Cheap upgrade???

bloodline76

bloodline76

bloodline76

Soldato
Joined
7 Feb 2004
Posts
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I was thinking about upgrading with the following:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 Dual-Core Socket 939

and

ECS KV2 Lite Socket 939 AGP LAN ATX Motherboard

With my current setup would that be ok or could you recommend better. Price is an issue here though.

Thanks
 
E2160 and asrock 4coredual if you're happy to overclock.

EDIT:// supports loads of stuff, DDR and DDR2. check it out. E2160 as the overclock on the board is really low so high multi helps lots. Beware of the 4x PCI-E socket though. It does limit your graphics upgrade possibilities.
 
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bloodline76 said:
Price is an issue here though.
Click to expand...

How much do you have to spend?

As suggested the E2140/2160 + Asrock 4core-DualVSTA will be the perfect solution for you as it supports DDR and AGP graphics as well, the whole only costs you around £100.

Even if you are determined to go AMD I woulnd't go for skt939 as it is now officially dead, the AM2 has the same price if not less but then you will need DDR2 mem as well and it won't be as cheap as the solution above.
 
Would the E2160 actually improve the performance much tho? Being only 1.8 and like you say that board doesnt clock very well.

But would that be much of an improvement on my current system if I went with those two?

Thanks
 
The limitation of the 4coredual-vsta is usually that you can't get an fsb much beyond 290-300 or thereabouts. With the 9x multiplier on the e2160 that would equate to 2.6-2.7ghz, which would quite convincingly outperform your current amd 64 3400+ :)

Obviously to be going for those kind of clocks you'd need an aftermarket cpu cooler, which will add a bit more to the cost, but it is probably the best upgrade path available for anyone still saddled with ageing systems.
 
Nullvoid said:
The limitation of the 4coredual-vsta is usually that you can't get an fsb much beyond 290-300 or thereabouts. With the 9x multiplier on the e2160 that would equate to 2.6-2.7ghz, which would quite convincingly outperform your current amd 64 3400+ :)
Click to expand...

:)

Think you can get away with stock cooler though, it will just be very noisy once it spins upto 100%.

A stock E2160 is similar to the X2 4200+ in terms of performance, whereas an overclocked C2D at only 2.7Ghz will easily outperform the X2 6000+ which is twice the price.

Look at the official E2140/2160 overclocking thread and you'll see lots of people had success with this board.
 
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I've built a machine with that ECS board, and gotta say I would never buy another ECS board again - terrible support.

I got the board with a AMD 4000 chip, and had to update the bios before it accepted it. This was a pita as didn't have a floppy drive in the machine. ECS at the time had some forums over at hexas, but these have now closed.

I prefer AMD's over the lower intels, but your call, just giving you a heads up wth ecs.
 
I'm using that CPU/MOBO combo and man I tell you, its more than 2x as fast as my old p4 3.0Ghz. Overclocking was a breeze, just plug it all in and make sure it works, then whack it up to 290 FSB and set ram to 333Mhz (for safety) and tweak from there...never had a single problem...best £ I ever spent :) If you need a hand overclocking, let me know...you're onto a winner.
 
Thanks, that makes me want to take that jump and order and my current system is beginning to struggle.

Do you recommend that i add a cooling device, I am a bit new to cooling devices as I have always kept to just the normal fan.

Would a 550w PU be ok with that?
 
bloodline76 said:
would a E4300 be ok with a asrock vsta board?
Click to expand...
if you're going to get the e4xxx series, get the e4400 or wait a few weeks and get the e4500...since the FSB can't get much higher than 300Mhz (i'm lucky to get to 305Mhz) you want as high as a multiplier as you can get, the e4300 has a 9x multi, the e4400 a 10x and the e4500 a 11x. All of those chips will reach the maximum overclock that your motherboard will allow.
As for the cooler, I recommend the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro, it does a great job on my system, and is less than £20
 
Indeed it does.

"7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)"

You know you could have found that out within about 2 minutes all by yourself. The manufacturers do have homepages for a reason :p
 
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