Im new here...
 

Hey people
im new here so don't have a go at me for posting this!
I'm into computers but people keep saying my system is shit nowadays...
its an AMD 400mHz with 224mb ram, 6gb hdd, etc

what are your opinions on it?

I can't really afford to upgrade that often

Re: Im new here...
 

Hi !
Well I have an AMD K6-II-550 @ 115/574 mhz on an Asus p5a
it have about the same performance as a PII 450.
Works good enough for me.
Depending which MB you have you could OC yours to
450-550 Mhz. :D

Re: Im new here...
 

ah right...and how do I SAFELY overclock then?
I have a Giga-Byte GA5AX i think

thanks for your help

Re: Im new here...
 

Well there allways risks to take
but go here http://www.overclockers.com/
check their cpu database
cooling is the thing the cooler the better

Re: Im new here...
 

this site doesnt really explain much
i know NOTHING about overclocking
i need step by step instructions or something!

thanks
#
Howard

Re: Im new here...
 

sorry that was actually me that posted that...it didnt log me in when i tried to post

8)

Re: Im new here...
 

The most important thing to keep in mind is does it do what I need it to.  If it does what you need it to then you don't need to upgrade.  If you Chevete gets you to work and back home every single day you do not need a Dodge Viper.  Yhea it would be nice and you'ld get more chicks but you DON'T NEED IT.  Your the only person that can really judge when you need an upgrade.

Re: Im new here...
 

Hey Hovard !
I never recommend overclocking for several reasons :

1. Your CPU can die right away
2. It can die slowly, but with the same result ;)

3. You can NOT achieve serious advantage by overclocking (~15-20%), so you wouldn't feel a difference ;)

4. If I'm not mistaking, AMD makes probs after that.
5. If you want to use SW for that, it has to be m/b specific
6. If you'll do it the HW way (jumpers), and your m/b is smart enough, it wouldn't work, or would work the same way
7. Finally not all CPU's support overclocking. If it was "downclocked" on a factory, cause of quality lack, no way it would work better then default


Cheers
Chef

P.S. You have a great configuration, man. If you wan't to upgrade sth, have a reason for it, just like Savage mentioned.
For games try to get better VGA card, for heavy graphics editor, get more RAM & so on ...

Re: Im new here...
 

hey guys
thanks for your advice
your right i dont really need much of an upgrade yet, it runs unreal tournament fine!  ;D
I might consider a hard drive soon though, 6 gb aint really enough.
Next thing though is cooling, it gets quite warm in there, and ive seen computers with things in the 5.25" drive bay expansion slots that look like fans. is that what they are, and where can i get one of those that goes into a spare drive bay, and does it cool the cd roms and hard drives down?
I live in the UK, so a UK retailer would be good. I might also get a Card Fan that goes into the PCI expansion slots, where can i get one of those, too?

THanks for your help

p.s   i have a Creative 3D Blaster Banshee Graphics card, by the way.

Re: Im new here...
 

Yeah, for cooling, best place I suggest is www.frozencpu.com

What you have should be fine for a few years. Until recently, I was running a 66Mhz with a modded win98 registry. I had to mod it cuz 98 wont run with all functions on 66Mhz(min speed) and I didn't want to stay with 95.

Re: Im new here...
 

I would say 6 Gb is not fast enough ;)
About cooling, don't be obsessed about 8). Ppl have weird ideas about cooling lately

Cheers
Chef

P.S. I knew guy that had W98 installed on i386/66 ;)

Re: Im new here...
 

that is pretty cool chef, my uncle knows a guy who for a video editing maching bought a quad-processor p4-2.2 Ghz xeon processor machine with over 1 gb in ram and about 300gb in harddrive space. :o

Re: Im new here...
 

CMon, he just wanted to check if that's possible.
I've installed once W95 on i386/4Mb Ram and it worked somehow.

About Aoshi's uncle, Xeon for video editing ?? Isn't AMD much better for calculations, 1 Gb RAM -> not impressive, I can stick 1.5 Gb in my antique board
I hope he've got some ultraSCSI HDDS, cause storage is the most important part of such a system. I'm woundering what VGA card he used  ;) And what SW too ?

Cheers for Aoshi
Chef

Re: Im new here...
 

The Xeons can have up to 2048k cache at 1024k one
start  to get good performance
A PII-450 with 512k cache with an FSB of 124 or 133
gives really good performace doesn't hang as easy
playing games as
a celery 466 @ 832  with measly 128k cache 
and gives better performance.
Cache is nice but also what makes the xeons expensive.

Re: Im new here...
 

Chef..

If I recall AMDs are better a normal office routines.

However for something with loads and loads of calculations, the Xeons with the extra cache kick ass..

You havent been wowed until you have seen a redering server farm of afew dozen quad Xeons..(make a pretty good CS server too....hmmm...)

about CPUs
 

Hm, isn't AMD with less cache and much less functions, works faster on heavy calculations ? massive cache also has disadvantages ;)
And how about Alpha for servers, isn't that the thing.

Cheers
Chef

Re: Im new here...
 

What about multi-processor servers of Athlon MP's, that will mess up just about anything (except Cray's ;D ). You can load many gigs of ram on there, load a 3DLabs WildCat III and some RAIDed SCSI HD's and you're set.

BTW, anyone know how much WildCat III's are and where you can get them? I think they are around 3-4 thousand

Re: Im new here...
 

I can set you up with a 3DLABS WILDCAT III 6110 VIDADPT ALL for $3159.00 US if'n you're really interested. The going rate at most stores is closer to $4,000 or more. Let's just say I'm not greedy and I can drop ship it to you.

Re: Im new here...
 

Oh thanks, but just speaking hypothetically and just wondering price. sorry if I got any of your hopes up.

but on with the hypothetical speaking: Now, not only are the AMD better per clock cycle, but for servers the new MP 2000+ is faster running at 1.667Ghz while the XEON is at 1.600Ghz

Re: Im new here...
 

Talking about cpu's, check this baby :
http://www.sun.com/2002-0314/feature/
Install Solaris on this one and brag for years ;)


Cheers
Chef

Re: Im new here...
 

or if you want the ultimate gaming machine, ad the wildcat III and put winXP 64-bit edition...graphics so real you soil your pants...holy s***

Re: Im new here...
 

gaming machine ??? cmon man  >:(
this thing is totally for admins, one solid 64bit thing, not some fancy XP edition.
Sparcs are native for 64bit enviroment & Solaris too (not that I know much about ;))


Cheers
Chef

Re: Im new here...
 

what is the use of the power unless it is used for hacking or gaming???

Re: Im new here...
 

well, can't describe myself as hacker or gamer, but I still enjoy the power (zombo sez : 'you have the power').
Besides, every good admin suppose to be hacker (in the original meaning).

Cheers
Chef

Re: Im new here...
 

lol, if you cant do it on Zombo, you have no imagination... ;D

Re: Im new here...
 

thats very straight forward.  you really gotta use your imagination at that site if you want to get anywhere, period.  "You can do anything at Zombocom."  LOL

Re: Im new here...
 

i second that