Should I Upgrade?

[Red_Mercury]

My first post

I have a Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 768Mb DDR333 RAM. Obviously my motherboard has a socket 370/A and supports fsb333. Should I upgrade to a 3000+ Barton before they're terminated? Or should I try out the 2800/3100+ Sempron? Or should I replace my ram with 1Gb DDR400?(I don't have dual channel)

I use my PC mainly for games and I've decided to get a GeForce 6800 regardless. The reason being that I broke my Ti4200.

Getting a new m/b is not an option.

Thanks.

 

[RichPLS]

Dual channell wont help that much.
I would just go with video card and see how that suits you.
Then see what kind of o/c ya can get.
Wait for a upgrade when it makes a significant difference, and ya swap mobo, chip and memory, hopefully might be able to reuse the video card ya just gettin.

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[jlpicard1413]

You don't say what motherboard you have at the moment ... can you upgrade your CPU at all 'cos a combination of that AND a new graphics card may be what you want .... what's your price limit?
You can't put a Sempron on your board anyway .. they are cut down AMD 64s and use Socket 754 not Socket A .... but you could go for a faster XP processor for not a lot of money + somehting a bit less than a 6800? .. A Radeon of some sort?
JLP

 

[jlpicard1413]

Sorry - I didn't know that there was a Sempron version that was socket 462 compatible ....
JLP

 

[dhlucke]

I wouldn't upgrade yet. Just get the videocard. That is unless you have a boat load of money and notice your computer is lagging.

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[Mr5oh]

A 2800+ Sempron would be a downgrade. Also I don't believe they make a Socket A version of the 3100 Sempron (Only Socket 754).

You didn't specify which motherboard you have, does it support a 400 fsb CPU?

My past three machines have shown a decent performance gain from dual channel, however, it isn't enough of a gain to justify buying new RAM just for this. It is enough of a gain, that I wouldn't buy a new SocketA board without Dual Channel. Of course this doesn't matter for you, as you don't have dual channel. (Just general information)

If your motherboard will handle 400 fsb CPU, a newer XP chip <b>might</b> be worth looking into (No Sempron chip is worth looking at in your case). Otherwise, overclocking may be your best option for a cheap upgrade.

Wait till you get the 6800, you will notice a difference.

Oh, here are my benchmarks going from a TI4600 LeadTek, to a 6800 nu eVGA card, same exact system. Notice even my CPU and RAM scores increased slightly (TI4200 is similar to a 4600/4400, just AGP 8X if I remember correctly).

<A HREF="http://mr5oh.tripod.com/pc2.html" target="_new">http://mr5oh.tripod.com/pc2.html</A>

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>

 

[endyen]

You dont say how old your xp2500+ chip is. If it has an unlocked multiplier, try increaseing the multi to 13.
As far as anything else goes, the money is the difference between a plain 6800, and the 6800GT. I would get the GT.
With the GT and a slight OC, you should be good till Intel sells a 4ghz chip.

 

[Red_Mercury]

Mr5oh, Do you mean that a 2800 Sempron it slower than a 2500 Barton?

I have a Gigabyte GA 7VAX, it only supports 333fsb.

I'm in South Africa and everything is about twice as expensive as in the US/Europe.

 

[endyen]

The 2800 sempron runs a little faster (2ghz) than the xp2500, but has less L2 cache. They perform about the same, but the sempron is usually more expensive. In your case, the price would be all waste. Have you even tried to change the multiplier or fsb on your chip?

 

[Mr5oh]

As Endyen said, the 2500 Barton, and 2800 Sempron, are about the same in performance. In most cases I would prefer the 2500 Barton. For you it isn't an upgrade.

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>

 

[Red_Mercury]

I tried changing the multiplier on the motherboard, But the chip speed stays the same (multiplier locked). My motherboard doesn't have multiple fsb settings, only 100Mhz for Duron's and "auto" for cpu's from 133-166Mhz (266-333). I can change the fsb in the bios setup, but then then the pci/agp/ram speeds increase too.

Isn't there some way to "unlock" the multiplier on the cpu?