w00t! New proc, mobo, ram, video for me!

[Omega]

Yes, it's true. I'm finally upgrading my system. After getting some big checks for doing computer repairs for a few different people I decided to treat myself to a system upgrade. While I'm not completely revamping my system, the barebones and video were the components that were in the greatest need of upgrade. Unfortunately, however, a really sweet trade I'd lined up fell through (I was giving the guy ASUS A7V, AMD Athlon T-Bird 1 GHz 200 MHz FSB, 256 MB PC133 SDRAM in exchange for an eMachines motherboard, Intel Pentium III 600 MHz, 192 MB PC100 SDRAM and $90) so I wasn't able to get the GeForce 4 Ti4400 I was planning on getting. Although I haven't posted anything about my barebones in the FS/FT Forum, I guess I'm open to offers (mainly I'm wanting a secondary barebones system to mess around with, probably at least 500 MHz).

Here's my before and after setup as it currently stands:

Before:
Motherboard: ASUS A7V
Processor: AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1 GHz with 200 MHz FSB
RAM: 1 dimm 256 MB PC133 CAS2 Generic SDRAM
Video: 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP
Sound: Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1 (PCI)
Hard Drive(s): IBM 75GXP 30GB ATA100 7,200 RPM (Primary Master on Promise Ultra IDE controller)
SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM Maxtor 8.4 GB ATA66 5,400 RPM (Primary Slave on Primary IDE channel)
CD Drive(s): Generic 50x CD-ROM (Primary Master on Primary IDE channel)
SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM Plextor 24/10/40A CD-R/RW (Secondary Master on Secondary IDE channel)

After:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1900+
RAM: 1 dimm 512 MB PC2700 Samsung DDR RAM
Video: Chaintech GeForce 2 Ti A-G220 32 MB RAM
Sound: Same
Hard drive(s): Same, but moving 8.4 GB to second machine
CD Drive(s): Same

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Like I said, the video didn't go exactly as planned, so I'm looking at this as a temporary solution (I could have just waited, but I'm impatient). I'm also looking to get two Maxtor 40 GB ATA133 hard drives to set up in a RAID array once I get some more money.

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I haven't done all the benchmarking I plan on doing before making the switch (I haven't quite yet), but right now my 3dMark 2001SE score is 1736 (I've run the test 4 times, right after startup, and also after some use, and that's the average). I intend on getting a very intensive Quake 3 demo for PR 1.31 and running a timedemo with that a few times, and then running it after I make the switch, so I'll let you all know how it goes (assuming I remember).

[aoC_PRoZaK]

i'll be getting abit kr7a-133r, hercules gf3 ti200 64mb, 256 megs infineon pc 2100 and maybe a 2000+ xp soon 8)
i love it when the stuff is so new and hot that you burn ya fingers while unwrapping it :o

[thetechfreak]

and im on a 3year old P3-450, 96mb SDRAM, unknown motherboard, 4x DVD which hasn't changed in the 3 yrs ive had it (except added CDRW last year and gfx card year b4)

[Omega]

I've now also been able to get dual display running in Windows. I've had my second monitor set up for quite some time, but from what I've inferred my two video cards had some sort of hardware conflict when trying to work together. Now if only I could fix my second 17" monitor I wouldn't be stuck with this little 15" as my secondary display...

[aoC_PRoZaK]

i currently use my hercoles gf2mx with dual display over tv out, i slit it up on two tv screens, one with 53cm tube and one with 37cm tube, all together with the 17" monitor a nice effect watchin winamp plugins (only two runnin on pic)

[thetechfreak]

after 3 years...
i know how you feel now :D, for my birthday yesterday i got;

AMD Athlon 1800XP
256 DDR Ram
40GB HDD
128mb GF3 Ti 200
Gigabyte Mobo with up to 3gb of ram and 4 PCI slots

Unreal Tournie on full spec runs Sweeeeeeeeet!!

now for broadband....

[aoC_PRoZaK]

congrats bro, nice setup 8)

[Omega]

Well, I have everything except my new motherboard now (which I'm getting under special circumstances). I decided to stick my Chaintech GeForce 2 Ti 32 MB DDR into my current system (the AMD T-bird 1 GHz) and see how that alone effects performance. While I didn't go so far as doing a clean reinstall of Windows to benchmark it, I ran 3d Mark 2001 SE and a Quake 3 timedemo of the crusher demo (http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?section=0&file=85814). I can supply my configuration file if you want to compare your results exactly to mine, but pretty much it's 1024x768, 32 bit, bilinear, 2nd from highest texture detail.

On to the results:

3d Mark 2001 SE:
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP: 1736
Chaintech GF2 Ti: 3659

Quake 3 Timedemo:
Voodoo 5 5500 AGP: 43 FPS
Chaintech GF2 TI: 53 FPS

While the 3d Mark 2001 SE results show a fairly significant jump even before changing the processor, the gain in Quake 3 isn't all that significant, while the demo is quite processor intensive (there are about 20 bots). In normal gameplay, however, I can push an almost constant 125 FPS in classic Quake 3, whereas before I could push maybe 80 FPS.

I'll post again once I get my motherboard with the results there. If I'm feeling ambitious I'll benchmark it with the Voodoo 5 and the GeForce 2 Ti, but that's yet to be seen.