500mhz to 850mhz... worth the money?

[martinbeck]

I have a 440BX board with a 500mhz PIII, and a TNT2 graphics card.
I can get a 850mhz slot1 for $170 or so.
Is this worthwhile to do? I'm running PC100 memory, 100mhz fsb. I'm putting in a GeForce3... I want to get good game performance for MaxPayne, NOLF, and hopefully NOLF2, Unreal2, etc. Is this a smart upgrade?

 

[AMD_Man]

No, for the same price, or perhaps just slightly more, you can get a 1GHz Athlon, ECS motherboards and 256MB DDR RAM.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[martinbeck]

For $170 I can get an Althon, mobo, and new memory?
I need more than 256mb memory for running VC++ and some work applications at home which are total memory hogs.

For any new games, I need to dump the TNT2 and get a GeForce, probably a GF3, which is already a big chunk of money.

 

[bront]

You can upgrade to an 800 slot one for about $110 (Check pricewatch.com). A Geforce 3 will help a lot, and you should be able to play todays games at acceptable rates with it (Maybe at lower res, but still quite playable). However, you will be limited in the future.

My recomendation, get the vid card first, and see how that runs (Remember, most BX boards are only 1X AGP). If it is acceptable for what your needs are at the moment, save up your money. Later on, for 300-350, you should be able to get an Athlon XP, New Motherboard, and DDR ram.

If the system is still unaceptable with the new vidcard, a new processor might help, but often there are other issues, such as new MB features, AGP speed (2x does help over 1X, 4X isn't fully used yet), FSB speed (133 does help a lot over 100), and such. So you won't be getting as much bang for your buck with simply a new processor with a dated (Although nice, I've got one, love it) motherboard. Epecialy when you're only increasing the speed of the CPU by 70% with no other change.

60 FPS, 70 FPS, 80 FPS Crash!
Daylight comes and I have to go to work :frown:

 

[martinbeck]

Thanks...
Pricewatch actually shows 850mhz for $8 less than 800mhz, weird.
The board's an intel SE440BX2 so it should use AGP2x.
I'll get the vid card first, and maybe do the new CPU later.

 

[SerArthurDayne]

If you were feeling adventurous enough to get a new motherboard and processor, you could easily get 80 to 90 dollars on Ebay for your old motherboard, processor, and memory. Depending on what model your TNT2 is, and you could get 20 to 30 bucks for that. Add the 170 and suddenly you got almost 300 buckaroonies to play with, provided you're actually willing to sell your old stuff and use ebay to do it (I sell pulled junk all the time there... it's amazing how much people will pay sometimes for old parts just because their computer is too old for newer stuff, and they refuse to make a major upgrade).

$67 (Newegg) Athlon 1 ghz 266fsb
$57 (Newegg) ECS K7S5A
$72 (Newegg) 2 x 256MB Crucial DDR PC2100 (newegg's memory is expensive compared to other stores)
$12 (Newegg) Volcano 5 HSF
$16 (Newegg) cost of shipping above items to VA, just as example

$3 (RadioShack) Thermal grease for heatsink

$228 = Total cost of Upgrade. You've got 70 bucks left over to upgrade your power supply if need be and any other little items.

Eh heh heh.... I was bored so I went window shopping on Newegg to see how much this stuff would cost and then just slapped it up here. If you don't feel up to a major upgrade, slot1 PIII's are still expensive but it might be worth it - like I said, it's amazing how much people will shell out to upgrade an old system with old parts, just because they can't get newer stuff).

"Laziness is a talent to be cultivated like any other" - Walter Slovotsky

 

[Matisaro]

Dayne is right, it is not worth it to update any p3, when a faster chip/mobo/ram can be bought for less if you go the amd route.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

 

[bront]

Great. Let us know how things turn out.

60 FPS, 70 FPS, 80 FPS Crash!
Daylight comes and I have to go to work :frown:

 

[bront]

I wouldn't say that. Depends on what you're upgrading from and too.

I've got a P2 300, and will likely go to a P3 800 on 133. All I need is the processor, maybe a HS, as I have everything else. And all I'd be using it for is a local internet server to route my home access, and I may not even upgrade if I find that is suits my purposes well.

However, that's jumping from a P2 to a P3 as well as close to tripling the CPU speed, and speeding up the FSB. And all for about $100-$125. Well worth it if I don't plan on gaming with the system.

60 FPS, 70 FPS, 80 FPS Crash!
Daylight comes and I have to go to work :frown:

 

[Matisaro]

You will need to get a new heatsink.


Bront for 130 you can have a 1ghz tbird and a ddr mobo, which can use dram for the time being, everything else will work(even the psu) and you get a faster more upgradable system. AND you will have your chip and mobo free to give away/sell.

Like I said, there is NO reason to get a faster p3 chip over a total amd upgrade.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

 

[AMD_Man]

Even if you need lots of RAM, 512MB DDR will be dirt cheap.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor