Sip and Surf Upgrade: Suggestions and Recommendations

[Beomagi]

When I was building my pc i was faced with power vs upgradability. I went for power, since in 3 years, i'm building a new one anyway, and that's how long this 6800gt would last me. Given that you're upgrading from 1600+, you're talking about the same time frame.

dammit why didn't i see your post sooner?
there was a bunch of pny 6800s selling for under 160 and now they're sold out.

would keep an eye out if i see any though.

what if you dont mind me asking is sip and surf?

[Kaizen]

Sip N Surf is  well known cyber cafe that was on campus corner O_o now they move to First Floor, Anva Plaza,16-18 Eastern Main Road, Tunapuna
also i s a gatt  gl

[W1nTry]

EPoX EP-9NPAJ Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail 84.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123243

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice Integrated into Chip FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail $146.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537

CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory - Retail $40.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145026

GIGABYTE GV-NX66T128D Geforce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $160.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125156

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST380817AS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM $62.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148040

Thats the guts, anything else can be sourced locally I figure, so the total is (btw these are not inclusive of shipping): $493USD say $520USD total shipping to T&T which is about $3276TT. Add a breezer case to that for sufficient cooling and power, that should be no more than about 400TT, for a total of $3700TT (worst case). Now let me see the 754 rigs:

eVGA 128-A8-N350 Geforce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail: $159.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130220

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle Integrated into Chip FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 754 Processor - Retail $146.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103486

MSI K8T Neo-V Socket 754 VIA K8T800 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $62.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130498

Using the same memory and HD as above we end up with a total of: $469USD and with shipping to T&T say bout $500USD or $3150TT roughly or about $3550TT with case. This is nominally cheaper than the PCIe rig... i'd say go with the 939 but thats based on the prices and place i'd buy it from, if u can source these parts cheaper from an equally creditable etailer then even better.

[TriniXaeno]

Nice!

w1ntry's suggestions

939 mobo            84.99
6600 GT PCI X         160
Athlon 64 3000+         146
512MB DDR 3200         40
80GB ATA Drive         62
Case            49
Shipping            15
US$ Total            556.99
TT$ Total            $3509.00

754 Mobo            62
6600 GT AGP         159
Athlon 64 3000+         146
512MB DDR 3200         40
80GB ATA Drive         62
Case            49
Shipping            15
US$Total            533
TT$Total            $3358.00

Good shot, but both comin in over the $3000.00 hard limit.

Remember, $500 x 10 is a difference of $5000.00

Any chance of squeezing those down to $3000.00?

[W1nTry]

Those prices will be hard to beat I am sure, however as I said if u have alternative suppliers even if its for 1 of the items it will cut overall costs as u rightfully said 500x10=5000, so even if u save say 10USD thats 100USD across the board or 630TT. So maybe smaller HDs and ATA100 or ATA133 instead of SATA. You might consider X700 or 6600 cards instead of the GT? and OC them to get some extra performance outta them, you could also consider buying the memory locally, instead of 512x1 256x2 since its dual channel in the 939. There must be some way to get it down to at least 3200TT

[TriniXaeno]

well it needs to get down to $3000.00

see what magic you can work. try the substitutes, find a girl friend in taiwan maybe who can hook us up direct. lol

[Kaizen]

rofl @ gf in taiwan

[richjob]

Heh.

Allyuh planning to go 64 bit windows anytime soon?

Stick with the Sempron 3100.  Runs cool and is fast as a mofo.  Good for the next two years.

Actually was looking at the possibility of converting one of the old beasties into NAS storage.  Storage IYMC, and yuh doh need a current PC.  NasLite go conduct yuh decent.

[TriniXaeno]

that nas story soundin good!

spill more beans rich!

[richjob]

Basically something like the SnapServer.

Except yuh using an old PC (Pentium II with PCI, a good NIC  and 32 MB of RAM go conduct yuh), and a floppy drive.  Stick in yuh IDE drives (size shouldn't matter as conventional BIOS limitations doh come into play here)

http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php

IT free, yuh create the NASLITE floppy for what yuh want (if is a FTP server, a NFS server or a FTP server) boot from floppy, configure and done.   Basically.  Good l'il project to keep yuh busy a Sunday.

[TriniXaeno]

kick ass

I'll play with that this sunday. Media server iwmc!

[Crixx_Creww]

we are paying US$59 for the 80gb drives. (TT$371.70)

Going to $460.00 for the 120gb will put us over budget by $90.00.

Well i price watched it and found magnetic data 160 gigs for 59 usd each

[TriniXaeno]

seriously refurbished drives iwmc!

it is a good price, but considering the volatility of a hard drive, it would be risky to take a chance on refurbished hds.

Richjob, the naslite is pay-ware iwmc.

can't get it for free from that site for win32 (we need the cd to create the img, or so they say)

Found an img on sourceforge, extracted it using rawwrite but can't get the thing to boot and work.

bunch of kernel panic errors immc.

OK, update iymc

After lucking out on a win32 solution, I grabbed a dcopy app and headed to good ol' dos 16 bit land.

Managed to create a 1722k diskette (didn't even know such a thing existed) and copied NasLite to it.

Booted up on a PII 300 with 64mb of ram and blotoye, NAS iwmc.

Network performance isn't amazing. Hovers between 4-6mb /s

I am accustomed to 10 - 15mb,

but the performance is acceptable for a free NAS with no connection limit runnin of a diskette with a discarded PC. Precisely what the doctor ordered.

Thanks rich!

Will fix up sns with something similar.

The only real gripe, that will come back to haunt, I'm sure...is the lack of security features and user management. As is, the drives are shared as one big free for all.

[richjob]

One possible option is refurbished machines.  I'm seeing factory recxonditioned Sempron 3000s for less than $330.  Put a video card and some RAM - practically new machine.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PP150AAR&cat=SYS is an example.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CS300080-3&cat=SYS is a 512 MB model.  $10 more.

Next t'ing them is Socket A, yes.

[TriniXaeno]

nice option rich

My fears are: Device Drivers not included (Drivers may be difficult
to find)

No name motherboard

Risk of no AGP port

High likelihood that it is a socket A platform.

Not knowing exactly which components are "refurbished". The Hard Drive being the greatest point of concern.

Amps on the power supply. Anything less than 18a and we could be in trouble running a 6600GT.

Last but not least, the additional cost of shipping the case. We had planned on buying the cases locally. Shipping cost on 10 x 38lb machine can be a bit stiff if you're not bringing them down by boat in containers.

but a good option, for sure.

[richjob]

A lot of the integrated boards come with seperate AGP slothese days, actually.  :p

Most likely, it's an SiS or Via cipset.  If you crack open the case, you should be able to get some numbers on the motherboard.

Or you could stick Knoppix in it, let that autodetect and pull the system specs from it.

These are probably off-label HPs, Compaqs, or Emachines thingies.  If yuh unlucky, the Wal-Mart special. 

Might be worth a try for one.  just a suggestion.

[TriniXaeno]

Yeah, a lot do, but a lot don't.


We have a ton of those type of systems in the office and once tried to get a 9600XT card running in them. Never worked.

Power supply wasn't up to the task we suspect, but it has totally turned my mind off of those systems being used as "gaming systems".

Perfectly respectable for moms and grandmoms. Not so for a GL for most of the reasons mentioned above. AGP port and drives being just one of the concerns.

Shipping costs for the case + sure to be weak powersupply, ouch!

Refurbished HD, double pressura.

[Beomagi]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814140045R
refurbished - but generally a refurb vidcard means nothing in terms of electronics - usually is a store employee mucking up the packaging so they mark it as refurb, at worst, a physical defect that's fixed.

apollo 6800 vanilla, $158.40 and a buck shipping


if you're feeling adventurous
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814122212
6800le - leadtek
you CAN unlock the extra 8 pipelines, giving doubling the pixel pushing power, and the 256bit memory interface would keep the bandwidth higher than the 6600gt. Even if you only unlock 4 out of the 8, you're above the 6600gt in performance
$159

[TriniXaeno]

another big reason for the ton of refurbished vid cards you see at NewEgg, is the failure rate of OC and Unlocking.

Cards that don't perform magic for their masters get returned and come back on the shelf as refurbs. Eager enthusiasts order them, take them through their paces and quickly RMA them if they don't cut the mustard.

The chances of us getting it to perform tricks are severely reduced. That isn't half bad if the cards stock performance is "good enough as is". Lucky for us, a 6800 performs damn good as is. So no biggy there.

That price is smack dab in 6600GT territory. Good find.

Unfortunately, they will only sell 2 per customer of that refurbished card. We need 10

Ah, the 6800LE. I researched this one at great length myself. At first sight, it seemed to be the perfect option. Deeper reading showed that the 6800LE was seriously crippled. Stock benchmarks suck compared to it's cousins.

Gettin 12 gates unlocked is likely, but still a chance. Luck of the draw iwmc. That will get you back to 6600GT / 6800 non gt level performance.

Gettin 16 gates unlocked is like winning lotto but if you do, boom, serious power iwmc.

Increasing clock speeds was also a dicey affair.

Try multiplying those odds across 10 computers. lol

Then checking for artifacts / stability across the board.

I'm all for playing Lucky 7 and black jack at the local church bazaar, but this gamble is a bit out of my league. lol

Definitely great suggestions though. Chakra iymc.

As it stands, we had to reduce the budget a little to accomodate shipping costs to Trinidad.

TT$3000.00 LANDED

That changes things a little (well a lot)

Final Spec

Sempron 2800 754 CPU
Nforce 4 754 Mobo
6600 256MB PCI Express GPU
512MB DDR 3200 RAM
Maxtor 80GB
CASE (Local)

Should "LAND" for just under $3000 a pop.

The only good thing about the reduced specs is the inclusion of PCIX.

That way, in 2 years time, the cards can be easily swapped out to whatever is a suitable replacement at the time on PCIX.

Again, thanks for all the good suggestions.

Suhuweat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Beomagi]

pci-e, pci-x is the server 32/64 bit 33/66 MHz slot. yeah i know, scientists arn't great at names

the 6600 is much slower than the 6600GT especially thanks to memory

I'd get a 9800 pro before the 6600. Hell it gives the 6600GT a good run in many benchmarks.

DEAL ::
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102560
$152 for a saphire x800 after rebate.