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Author Topic: PC Upgrade advice  (Read 2177 times)

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Martin_1962

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PC Upgrade advice
« on: 08 May 2007, 21:50:36 »
Looking to rebuild my PC so firstly is this MB any good

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA

With one of these processors

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Processors-Intel/subcat/Core-2-Duo

keeping my current graphics card (256MB AGP jobbie ), case, D: as E: burner, FDD, C: as D:. USB card sound card ect but a 500GB SATA drive
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TheBoy

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #1 on: 08 May 2007, 21:58:11 »
ASRock are budget.
The VIA PT800 chipset is dire.

Dump the video card if its AGP, stick to PCIe now.  Don't compromise a new system with old junk. With things like HDD so cheap (1TB is £250), it is not worth ruining a good system just to reuse an old HDD or DVD writer (£20).

Why keep a USB card, all mobos have 8 or 10 USB 2.0 ports, often better implemented off the PCI bus (PCI is broken, cannot cope with the demands, unless in 133Mhz, 64bit guise), hence why PCIe is now standard.
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Martin_1962

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #2 on: 08 May 2007, 22:17:51 »
Well it looked like reusing my GFX card would be a good idea (well it was quite pricey), and would save around £100, as to reusing my IDE drives - easier than copying everything off them, and with plenty of ports it would be rude not to.

I thought most MBs were restricted to 4 or so USB ports and I have a printer, 2 USB HDDs, a card reader, 2 camera connectors, scanner, and I am sure there are a couple of others I can't remember.
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TheBoy

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #3 on: 08 May 2007, 22:21:02 »
Quote
Well it looked like reusing my GFX card would be a good idea (well it was quite pricey), and would save around £100, as to reusing my IDE drives - easier than copying everything off them, and with plenty of ports it would be rude not to.

I thought most MBs were restricted to 4 or so USB ports and I have a printer, 2 USB HDDs, a card reader, 2 camera connectors, scanner, and I am sure there are a couple of others I can't remember.
What gfx card you got. I think you will find an equivilent PCIe one to be reasonable value.

Most Mobos will have 6 or 8 or more USB 2.0 ports.

Most (uncompromised) mobos will probably only have 1 IDE port. SATA rules now. Old, slow, power hungry drives are old hat now...
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Joneyentee

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #4 on: 08 May 2007, 22:21:54 »
I agree with TB. AGP are pretty much out now. If you're going to upgrade the mobo then go PCI-e.

Personally I prefer AMD  processors to Intel, but each to their own.

MSI (Micro Star International) mobos are pretty good from what I've heard.
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Martin_1962

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #5 on: 09 May 2007, 09:27:43 »
My router crashed last night while replying to this post, took half an hour to get it working >:(

My GFX card has 256MB of RAM and is quick. Can't see the point in wasting all my old drives, saves copying everytjhing off them!!
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AndersH

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #6 on: 09 May 2007, 10:04:33 »
I would suggest a reinstall of the operating system with a new MB and CPU anyway, seen people try it before and is often a lot more hassle...
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TheBoy

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #7 on: 09 May 2007, 19:38:47 »
Quote
My GFX card has 256MB of RAM and is quick. Can't see the point in wasting all my old drives, saves copying everytjhing off them!!
What card is it?  Being AGP, and being surprised if you paid £300 for it, I am guessing it was a low to mid range card about 3yrs ago.  So very dated now.

As to the drives, they are simply not worth using if they are PATA. Get a decent SATA.

Keep the old PC as is, give it to kids.  Simply not worth compromising a new machine with old parts, as that would throttle it badly. I mechanical terms, running a MV6 on an AR25 box - all that extra performance wasted.


Knowing you do video editting, probably best stick to Intel.  The very fastest Core Duos are capable. However, for this task, the fastest P4s are still worthwhile.  AMD's do well in benchmarks, but not so well in real world.

For Intel CPUs, Intel chipsets are hard to beat.

For AMD CPUs, Nvidia nForce chipsets are capable.

Hope that helps.
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Martin_1962

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #8 on: 09 May 2007, 20:57:25 »
It does help - I bought the GFX card last year when my original one conked out.

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Kevin Wood

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #9 on: 09 May 2007, 21:05:55 »
If the drives are more than a year or two old I'd replace them anyway. You're on borrowed time in this case judging by the way some modern drives seem to expire.

And rebuilding the system is a good opportunity for a clean out and will avoid the instability that often results from whipping out the hardware from under the OS and replacing with something completely different.

Kevin
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TheBoy

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #10 on: 09 May 2007, 21:20:55 »
Quote
It does help - I bought the GFX card last year when my original one conked out.

What model of card? I can then give you an idea of current equivilent, and you can see how much it costs...
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Martin_1962

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #11 on: 09 May 2007, 22:26:15 »
Winfast A7600 (NVidia chip set)
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Joneyentee

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #12 on: 09 May 2007, 22:31:13 »
Price-wise now that'd be £65.

For the same price you can get a 512Mb 8500 GT PCI-e.
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Martin_1962

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #13 on: 09 May 2007, 22:40:15 »
And I was drooling over some 750GB HDDs
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ians

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Re: PC Upgrade advice
« Reply #14 on: 09 May 2007, 23:27:02 »
As a matter of interest, what is the budget for this compared to buying a new machine of the required spec?
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