Posted on 12/05/2005 3:04:55 PM PST by jeremiah
I am looking to put a new motherboard and processor in my desktop. I am looking to have the best I can get the cheapest possible of course. I have a tower, a 350 watt power sourse, dvd writer, just looking to upgrade. Need an onboard video card, or advice on how to go
I'm not trying to sound smart alecky, but if you have to ask it would probably be best to have a professional install it for you. You would have to reinstall Windows when you change the motherboard and that, frankly, isn't a simple procedure.
That is the best advice I can provide in a post. Good luck.
And Merry Christmas.
Anand Tech guide for budget system with video onboard
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2563&p=2
This summer, when my other system died, I bought the barebones, added what I 'needed'. Got the P4, 3.06Ghz, 1 Gig ram, 120 gig HD, DVD-R for around $600. I already had .5 Gig ram I had recently purchased; that stick worked in new system, so I have 1.5 Gig ram. Bought XP as OEM locally. Had recently bought mouse and keyboard, so I didn't buy them again. All in all, I now have a pretty fast system, added a second DVD-R, all for around $800.
Soon I will get a rock and pound my POS system to bits. The problem is, the people that have parts and systems to sell, try to pawn off things that are not the best, or overpriced. I live in a backwater swamp, and to get hardware I have to drive over an hour one way. I just need to figure out what to order online, or go to Office Desperate.....
Lian Li case.
FSP Group AX500ATTX 500W Power Supply.
Western Digital Raptor 10K rpm SATA HDs.
LaCie 16x d2 USB2/Firewire Doublelayer DVD +/- RW Drive
Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE Intel Motherboard w/ 925XE Chipset.
Abit Fatal1ty X800XL PCI Express Graphics Card w/512 MB RAM onboard.
Intel Plentium 4 650 Prescott 3.4GHz 800FSB 2MG Cache socket 775 processor.
4GB Geil DDR2-533 PC4300 Memory.
9 case fans, 1 Intel cpu & 2 chipset OTES Ramflow, and 2 memstick fans, temp., power, and rpm controlled from Abit uGuru software.
It overclocks to 5.3 GHz on Half Life 2 without liquid cooling. The case LEDs are for fun.
An AMD setup will save a few bucks, with slightly less performance.
I went with a game setup, because if a kid can't break it, it will last a long time.
Sweet!
Feels good doesn't it?
Nice!
Get a whole new box and everything. The old boxes pile up, but as tech changes they become gradually incompatible. Also, with a new box comes a new OS. That alone is worth the trouble of upgrading the hardware. Keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, etc. can be kept--the box alone [with new boards, I/O ports, modem, network port] isn't real expensive.
I bought everything online, and found the best bargains at zipzoomfly.
So...can you heat your house with that rig or just the computer room?
The best site for reviews and ratings of online computer and electronics vendors is ResellerRatings.com. Whether building my own computer from components, or buying a laptop or digital camera, I go here first to find the vendors with the best service and prices.Ratings for some of the websites noted above:
I urge you to stick with online retailers that have plenty of reviews and a high rating on ResellerRatings.com. Both Newegg.com and ZipZoomFly are excellent. I would avoid the others listed above with low or few (none!) ratings.
Newegg.com 9.32 Tiger Direct 5.44 Office Depot 4.11 ZipZoomFly 8.20 BuyDirectPC none
If your power supply is not one of the top rated brands, such as Antec, Thermaltake, or the gold standard PC Power and Cooling, then junk it and get a decent one.
The key decision will be whether or not you want to play serious games. A gaming box (such as someone else posted above) will cost you twice a general purpose (office, web, documents, photos, email, ...) box. Last year, when I was building several PC's, I could outfit a general purpose box for about $500 in parts, or a gaming box for $1000 and up, in parts.
Your best bet, in my experience, if you don't want to custom build your own PC from all the parts, is to go to a site such as Monarch Computer Systems (rating 8.99) and pick something from their lists of either prebuilt, ready to go, or their built to order according to your selections.
I'd be tempted to go with Socket 939 AMD. The systems I built last year used that, so it is no longer bleeding edge at all. They provide good value for the money, or if you want more processing power, AMD is currently ahead of Intel in dual core performance.
Get plenty of memory (RAM), at least one Gigabyte for Windows XP. Too little RAM is the single biggest cause of "poor performance" complaints.
Even on the systems that I only use for editing text documents, I have given up on the onboard video and added a separate video card. The onboard video quality sucks, too blurry.
If you a spendthrift, wait until January or February, and pick up models that are being discontinued. Unless you know what you're doing, however, it is difficult to ensure you get good stuff this way.
If you plan to keep the old parts that seem to be working, then you really need to have a clear understanding of why you are upgrading, Adding a few new parts to an old car won't make it run any better, unless you add the parts that are actually causing problems. Same with computers.
How much memory do you have? If it's 512 Mbytes (or worse 256 Mbytes) then you probably want more.
What do you -use- the computer? What programs do you run? That makes a big difference on what sort of hardware you need. You can't choose between a pickup, an SUV or a Honda Civic without knowing what you are hauling. Again, same with computers. Given what you describe, I am guessing that you are not a serious gamer.
If it's "random crashes and hang", then it could be power or software (Windows cruft, spyware, and such). First try backing up your data that you care about (back it up and double check it twice, to be sure) and then reinstall Windows XP Home with Service Pack 2, which you can get on a CD from Newegg.com for $87.95. Best to install from a CD, rather than upgrading an older Windows XP across the network, because PC's connected directly to the Web running earlier versions of Windows can be infected with spyware in fewer minutes than it takes to download the updates.
Besides power supplies and windows software, another cause of old machines getting unstable is failing capacitors on the motherboard (aka mainboard). Diagnosing power or capacitor problems is not easy for the inexperienced. Easier (unless your time is worth far less than your money) to replace the box.
Athlon
No matter what else you do, get an Athlon.
I have a 3 month old dvd burner, I am basically trying to use that and the speakers. Sounds like I need a new tower, power supply, motherboard, processor, video card/s.....new monitor. I want to build a high powered gamer, would like to spend around a grand. I have two hard drives that are freshly loaded with XP service pack 2...I am just going to try this....I hope I don't spend more than I have to, but I want something upgradeable, powerful, and fast. I may just end up buying one I found online.
You might try then a custom built from Monarch Computer. You will have to cut it tight to get a "high powered gamer" for under a grand. The monitor will cost you $200 or $300 for a 17" flat panel, leaving you only $700 or $800 for the box, which gets you a decent minimal gamer, not a high powered one.
If you want them to build and test it for you, I suspect (not sure) this means you will have to buy at least one small disk from them, for perhaps $50 to $100, which will be a bit of a waste. But unless you build yourself from the parts, you kind of have to put up with that.
I'd suggest giving Monarch a call. One of the reasons they get high ratings is because they have capable people on the phone who can match up your needs with what's available.
The closest that I see, offhand, that matches what I'd recommend and what I understand of your needs is the Monarch Adversary Value Gaming Desktop Special (PCI-E) , for $845.00. It has a case, power, motherboard and memory that I'd recommend. Unless you are good at this, you may be hard pressed to get as good a system for less money by buying parts and reusing the disks and dvd you have.
Thank you, I will try it.
One other piece of advice I would give you is to get a motherboard with onboard video that can be turned off in BIOS. That way, you can save money now, but expand the video with a sweet card later....if you choose.
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