Upgrades sigh

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 30, 2006, 12:59 pm

Okay I am presented with the following;

Current System:
Soyo Ultra Dragon Plat MB, supports P4, ddr400, ide no sata
Geforce4 4600ti
P42.8
1GIG Kingston DDR400 RAM
and the other components blah, but they are not important

The MB is failing, only one of the three RAM slots work and it is becoming flaky (used to have 2gigs of RAM until a slot took its chip with it) its onboard sound does not work with XP (CMI chip, RUN away from this junk) so I am stuck upgrading 12 months earlier than I wanted to. So I am thinking I have two options.

Option 1:
MSI 865PE NEO2-V Socket 478 Intel 865PE ATX Intel Motherboard
CHAINTECH SA6600-256MB Geforce 6600 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X

Or Option 2:
MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard
Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH - 256M Geforce 6600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939

Option 1 prices at $190, Option 2 at $370. Funny thing is that I have just at 350 to dump on this issue, but I will swing the extra 20 if need be. Upsides to both moves is my wife moves froma Geforce4 42000ti to the 4600 with Option 2 her processor moves from P2.4 to P2.8. So that is worth the first hundred to me. Both can use my current stick of RAM, both work off my current powersupply, hard drives etc.

The big advantage to spending all the cash on option 2 is that It lets me upgrade to a dual core later and is a cheap step into nforce, along with the superior rating of the 6600gt versus the 6600,and having PCI-X for future vid upgrades. Also I can move to dual channel RAM with option 2.

Each of these has many plus and minuses, I will leave it to any of you to smack around. But I want to reach 18-24 months usage out of the end result.

miir · Post by **miir** » May 30, 2006, 2:30 pm

Why the fuck would you even consider an upgrade to a motherboard without PCIE?

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 30, 2006, 2:53 pm

miir wrote:Why the fuck would you even consider an upgrade to a motherboard without PCIE?

Purely for cost savings, but spending 190 instead of 370 I have another couple of hundred for the next HD upgrade, or a MB to replace the crappy one on my fileserver.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 30, 2006, 3:09 pm

Also thinking...

$108.99 ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI ATX AMD - Retail
$109.99 EVGA 256-P2-N541-TX GeForce 7600GS 256 MB GDDR2 PCI-E 16x -
Retail
$135.00 AMD Athalon 64 3200+ Venice 2000Mhz HT Socket 939 - Retail

$353.98 total + S&H and all are available on Newegg.

Or pushing it and going

$108.99 ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI ATX AMD - Retail
$149.99 Chaintech GSE76GT Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3?
$135.00 AMD Athalon 64 3200+ Venice 2000Mhz HT Socket 939 - Retail

$393.98 total + S&H

But that would break the bank LOL

Psyloche · Post by **Psyloche** » May 30, 2006, 3:19 pm

Kylere wrote:Also thinking...

$108.99 ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI ATX AMD - Retail
$109.99 EVGA 256-P2-N541-TX GeForce 7600GS 256 MB GDDR2 PCI-E 16x -
Retail
$135.00 AMD Athalon 64 3200+ Venice 2000Mhz HT Socket 939 - Retail

$353.98 total + S&H and all are available on Newegg.

Or pushing it and going

$108.99 ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI ATX AMD - Retail
$149.99 Chaintech GSE76GT Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3?
$135.00 AMD Athalon 64 3200+ Venice 2000Mhz HT Socket 939 - Retail

$393.98 total + S&H

But that would break the bank LOL

make sure you buy a replacement for the northbridge fan... fucking piece of shit. otherwise, i love the board. although i now realize that i don't care for sli.

Xyphir · Post by **Xyphir** » May 30, 2006, 3:53 pm

I recently upgraded with the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum 939, and the only complaint I have is the northbridge. When that fan gets churning, it sounds like a jet taking off. I've replaced the CPU and video card fan with Zalman fans. The northbridge is next.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » May 30, 2006, 4:28 pm

Psyloche wrote:
make sure you buy a replacement for the northbridge fan... fucking piece of shit. otherwise, i love the board. although i now realize that i don't care for sli.

No shit. Those motherboard fans are total crap. I took mine off and just let my case with high airflow to cool the chipset. (has partial heatsink still on it and CPU fan blows over it as well)

I recommend the heatpipe cooled MB Chipset ASUS boards as long as you're not going to OC and have a case with good (very good) airflow.

miir · Post by **miir** » May 30, 2006, 5:21 pm

$108.99 ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI ATX AMD - Retail
$109.99 EVGA 256-P2-N541-TX GeForce 7600GS 256 MB GDDR2 PCI-E 16x -
Retail
$135.00 AMD Athalon 64 3200+ Venice 2000Mhz HT Socket 939 - Retail

$353.98 total + S&H and all are available on Newegg.

That looks like a winner to me.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 30, 2006, 7:38 pm

The comment about not caring about SLI, that is the remainder of mydebate at this point.

Should I go SLI or not. If you have a preference one way or the other, let me know why. Honestly I can not see a big diff other thae the ability to shotgun in another matching vid card in 6 months cheap.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » May 31, 2006, 12:51 pm

I have the ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard and i'm very pleased with it.

Mine doesnt have a fan on the motherboard though, it has a heatsink pipe or something like that.

At any rate i've had no problems with the motherboard and the general layout as far as access to plugs and jumpers and all that worked for me.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 31, 2006, 12:57 pm

Okay I think I have narrowed it as follows;
Asus A8N-SLI $108
eVGA Geforce 7600GT 256MB $169
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ $135

For eek $412 before shipping. I would like the 3500 but ouch, and the SLI versus Non-sli board gives me the ability to add another 7600gt later. What really burns me about this is I would rather keep my P42.8 because it performs within 3% of the speed of the 3200 and within 8% of the 3500, but finding a MB with PCI-e and socket 478 is impossible most likely because it makes sense, why have second rate AMD when the Intel performs the same? Because the industry is not giving us a choice.

I have talked myself out of the 6600GT because from what I can find in terms of eprformace indexes the 6600GT SLI'd, equals the 7600GT, and the 7600GT SLI'd matches anything.

I figure this will give me another 18-30 months of being able to run what I want, especially as the only way I will run Vista is as a console because of some game. No other reason to buy what is essentially XP SP3 with heavy handed DRM, graphic slowdowns from silly interface, and an overall slower OS.

I know I have went above my limit, but it is not an easy thing to do lol. I will be glad for any additional input.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » May 31, 2006, 1:14 pm

Looking at a similar setup, I'm wondering if the 350w Antec PS that came in my Sonata case is up to running that plus 4hdd and a dvd burner.

Anyone have a guess?

miir · Post by **miir** » May 31, 2006, 1:16 pm

Good that you decided to go with Asus and EVGA.

I cringed when I saw MSI, Chaintech and Leadtek in your original post.

Not that there's anything horrible with those manufacturers (I'm sure the majority of their hardware is perfectly reliable) but I have personally had problems with all 3.... MSI isn't that bad... but Leadtek quality was total shit (might be better now)....when I was at ATI, we got 3 DOA cards in 2 weeks from them.

A while back I bought a Chaintech 5600 leafblower that had a dead fan... the store gave me a replacement no problem but 3 months later the card died and getting a RMA from those fuckers was like pulling teeth.

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » May 31, 2006, 1:35 pm

Kylere wrote: What really burns me about this is I would rather keep my P42.8 because it performs within 3% of the speed of the 3200 and within 8% of the 3500, but finding a MB with PCI-e and socket 478 is impossible most likely because it makes sense, why have second rate AMD when the Intel performs the same? Because the industry is not giving us a choice.

AMD chips generally perform better for gaming applications anyway. Clockspeed isnt everything. Switching to AMD is an upgrade by itself

If you keep this board for awhile it will continue to do you good because you have room to upgrade with 939 even though the next best thing is around the corner and you wont be wasting money on Intel anymore.

Syenye · Post by **Syenye** » May 31, 2006, 1:37 pm

fuck chaintech. after yelling at their tech support and demanding to be escalated for 75 minutes straight, my raging outbursts are now referred to as 'going chaintech' on someone. apparently removing a GPU and soldering it onto a different board is part of the normal process to setup SLI.

i just built a new machine for my dad with the Asus A8N-SLI board. it's a great board on a budget i think. only 3 PCI slots though, which usually isn't a problem for me anyway.

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » May 31, 2006, 3:25 pm

Aabidano wrote:Looking at a similar setup, I'm wondering if the 350w Antec PS that came in my Sonata case is up to running that plus 4hdd and a dvd burner.

Anyone have a guess?

I just bought recently:
Asus A8N-SLI MB 159.00
7800GT Video Card 289.00
A64 3200+ 2.0G CPU 154.00
2gig D400 Ram 182.00
300 gig HD SATA 135.00

I only have a 350w PS and it is handling it all very well. I have a dvd burner installed and 1 other hard drive as well.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » May 31, 2006, 6:10 pm

what i think is more important than SLI on that motherboard is that it will support a dual core 64 bit processor.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 31, 2006, 6:17 pm

ASUS A8N-SLI NF4SLI 939 - Retail $108.99
EVGA GF 7600GT 256-P2-N553-AX - Retail $169.99
AMD|A64 3200+ 2.0G 939 512K R - Retail $135.00

Total S/H 424.39

Okay so I cheated on the price, went middle of the road between the 1gig cache 3500+ and the 512 gig in cache 1.8ghz clock speed 3000+, and decided that having SLI I may not use is better than not having it and wanting it later.

Besides which I may toss a 4800+ on in 6 months, and a second 7600GT in 12.