Sip and Surf Upgrade: Suggestions and Recommendations

[TriniXaeno]

Guys,

SnS, one of our longest standing GLs, is ready to upgrade some of their game machines.

It has been a while coming. Their current fleet:

P4 1.6 Ghz / Athlon XP 1600+
Geforce 2 64MB AGP
20GB HD
128MB and 256MB RAM (5 machines enjoy the latter)

The budget is TT$3000.00 each.

Proposed Upgrade

Sempron 3100+ 754
Nforce 3 250 Mobo 754
Geforce 6600GT AGP 128MB
80GB HD
512Mb DDR 3200 Corsair

Any thoughts / suggestions / recommendations from our resident Tech Gurus?

Is there a better option for the moola?

Looking for the most gaming bang for the buck. TT$3000 loosely translates to US$480.00

On your marks, get set, google.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 SNS could move with PCI-E and A64 3000 , upgradability for future video cards .

[Netizen1]

SNS could move with PCI-E and A64 3000 , upgradability for future video cards .

Had a looong discussion about that with Baego and Sensei last night in gattchat...
PCIe vs AGP 

the final conclusion I came to was that AGP in it's current form and level can match PCIe (giving in to budget rather than ego) that is ... in terms of performance - cost ratio
That is not withstanding the fact that future mobo and GPU will excel at the use of the new technology and thereby replacing AGP as the graphics solution for most......



REMEMBER, it's a GL with a tight (emphasis on the word tight) budget so bling is not a necessity.

I would've pushed for bigger drives (only 120GB instead of 80GB)  only cause currently games are really, really, big and hdd greedy

[Bsensei]

ent @ loooong discussion... 2:30am immc.

Sip is a great GL deserving of great things..
We use 160gig HDs here in Tech Source for the machines and lemme tell you that 80 of those gigs are full...I would also have liked to push for a lil 120gig but.... budget iwmc.

To the PCI-x vs AGP still unsure of my position, still leaning towards PCI-x but more research i must do...


*sensei goes back upon his thinking chair and meditates....*

[Kaizen]

look at the specs...from this to that
that is a major upgrade man ,and the cost is good for the upgrade<semprons goin no where anytime> and 6600gts are very good cards  but i woulda push for ...1 gig ram but economicaly 512 is jus fine and the gl not gonna flash out is for mass to come and use and play so yeah beago is a good econmic upgrade gonna be pricey with all the coputers SNS have<yes a marabella men does go to snsXD> but it will be worthwhile


tight budget inymc  is right they stil gonna perform well but think of it
TECH SOURCE HAS HOW MUCH PCS?
AND HOW MUCH DOES SNS HAVE?
so yeah
also another point i sure gonna come up. "but in the long run that pricey upgrade to pci-e and so on will work out"  i agree on this but ....when your in a buisness u have to cut dollar for dollar

[TriniXaeno]

yeah, is a straight dollars limit.

Trini, the budget is TT$3000.00 (US$480.00)

Try pulling off the upgrade to Athlon 64 3000 + PCI -X mobo

rest it on we chest it.

yeah kaizen, 1gb would be preferred. Battlefield 2 needs all the ram it can get.

Pressure with 80GB drives fuh sure. New games hittin 4-5gb easy.

The only consolation, is that it is much roomier than the existing 20gb hds.

Again, feel free to try coming up with your own killer upgrade combination for the budget.

[cdx2k1]

The upgrade sounds good to me as is.I would scrap the sempy and go for the A64 2800+ (512k) though.Only $10US more.

[Kaizen]

SnS, one of our longest standing GLs, is ready to upgrade some of their game machines

first off how much of the machines are they looking to upgrade and what is the total budget?

[SPK]

Well right now considering that 80 GB HDs costing around $400-450 retail, and a certain company currently selling 120 GB HDs for $460 locally....I think you all might be able to squeeze in that extra HD capacity...

[TriniXaeno]

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.

Kaize, the hard limit is $3000.00 per machine. Upgrading 10 machines for starters.

Let me give some more detailed figures on the current proposed config that may help you guys do up your own.

Nforce 3 250 754 Mobo      56
6600 GT AGP 128MB         159
AMD Sempron 3100+ 754      86
CPU Fan            8
512MB DDR 3200         41
80GB ATA Drive         59
Case            49
Shipping            15
US$ Total            473
TT$ Total            $2980.00

Try and do up something similar yourself. Maybe you can shave off some dollars and allow us to fit in the athlon 64 or the 120gb.

Give it  a shot.

[SPK]

Note I said that price for the HD is retail, it can drop significantly if bought in bulk (as you seem to be doing)...

For example, when I bought my 80 GB a while back, it cost $525 retail, but when I bought 3, it dropped to $475 apiece, and will drop further if you buy 10+...

[TriniXaeno]

great, but can it drop to us$59.00 or close? find out

$475 is still a lot more than us$59.00 when you multiply that difference x 10.

don't be lazy! take a shot at the config.

maybe you can save $$ on something so we can get the 120gbs.

A worthy endeavour.

[W1nTry]

Now I new to this discussion but in light of newere developments with the 7 series line of Nvidia cards... and them NOT being AGP (as far as I can tell so far, not sure if the scaled down versions MAY have an AGP brethren with a bridge chip). But what about 3000+ A64 939 and PCIe... as in ur other GL? the AGP is having a shorter lifespan in its demise than I anticipated... granted the next gen ATI cards should have an AGP counterpart, the 6800Ultra will remain the king of the hill AGP from Nvidia, or so i've read.

[TriniXaeno]

yeah, sounds good.

try doing up a config with those components. Let us see what figures you come up with.

[richjob]

A serious upgrade, indeed.

Sempron 3100+ 754.  No complaints there.  I think that Socket 939 would still be out of reach for these machines.   The 2800 Socket 754 is good, too, and you get a bit more $$$.  Overclockable, too.

Nforce 3 250 Mobo 754.   
Stable like Nforce things, but...  What about the Via?  The SiS?  How do they perform in comparison?  Those SnS machines not going and have extra PCI slots in use, so you might be able to save some money by going for something with less PCI slots.   The bloody machines going to be hella faster anyway, so you might be able to compromise a bit here.


Geforce 6600GT AGP 128MB. 
Heh.  The 6200 256 MB might be overclockable.  And cheaper.   More money = more HD space.
Caveat:  6600 PCIe kinda cheap.  Low end 939 MIGHT be achievable here.

80GB HD
SATA or PATA?

512Mb DDR 3200 Corsair.
Meh.   Buy the memory you need.   If yuh not overclocking, (contradicting what I said) yuh might get away with some good quality generic.  Run it at spec, and yuh good to go.


Long time I ain't do one of those.  I rusty.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 hard drive space isn't much of an issue , you can get 120 gb hds for 75 US ! Besides , you can always play files / older games over the network easily , eliminating the need to have EVERY episode of naruto , samurai x etc. on every machine  , leave more space freee on those that will be pulling the files .   

   1 GB of ram  or a 6600  , even if its non GT will go a long way than skimping on said parts for more hard drive space
 a 6200 is alright for games NOW , but in a year it won't be enough , a year after that you'll be looking at it as you look at a geforce 2 now .  6600 non GT is twice as fast, 6600gt is 3 times , so  2 years from now a 6600 will be like a geforce 3/ 4 ti .....
   Also 64 bit semprons are finally out.. and semprons overclock well,  so sempron may still be considered as the cpu .

[Kaizen]

sempron 64s out?
not seein any of them available or anything the most i see is a sempron 3300

ok my bad there comin in a month but this upgrade is to take place soon correct? well sooner than that
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20050610112405.html

[TriniXaeno]

nice view points rich.

wanna take a crack at doing up a config? See if you can work in some better specs by going SIS / VIA on the 754 side of things.

The HDs in my proposed spec are PATA

Trini, good idea on the sharing media across the network rather than having 'em on each machine. We could put some cool AMVs too. Stunts of Oman and the likes. A 160gb on the server should be fine for that.

I share your view on the vid card, which is why I tried to put in the best one money can buy given the $3000 budget. That is where the gaming performance really comes from.

Would love to squeeze in another 512mb of RAM though, but money is so tight.

Hardly room to compromise on anything else there to fit in the cost of another stick (US$41)

Only option would be reducing the video card to a plain vanilla 6600 for US$130.00, and even so, that still comes up short. Not sure if the 33% performance hit in graphics for the additional RAM would be worth it.

Especially considering we can always add ram easily later down the road, whereas it will be much more difficult to upgrade the video card.

Nforce is a bit picky about ram, so that corsair at US$41 seemed a safe bet. I don't think you will get Generic 512mb DDR PC3200 for much less than that. Remember, we want the best rig $3000.00 can buy us. So unless it shaves off enough to afford us some other cool component (like a 120gb HD) it won't make sense to skimp.

keep it comin

good suggestions thus far.

[richjob]

OK.  Either the SiS or the VIA (avoiding the PC Chips/ECS stuff)  will get you a small saving - but it's less than $10.  If you're accustomed to working with the nForce3 250 of that particular make, stick with it.

The reviews (totally unscientific survey by me) tend to show very little practical difference among brands within a particular chipset.  So if you buy from a less than Tier 1 manufacturer, you should be OK.  Yuh know I like meh Biostars for licks, and I'm surprised that I haven't seen a mATX  socket 754 board with a K8M800 chipset selling from Newegg. at a cheap price.  I see one, but for $59.  Good reviews too.

Actually, the 6200 AGP is (I think) the same chipset as the 6600 and is apparently quite overclockable.  Plus it's a good bit cheaper.  But the 6600 for longevity - OK.  Point.  Should be able to get one from a lower-tier manufacturer.  A plain 6600, then.

Re: the HD space - what you could do is have those machines be gaming machines ONLY.  No office apps, no IM.  Yuh customize the XP to not have things like IE and OE/MSN/Messanging running, yuh might get some space.  Set up one of the old boxes as a server, and that might solve yuh media problem.  Stream that shit over the network, remove the floppy drives (is gaming machines) and that go help with yuh space.  Nothing says that you load EVERY crappy game there is.  Load best of breed.

512 workable for now.  One stick, or 2x256?  If the dual memory controller is a incentive, if yuh upgrading memory you go have real memory to swap out to get the benefits.

One final comment:   Buy yuh video cards so yuh go get 18-24 months of the current games at a good clip.   Doh go above 1024x768. 

The games of the future - we have NO IDEA what specs them things running, plus most of the games either using the HL2 engine or the Doom 3 engine.  For at least the next year.   Build for the games yuh planning to play in 2005 and 2006.  Doh worry about Duke Nukem Forever.

[TriniXaeno]

Yeah, I'm not big on the Nforce 3 250, never trusted the chipset and would much rather nforce 4. Price is the problem. Can't say that I trust the others from experience with 'em either. Nforce 2 was a pain, with it's fickle memory tastes.

ent @ biostar!

I feel the same way. They have been good to us in the GLs. Takin real lix. Would love to go with them again.

Well those fellas like their IM action and it's just a few megs, so that could stay. Office apps could perish. lihixxxxxx idmc. At 80gb, definitely only got room for best of breed multiplayer stuff.

512mb, one stick. It is good for now but 1gb will really make a big difference. It is almost becoming mandatory for a "good" gaming experience.

Half Life 2 and Battlefield 2 take painfully long to load on 512mb. I take solace in the fact that RAM will be easy to add after the upgrade.

The 6600 GT and up should give 24 months of good gaming performance. The 6600 falls just below the mark, judging from exhaustive benchmarks. That story changes if you overclock the cards, but in a GL scenario, overclocking won't be an option.

rofl @ duke nukem forever.