[upgrades] CPU and Video card. Questions and request for recommendations.

[orbitalfreak]

My parents and brother are looking at upgrading their computer this Christmas, and we would like some advice.

First, let's talk CPU's. Currently, we have a PIII 600MHz processor. This is a Gateway Performance (500 or 600, I believe), from way back in 1998/1999. We're wanting to upgrade to the biggest PIII that we can for under $150 or so. We're still tech newbies on some fronts, and are wondering if we can just switch out PIII's for higher level versions. Also, can we (and if we can, should we) instead go for a Celeron processor in this motherboard? We can get a PIII 1.0GHz, or a Celeron 2.0GHZ. (I think the chipset is an Intel 815P).

Next, what about video cards? Currently, it's crawling along with a TNT2 card, and we're looking at going up to a 128 or 256 meg card. We have an AGP 4x slot. Will an 8x card work in one of these slots? Second, which cards would you recommend? ATI or nVidia? And what's the best one for under $150? We're talking about a gaming and image-editing machine, here.

Thanks,
--Matt

 

[jdavis]

The 2 gig Celeron is based on the Pentium 4 not the Pentium 3, it won't work with that board. Your going to find a lot of problems upgrading to a motherboard that old. Getting a Pentium 3 prossesor may even cost you more than upgrading everything as they don't make Pentium 3 processors any more (and haven't for a while). It also matters if it's a slot 1 or a socket 370 board. (Pentium 4 chips use socket 478, they used to use socket 423, athlon chips use socket A just for reference). There is also FC-PGA and FC-PGA2 to worry about with socket 370. The best place to start would be to contact Gateway and get as much information about the motherboard and what is compatable with it to start with.

As for the video card I think the AGP x8 cards will work on a AGP x4 slot but I'm not entirely sure about that (it depends on the card). Of course your probably going to bottleneck in the P3 processor and motherboard before you get any real power out of a new top of the line video card.

All and all for a little more than the $300 you were going to spend you can go out and buy a whole new (or refurbished) computer that would be faster than a P3. (for example: http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=S4020WM )For under $150 you should also be able to find a decent motherboard & Processor bundle with a clock speed of at least 2gig (you would have to check to see if your memory would work with a new board too). Less than $100 can get a good video card too (like this FX 5200: http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=3148&sid=44oBmP0mc9qm4WU or this Radeon 9200: http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=2396&sid=44oBmP0mc9qm4WU )At around $150 you can get into the FX 5600's and the Radeon 9600's with a little research: http://www.pricewatch.com/

 

[gariig]

I'd get the cheapest video card you can find that does 3d rendering, like a geforce3. A p3 won't come close to pushing a GF3, GF4, an FX series, or ATI 9xxx series video cards. You really should look into upgrading to next generation technology.

However, the biggest question to ask is..what do you hope to play?

Gariig