Need to Upgrade ABIT KG7 & AMD 2100+ Any Words of Wisd
 

I'd kind of like to throw myself on the mercy of the court here and just ask this question st8-up.
It's time to upgrade my MO & CPU. Below is the gist of what I currently have. I Run things like SQL Server, Personal Oracle and do a lot of Video Rendering.....
Anyone who is sort of on top of today's MO's & CPU's who would take a moment to advise me where I could spend a few dollars to get the most bang for the bucks--greatly appreciated.

Things that Gotta go
MO ABIT KG7-Lite
CPU AMD Athlon XP 2100+

Things that prolly should go
Video Card ATI Radeon 8500 (LE) 64 Meg
Xircomm Hub for 4 extra USB devices (That gives me 4--and I need em all)
Ethernet SMC Easy SMC 1255X --would expect this to be built into new MO

Things I might like to keep
Memory 2--512 Corsair CMX512-2700C2 DDR-SDRAM 166 MHz (PC2700)
Sound Card Creative Labs Audigy 2 Platinum with extended interface & 1934 Firewire*
Firewire PYRO Platinum DV IEEE Firewire*
Hauppauge Digital Video Recorder
Hardisks 1.7 Terabytes of mostly Maxtor--
currently using a Maxtor K14PCAT133 IDE Controller for 4 extra drive slots.
DVD Burners Pioneer DVR-108 & Pioneer DVR-104
Monitor Samsung SyncMaster Monitor
TabletWacom Intuit2
I still require a parallel port and have a IDE card
& I stil require 2 regular serial ports--I have one on an IDE card

*Built in Firewire & Ethernet would be a nice to have.
Hhhhmm,
I haven't been here in so long that I totally spaced out that I have a sig below!!! :biggrin:

oooh lots of the stuff are similar to what i have

i have SB Live! Plat 5.1 as well
not many ppl have the plat version like we do
although im only getting a bit of use out of the live bay

maxtors will be the first HDDs to die im guessing
thats true statistically

a new mobo and CPU thats worth getting now would be the 3200+ S939 on the Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939


S939 is a pretty new platform that is pretty much futureproof for the next 4 years or so

and this gigabyte board is one feature rich and stable board that will satisfy you if you dont overclock

but if you wait till early next year, nforce4 boards will be out into the retail market and with some bugs worked out, it will even be more futureproof with PCI-E

you dont have to worry about ethernet
and there will be plenty of USB 2.0 ports on the mobo too
up to 8 with PCI brackets or case frontal outputs
firewire will be included too (almost standard with decent mobos nowadays)


nice DVR-108 burner
also nice wacom tablet and hauppauge wintv pvr
why not get PVR-350?
hehehe

ram might have to go when you get a new CPU
because fsb will be 200MHz (before multiplier and hypertransport)
which is PC3200 after the "translation" into DDR
400MHz

as for graphics card
depends on PCI-E or not
if PCI-E, then NVIDIA 6600GT seems like a good card
but why not go with the quadro 4 professional stuff?
if you want one heck of performance card, X800 Pro should suffice video editting
X800XT would be an overkill

btw
X800 AIW is coming out!

just a note to stay clear of 6800 series from NVIDIA
has problems with MPEG2 encode
numerous articles about it can be digged up
lots on theinquirer.net
and some info on this forum

have you considered getting an WD Rapter 10000 rpm SATA drive?
74GB's price has dropped a bit
should be a must for hardcore video editting buffs
and since all new mobos (that arent the cheapies) have SATA now, its a good choice to make a switch too


oh not to forget PSU
needs a good quality and powerful PSU to power all these upgrades
enermax noisetaker 495?

newegg.com would be a good place to shop

First of all--Thank you for your learned and thoughtful response.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on the Maxtors--although who can argue with stats. I have legacy Max's going back to my Windows 98 system. I have two 120's that I put in my Hacked Showstopper/Replay 2.5 years ago. All my Max's are going strong. But I do have some Seagate's and Western Digitals--and we'll see who outlasts whom.

Your plan for my new system is perhaps a bit more ambitious than I'm feeling at the moment. I'm probably more interested in getting some immediate performance than holding off the future. --I"m maybe looking 2 years down the road MAX....

So please don't go away in a huff :lol: Downsize a bit and share your good knowledge with me again if the mood takes you. Let's use the memory as the limiting criterion...although I printing all the stuff you recommended--and that usually means I'm already half way there :rofl:

And on a re-read I see you've got my back on media authoring concerns. Time was when databases like Sybase and Orace could put a system through it's paces--Small potatoes these days--both in terms of size and speed--MultiMedia demands more. Yeah that Sata has me fantasizing.

Please do come back at me with an After Christmas shopping B-plan though if one occurs.....

K8T800 mobo w/ an AMD 64 3200+... Definitely go 64-bit if your into rendering and such... You might wanna try upgrading VGA card eventually... I'm not sure what your budget is but... $200 for the Mobo and CPU..

Maxtor = Least reliable drive ever.. besides IBM... My advice: quit while you're ahead...

You guys are giving me lots to think about.
EvilTech is pointing me toward relative high ground.

Napster:
That's an intriquing prospect--'cause for $200 bucks I can kind of experiment without taking too much of a hit if I decide to go whole hog within the year.

I can't quite match your $200 suggested list for those 2 items. Do you have bargain outlet in mind?

Jason,
I'm already ahead with my Max's. I've got a truckload of em and never had one go south. I think it's unlikely one will fail me before it's simpy too small to bother with.
I'm at the stage where I don't bother populating an IDE slot with anything less than 200Gig. So I have all my legacy 30's & 80's and 120's that I swap in and out of an external firewire hookup like floppies. Forget backing up to DVD--Old hardisks is the only way to go... :nod:

your welcome

im very keen to help people who are interested in such topics and also sincere

first up, i do think the ram has to go because it will not be able to run in sync with all Athlon 64 CPUs as they all run at 400fsb now except the semprons (they are more like advanced durons, not worth getting)

PC3200 and up ram is a must really

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...128-263&depa=1
here is GA-K8NS Ultra-939 $116.00

here is OEM version of 3200+ S939 $194.00
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-500&depa=1


if you really just want it to last 2 years or less, perhaps S754 is the way to go
GIGABYTE "GA-K8NS PRO" nForce3 250 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL $94.00
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...128-241&depa=1
a feature rich motherboard that can do RAID 0/1/0+1 up to 8 devices

2x SATA by chipset, RAID 0/1 JBOD; 2x SATA by Sil3512, RAID 0/1 = 4 SATA ports
up to 2 seperate raid setups

AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512k L2 Cache, The Only 64-bit Windows Compatible Processor - Retail $190.00
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...103-483&depa=1


really, not much difference btwn S939 (more futureproof) and S754

i dont see how in the world you can get both CPU and mobo for $200 unless its used
even used should still cost about 250


btw
here is WD Raptor 74GB on sale $177.00
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...144-160&DEPA=0
sale ends today

Evil,
I'm still digesting your message but I wanted to specifically ask you:
Is there no possibility that that Corsair which is actually:
Corsair XMS Extreme Memory 512MB PC2700 DDR 333MHz**
can be overclocked to 400? I thought that was the strength of the Corsair Extreme with it's built-in heat sink.

I bought that memory with intentions of overclocking but, of course, that Abit KG7 nipped those ambitions right in the bud. :lol:

**I misstated it above--not really sure where that 166 came from.

Great Information guys and I'm investigating all your suggestions--and starting to come a little more up-to-speed. I started with PC's in 1978 with a Tandy Mod 1 and have learned that I only get on top of "current events" in the PC arena when I'm ready to purchase. The year or so between purchases finds me complacent and making the best of what I have and not necessarily wanting to know what I'm missing :-)

Evil (Nap & Jason too)
Not to throw a complete monkey wrench into the works but--since I have a couple of AMD 2100 CPU's --what are your thoughts about playing with a dual processor setup for a while? Any +ve performance considerations...

you need athlon MP not XP to run dual processor setup

you could try overclocking that PC2700
extreme usually means lower latency

you could try to relax the latency a bit
and up the fsb
its something that you have to try and wont be guaranteed
heh yeah KG7 would nip you in the bud
lol

Well in my own defense I'd like to say that I wound up with the Abit because my Asus MO died on me--and even though it was under warrantee I couldn't wait a week for the turn-around. I hailed a cab to Canal St. here in NYC and got the best sidewalk deal I could find in an hour :-)

Then I figured: ASUS-ABIT--6 of one, half dozen of the other. That RMA'ed ASUS is still in packaging they shipped it to me in.

And prior to building my current system I had pretty much bought pre-assembled packages from Gateway--at least since Win95.