cheap upgrade

[poorboy]

Hey *,

The time has come to upgrade an elderly k6-2 500. I'm doing this on the cheap, and will likely go for a Duron 1100. The box is just for 'net, office type stuff, and short term coding. Performance ain't really a big issue, as I'll only have the box for a few months before it gets relegated to accounting duties.

I'm wondering if anyone knows about DFI mobos? Are they stable? They seem to focus on OEM, so I'm guessing yes. Any one got experiences (other than my local shop who sells it I'm alternating between a KT133A board, and either KT333 or KT266A depending on the answers to the next question - fwiw the price is the same for the latter 2.

Also, DDR is a good thing obviously, but I've got wads of PC133 already and it seems a shame to effectively throw it away. Can anyone point me to results showing how much a difference it really makes for a low-end system such as this?

Thanks,
Rich.

Edit:
Specific mobos I'm looking at are:
DFI AK75-EC (KT133A)
DFI AD75 (KT333)
Asus A7N266-VM (nForce 220D)

The integrated graphics of the Asus aren't important. It just happens to be a cheap DDR board...

<i>Do I look like I care?</i><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by poorboy on 07/31/02 04:05 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Quetzacoatl]

If you need an inexpensive upgrade, you can get this here. Be warned though, it requires a hefty power supply. We're talking a decent PSU, from Antec/Enermax/ect, and at least 300 or more watts.

*gunshots* The ECS K7S5A

This motherboard received a lot of flak for problems, but my friend owns one, and personally, i've had no problems with it, as long as you have a GOOD power supply. It has the Sis 735 chipset, supporting both SDR and DDR. So you can use your good old SDR, and upgrade to DDR later if you want.

As for your processor, i'd get an inexpensive Athlon XP instead of a Duron for a few bucks more. At around $70 or 80, you can get an Athlon XP 1500+ or 1600+. The additional cache and improvements make it reasonably faster than the Durons. If you want to go frugal though, a Duron 1300Mhz provides very acceptable performance, at only about $60 I believe.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

 

[Dinski]

Hi buddy!
You gave me a good advise on Linux, so I will try to help you now.
A good stable mobo is Elitegroup with SIS735 chipset. It's not overclockable and it's slower than the version with SIS745 chipset, but it has 2 SDRAM and 2 DDRAM slots, so you may use your old SDRAM sticks first.
The price is $55-$56.
It works stable, no matter what some guys say. You've just to ensure your power supply is at least 300W.
The ECS board with SIS745 chip costs $5 more, but it uses only DDRAM.
The fastest chipset for K7 now is Via KT-333.
DFI are not bad, but two friends think they are not rock-hard stable.
Gigabyte are also not expensive and good mobos.
In conclusion: mobo: MSI, Gigabyte, Elitegroup. I prefer ASUS.
Chipset: KT-333, nForce-420, KT-266A, SIS-745, SIS-735.

<font color=orange>ÃÎËßÌ ÇÀËÚÊ ËÀÏÍÈ, ÃÎËßÌÀ ÙÀÍÃÀ ÂÄÈÃÍÈ!</font color=orange>

 

[poorboy]

Thanks guys, but unfortunately supply is limited in these parts. And when you add the cost of shipping, the savings disappear quickly... Stuff is a ripoff here. Eg, AthlonXP 1800 is about US$150 here, but US$80 on pricewatch. You can basically double the my prices compared to US, and probably more in Asia. Sux.

Anyway, I've juggled some numbers (and vendors), and it's looking like I can go with Duron 1100 + DFI AD75 for the same price as a Duron 1200 + Gigabyte GA-7VRX. I've had a good run out of Gigabyte and Asus too, so I'll go with the Gigabyte board.

<i>Do I look like I care?</i>

 

[Quetzacoatl]

No! Don't get the Gigabyte board, the Ga-7rxp is among the worst.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

 

[poorboy]

No big deal. DFI then.

Do you have any linkage?

Edit:
Um, I wrote 7VXR, not what you said. I heard something about the board version being a big deal. 1.0 were crap, but 1.1 or whatever are good (and was reviewed at THG).

<i>Do I look like I care?</i><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by poorboy on 07/31/02 06:25 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Gigabyte has had some poor releases since their onset of the Ga-7vxr and Ga-7rxp series, although I cannot vouch for their Kt333 board until I get my hands on one. I would recommend against Gigabyte though.

DFI would be the way to go. Reliable boards, if not just a bit sparce in features.

"When there's a will, there's a way."

 

[poorboy]

I've got a GA-7DXR+ in one machine and it's been flawless. The few older boards I've used have been fine too...

Having said that though, the vendor might be an issue so I'll probably go with the DFI anyway, and I don't need the features for this box.

<i>Do I look like I care?</i>

 

[nja469]

GA-7vtxe is a very stable, fairly new board with the 266A chipset. Cheap as hell too - recommended. The on-board sound is the wrost I've ever heard though, a $8 c-media 6-ch PCI sound card was 100X better than the POS on-board sound. Other than that a great, economical board.

"Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one"

 

[jankphil]

well i can tell you what, the ECS K7S5A and GA-7VXRP both have problems, and don't tell me it's because of a bad power supply, i've gone through 2 Antec and 1 Enermax power supply and i still can't get it to work right. The truth is, with these 2 mobo's you get lucky and get a good one, or you get one that makes a good frisby. I would strongly suggest going with a XP chip if your on a money limit because the duron's will be replaced by the XP's very shortly. So if you do go duron, you'll be even further behind before you even start

"What kind of idiot are you?"
"I don't know, what kinds are there?"

 

[nja469]

OKAY, HERE'S A CHEAP WAY TO UPDATE THIS SUCKER!

You can go even cheaper, and save like $45, but this setup will offer really good performance - it WON'T be slow - & I'm sure you'd be happy with it!

Board: Shuttle AK31A or Gigabyte GA-7VTXE. Both use the VIA 266A chipset, which is one on the most stable - high performing chipsets for AMD. I've personally used both boards with no problems at all. On-board sound isn't great, but it appears you're not worried about sound so screw it. Plus I've discovered eight buck, 6-ch PCI cards sound better than SB Live 5.1 ) Anyhoe, these boards will run you about $53-$59 shipped US - add I don't know $14 for intl? Like a week ago I found some local guys offering the Gigabyte at about the same price as pricewatch, so maybe a vendor in your area carries something cheap? On to the processor - $36 for a Duron 1GHz which has the newer morgan core from TCWO, i dunno say $14 again for intl ship. RAM.. ditch that shitty SDRAM and get some DDR man. People who say they don't notice a difference between SDRAM and DDR need to be evaluated, I mean seriously. Personally, I haven't found a need for more than 256MB of DDR. XP Pro only uses 60% of it and I'm an avid gamer, rip mp3's, dvds, etc... so let's say you get a stick of high quality RAM since you don't want crap RAM TRSUT ME. Googlegear, a personal fav online retailer of mine can hook you up w/ 256 of Samsaung CAS 2 PC2100 for $61 - shipped fedex 2-day FREE, but we'll add $14 for the hell of it just in case. So let's see where we're at on a total: $154 parts - for a system I guarantee will make you happy and be somewhat impressive, yet only a modest upgrade. Also, if you eBay the old CPU, board and RAM you could end up getting $100 for it all, at least $75. Think about it, enjoy if you decide to go with it - you may need to get a rated cooler for the Duron since the one from Thompson's is OEM - also make sure you have at least a 300W PSU for the Duron 1GHz.

ppl will offer different opinions or disagree, but that's exactly why I have my sig ) Let me know what you end up doing.

"Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one"

 

[poorboy]

Well... I went for locally available parts, simply because it's easier if I need to RMA or whatever.

The result is a DFI AZ30 with a Duron 1.1 GHz, and 256MB Legend DDR. Cost for that was about US$250. Crazy. I've already got an Enermax 300W PSU, so it can handle the load no probs. I'd have prefered Crucial RAM (and more of it - for Linux + Java dev projects), but it was a combo deal and has a decent warranty.

At the end of the day, it's not worth stressing over; in a few months this box will be doing accounts in an office... besides with the $ I saved, I bought a new LCD monitor Much more important than a 10% speed up.


<i>Do I look like I care?</i>