might help these PCs more than just raw power. I also think the performance that build would provide would be just about right.

*EDIT*
Hey IH8U, judging by your post, it seem that you missed the fact that there is a $20 discount for buying that motherboard along with the same tricore you chose lol. At $195 per build(+S&H of course) I think your idea takes over as best bang for buck.

Well, since these are for a school, I'm going to assume these won't be overclocked at all and won't be used for gaming or a lot of high definition video playback. Additionally, even though you say $300 budget, cheaper is better. So, here's what I'd go with.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz- Retail $66

Foxconn A7VMX-K AM2+/AM2 AMD 780V Micro ATX AMD Motherboard $58

WINTEC AMPO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory $39

Total = $163 each + shipping

Oh, and All the motherboard that have been mentioned have at least 1 PATA (IDE) slot

Tri-core, that better?

IH8U build idea seems like a good balance doesn't it?

No, it elicits the same reaction. Sorry, the whole idea is funny.

I think OP has a pretty good selection of ideas to pick from now. What he ends up choosing is up to him. Wish him good luck with this.

I remember when I was in school, all the computers we had really sucked(SoCal Schools...). So it's nice to know that the kids that end up using these will have some pretty decent PCs to work with hehe.

socal fails!!!

True, specificity would help.

Ok, I will concede more RAM will be used, but it is in the wind. I was referring to the need for more than 2G, which is not the case, and 2G is the sweet spot even for dual cores. 2G is sufficient to multitask to your hearts content on a multicore, except if you want to run video editing apps, some games and other heavy memory usage apps. Unless you are using Vista with its Superfetch, which really isn't CPU dependent, it's just their nutty way to eat up all the available RAM in an attempt to speed up the OS, but it can be disabled and 2G will get you by anyway. RAM is also extremely cheap, so adding 1G per machine could be finagled somehow down the road, although I don't believe it is necessary. I have XP and I get usage across all four cores now depending on the apps running, not just from multitasking either. Which is better, a quad core that can effectively take advantage of the multicore optimized apps when they become more prevalent, with a potential future need for additional memory, or a dual core that can't handle it at all. Just because an app can take advantage of the additional cores doesn't mean that it can't run on a CPU with less cores. I think that four years is longer than you are appreciating, multicore optimized apps will be everywhere long before then. The quad core future proofs and leaves more options open for whatever they will be doing.

@Zorg:
As a matter of interest, how busy is your Q6600 when you see activity on all 4 cores? It is my understanding that normally, there is no affinity of a core to a task, so what you are seeing with activity across all cores is simply load levelling. If your average cpu utilization is much above 50%, then I would agree that you are, indeed, taking advantage of more than two cores.

@Zorg: Very interesting: First of all, we should probably move this discussion to it's own topic. Could you post this in a new topic?

1) I see the cpu activity pattern as similar across all 4 cores, indicating to me that the work is distributed evenly. Since usage is < 50%(excepting boot), I conclude that the quad core is not helping much, at least in this admittedly limited example.

2) The xp boot results were particularly interesting. Not only is Windows boot higly multitasked, but it is much more CPU intensive than I would have imagined.
3) XP was designed when ram was expensive. It is constantly unloading memory to make room for other anticipated use. I don't think you will ever see more than half of the available memory in use. Vista, on the other hand, leaves stuff in memory in anticipation of reuse. It would appear to be less efficient, but it is really just making use of the resources that it has.
---Thanks for running the test---

Yeah, it's somewhat of a hijack, but tcteacher already got a pretty full and diverse set of options already. I don't really think this discussion needs a new thread at this point. XP really should disable the Page file when you select "no paging file", but no big deal. I don't like the way that Vista loads the RAM up with apps that it thinks you might want to use, but as I said, it can be disabled. I have a Raptor, maybe that helps increase the CPU load on boot. Also, it doesn't stay high very long, it bounces around, obviously. I should add that my CPU is OCed to 3.2/1600

All I was trying to point out is that the quad does get use across all four cores already and that given four years for an upgrade it would probably be a good idea to do a little future proofing.

I'm gonna slap the second stick of RAM back in before I loose it, or it hits the tile floor.

Thanks for the feedback and best of luck on the build. The E7200 is a good CPU. You may be able to do the "repair" load of the OS.

Zorg

I haven't totally ruled out a quad in some of the machines. Our software gets updated less often than the machines so I'm not sure we need it. I am going to get one up and running and see how it goes.

Once again thanks everyone for your help ......

JW