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Help with ultra budget CPU

didgemaster

didgemaster

didgemaster

Associate
Joined
11 Aug 2003
Posts
1,233
Location
Taunton, Somerset
After three and half years of impeccable service my Athlon XP has started to give up. It is a barton 2500+ that has run at 2222MHz With fsb @202MHz never getting hotter than 45°C. It still runs at this temperature but is only stable at 1200MHz fsb@200MHz. I've tried clocking the fsb back and increasing the multiplier but this doesn't make much difference. I've tested the RAM and thats OK so unless theres a motherboard problem I can only assume that it is the CPU

I am rather skint at the moment - well lets face it who isn't after Christmas. I want a cheap fix so do I buy a second hand Athlon XP (3200+) or do I go for a socket 754 solution. Sempron and motherboard

They work out about the same price, which has better performance. I am leaning towards new Motherboard and CPU as there is the potential problem with he current motherboard.

Your thoughts please
 
What is yer budget?

Another possibility is a Core 2 Duo compatible board with one of those newer 512KB 65nm Celeries, like the D 356 (don't look at me like that :p) so you could just drop one (a C2D) in when you need another boost.
 
2 options:


1) sempron 3400+ sckt 754, new ASUS AGP board, = ££76.26 all from a competitor though.

2) second hand Asrock dual SATA 939 for about £30 as it has PCI-E and AGP and can be expanded to take socket AM2 + DDR2. and a second hand venice 3000+ CPU for £30 maybe a tenner for a good cooler to overclock it as they do love to fly.

£70

p.s. didgemaster please configure your trust, i would like to e-mail you :)
 
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Asrock Dual Vsata & celeron D 356 (512k cache).

Thats what I have.

AGP & pci-e, SATA raid & dual IDE
DDR&DDR2

I got mine all in for less than £80 (MB not available on ocuk).

Currently overclocked to 4.3ghz and pretty quick. (for the price)
 
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I wouldn't recommend the skt 754 route, it's a dead end and you'll not get a large improvement.

oweneades has a good suggestion, but if you can't afford that at present I would just go for a 2nd hand XP while you save a few more pennies.
 
Get an asrock dual vsta (agp+pci-e, ddr+ddrII) and a cheap celeron and buy a core 2 duo later, itll be over 6 times as fast as the barton (the core 2 duo)...

If too expensive:
socket 939, maybe dead-ish too but still a lot more upgrade options than the dead 754...
939 = 754 but with dual channel ram...
 
snowdog said:
Get an asrock dual vsta (agp+pci-e, ddr+ddrII) and a cheap celeron and buy a core 2 duo later, itll be over 6 times as fast as the barton (the core 2 duo)...

If too expensive:
socket 939, maybe dead-ish too but still a lot more upgrade options than the dead 754...
939 = 754 but with dual channel ram...
Click to expand...


939 is abit more than 754 as it has many other features such as full HTT bus, 2000 as opposed to 754 1600. later 754 also comes with dual channel anyway. but the option about the asrock dual is a good suggestion and is what i wanted to mail him about but he still hasnt sorted his trust stuff lol, he can pick up a board for £30 and a venice 3000+ for £30 and clock it to 2.5Ghz on air and has the option to go to PCI-E later and also use AM2/AM2+ and DDR2 all from the one board.
 
Actually 939 is dead and 754 is still alive for a few more months yet. No new cpu's coming out on it though.

If you are on a tight budget maybe a 939 3200+ and a AGP mobo for around £75 is a good way to go. That way you always have the option to drop in a dual core cpu in the future.
 
asrock dual vsta?

Its been a while since I've scrutinized motherboards - as you might have guest from the system that I'm running. Have asrock motherboard really improved that much they always used to be a bit nasty

Please email me with details
 
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didgemaster said:
asrock dual vsta?

Its been a while since I've scrutinized motherboards - as you might have guest from the system that I'm running. Have asronk motherboard really improved that much they always used to be a bit nasty
Click to expand...

No issues with mine.

considering how large the thread is about the vsata I would say its pretty good for the price.
 
id love to e-mail you with details but unfortunatly...

"didgemaster has not configured his/her trust account
If this is your account please login to activate your trust"


in any case, the key to asrock boards is the chipsets, the real cheap asrock boards all use SIS chipsets and they can be pretty terrible performers but are great for general use systems. the Asrock 939 dual SATA (also known as Asrock dual VSTA) uses a ULI chipset which was a great chipset, indeed so great that Nvidia bought ULi shortly after. Asrocks are now also sporting Nforce chipsets too which places them nice and neatly between "budget" boards and "mainstream" :)
 
locutus12 said:
id love to e-mail you with details but unfortunatly...

"didgemaster has not configured his/her trust account
If this is your account please login to activate your trust"
Click to expand...

Sorry locutus12 can you try the trust now
 
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