Upgrading

[terbert]

Hi all,
Appologies first, if this is old hat to you 'wizards'.

I am upgrading my m/board, and graphics card and CPU. Now, after I install the board, card etc, can I just put the hard drive back in, and will it boot  up ??? Obviously Windows is installed on this disk. I know I will have to point the bios to boot from IDE, at least I think thats what I do  :) The only disk I can find that originally came with the computer ia a recovery disk, whatever that does ? Never used it !!!!

Secondly, my new card is an 512mb DDR2 XFX6200. Browsing thru my M/board manual, I notice it says only install a card of +1.5v. What does this mean, and how can I find the card spec....looked everywhere and drawn a blank  >:(
ANY help appreciated, sorry again if this is 'kids stuff' to you

Regards,
Tony C

[ctjoyce]

Hi all,
Appologies first, if this is old hat to you 'wizards'.

Its all good. Its why this forum is here.

I am upgrading my m/board, and graphics card and CPU. Now, after I install the board, card etc, can I just put the hard drive back in, and will it boot  up ??? Obviously Windows is installed on this disk. I know I will have to point the bios to boot from IDE, at least I think thats what I do  :)

Yes this will work. The motherboard should automatically detect the IDE drive, but you should make sure to spend some good time configuring your BIOS. Also be warned you will have to reactivate windows after this install, however I suggest a full reformat, as you have a all new system basically.

The only disk I can find that originally came with the computer ia a recovery disk, whatever that does ? Never used it !!!!

Its a disk from OEMs that has XP along with all their bulkware on it. I personally would toss it and get a real XP CD as the ones from OEMs usually only work on said OEMs hardware.

Secondly, my new card is an 512mb DDR2 XFX6200.

Sorry to diss your new hardware, but that card is rubbish. You should have taken your $200 and bought a 6800GS or something like that. The extra 256MB of memory will do absolutely nothing as the memory used on that card are rubbish chips. They don't clock for anything or anyone.

Browsing thru my M/board manual, I notice it says only install a card of +1.5v. What does this mean, and how can I find the card spec....looked everywhere and drawn a blank  >:(
ANY help appreciated, sorry again if this is 'kids stuff' to you

Regards,
Tony C

The new card will work. Thats just telling you if your card needs more than that, your going to need an extirnal power source, and there would be a Molex on the card for that.

Hope the upgrade goes well.

Cheers
Cameron

[terbert]

Thanks Cameron,

Much appreciated, and in plain english....
So one more question....My card now is an XFX5200, will it pay to remain with that. I am putting an AMD Sempron 3300+ CPU in.

Regards

Tony C

[cheesegrater]

I think getting a Sempron is a bad idea. Sempron 3300 is 754 socket. It is not worth buying a 754 socket motherboard and CPU. It is a slow CPU on an outdated socket. 128kb L2 cache is laughable.

If you are building on a budget get an AM2 motherboard with AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ Orleans instead. If you don't have enough money, save up, and buy later.

[ctjoyce]

If you are building on a budget get an AM2 motherboard with AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ Orleans instead. If you don't have enough money, save up, and buy later.

I disagree whole heartedly. A 915 Prestler system will be cheaper than a low end AM2 system. It will also prefrom better. And if you buy a newer motherboard, you will be able to just dump that conre right into it.

As for the video card. I don't think I would give that card a second look. Too old, too slow. Look at a 7600GS from eVGA.

Cheers
Cameron

[cheesegrater]

I disagree whole heartedly. A 915 Prestler system will be cheaper than a low end AM2 system. It will also prefrom better. And if you buy a newer motherboard, you will be able to just dump that conre right into it.

As for the video card. I don't think I would give that card a second look. Too old, too slow. Look at a 7600GS from eVGA.

Cheers
Cameron

What is a "915 Prestler"?

However, do you agree that it is a bad idea to buy a 754 socket system?

[ctjoyce]

A 915 Prestler is a Intel Pentium D 915 Prestler Socket LGA775 processer. If I remember right it outbenches the AM2 3800+ Its also cheaper.

Cheers
Cameron

[congo]

This is the deal Terbert,

You need to know if your mainboard supports AGP or PCIe x16 graphics slots. A PCI slot is not a PCIe x16 graphics slot, but it can be used for PCI graphics cards. PCI graphics cards do not perform all that well, so they invented AGP graphics cards that fit into a special offset slot on your mainboard.

The brown slot is an AGP slot. The white ones are PCI slots.



Newer mainboards use PCIe x16 slots for graphic cards, and if you have an AGP or a PCI video card, it simply won't fit in a new mainboard with a PCIe x16 graphics slot.

You need to decide on a mainboard but the secret is to choose a chipset, and then select a mainboard from that chipset.

Chipsets are designed and manufactured to provide a range of features to be available on the PC's built from them, but first, mainboard manufacturers have to build mainboards from those chips.

So, when you see a reference to, let's say:
DFI nF4 Ultra-Infinity Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD

It's a "DFI" made "nForce4 Ultra chipset" based on "AMD" cpu's, in "Socket 939" with an "ATX" standard form factor. The model name is "nF4 Ultra-Infinity".

The chipset "nForce4", on socket 939 has some unique features, as all chipsets do. Because I know the features of nForce 4, I can pretty much tell you what any one of the hundreds of mainbords built on that chipset will be like, not to mention the many sub-chipsets, or variations within the chipset, creating a chipset "family" if you like......

nforce4
nforce4 ultra
nforce sli
nforce sli x16

.....and so forth and so on.

[terbert]

Thanks for all your replies, and Congo, what an explanation........most appreciated.
I fully understand all the 'concerns' of you chaps with reference to 'up to date' chips, boards, etc.
However, whilst you guys use your comps to do everything bar make the bed  ;D My comp is not used for anything other than FS and a few word/excel programmes, and a few other software addons.

Financial situation means that I always have to be a few steps behind when upgrading. The upgrades you are pointing to now, will be what I will be looking at, when you chaps are on the next Invention  ;D

Its good to read your breakdowns, especially to someone like me, a bit long in the tooth, where the computer age has only just hit us. We get there eventually....LOL
Now, I totally respect your comments about the 6200 card, But it was given to me with Sempron CPU so got an Asus 754 board to fit. But I will ask one thing......to try the card, I put it in on this existing m/board, did driver loading, etc....FS runs fine.......but for some strange reason, windows media player only comes up with the title and a blue screen...obviously not loading.....put the XFX5200 back in...all fine, media player working again..  ??? Any thoughts....

Regards,

Tony C

[congo]

The only possible thing I can think of is that you installed a "driver" for the video card that :

1. Was something different

2. Added something different as well as the driver

Make sure you download the video driver from the nVidia website, it shouldn't have any third party software that it installes as well.

I could be totally off track, but the only way I see that media player would be affected is that you installed another player of some kind and it's messed up, so I was thinking that your video card install program may have done something like add a player as well.

You have WinXP?

[congo]

Another thing Tony,

Flight sim just happens to demand the best hardware possible or it suffers, so yeah, I guess advising hardware in this forum makes me think high end all the time.  

There are 4 major elements that seperate the best PC's from the worst:

CPU
Mainboard
RAM
Video

A few months after most hardware releases, prices drop, and with internet shopping, you can lay your hands on the late release gear for about the same price as the old stuff available at local stores.

There is almost always a way to pick the eyes out of the market and get good deals, it's just a matter of putting in the effort and searching around. There are exceptions of course, but if you know WHAT to look for, you'll find a bargain. For example, you might find a mainboard for $70 that does the

[cheesegrater]

A 915 Prestler is a Intel Pentium D 915 Prestler Socket LGA775 processer. If I remember right it outbenches the AM2 3800+ Its also cheaper.

Cheers
Cameron

I don't know about that. From what fanboy did you hear that?

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html? ... model2=245

As you can see there is no 915 Presler on the chart, but even the 965 Presler is slower than 3800 Venice, and the 920 Presler just blows. Why would 915 Presler be any better? And it is Presler not Prestler.

The bottom line is, if you want to game go for AMD. Unless you want to shell out $300 for a Conroe mobo and $500 on the Conroe.

[ctjoyce]

Lol your trusting Toms? Big no no, they tend to skew the results twards whoever pays them more. Go look at anandtech. You can't just base the preformance off of just farcry, if anything 3DMark is the "overall" game benchmark. If you will also look, depending on which chipset you couple the 3800 depends on your results, also depending on your core of the 3800 depends on your results. And one they don't show you is overall cost, and future upgrades. The  presler is cheaper to buy, and LGA775 isn't going anywhere for quite awhile, where as 939 is dead at the end of the year.

Sorry for the spelling.

Cheers
Cameron

[cheesegrater]

Pentium does better than AMD in 3DMark. However, I thought Farcry represents a modern game better, because 3DMark is just watching a slideshow, and there is no physics engine or control imput involved.

Yes, I trust tomshardware.

[ctjoyce]

Pentium does better than AMD in 3DMark. However, I thought Farcry represents a modern game better, because 3DMark is just watching a slideshow, and there is no physics engine or control imput involved. [/qutoe]

Well there isn't a physics engine, however Quake 4 is closer to FS than farcry.

Yes, I trust tomshardware.

As did I, until I found out they were stacking their revews in ATis favor, also they usually try to setup the CPU tests so that AMDs will win or atleast come close. They had a review awhile back on some system, and the Media benchmarks for the AMD were rediculously high. After that I have not gone back to toms, unless as a last resort.

Cheers
Cameron