Upgrade?

=BoA=Raider

I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum or not but I just have a few questions to ask.

I'm thinking of upgrading my computer sometime over the summer and was wonder should I go for AMD or Pentium? I was thinking of getting something around 1.6GHz. I have to get a new motherboard anyway. I currently have a P3 550MHz (BTW had a b**** trying to find what motherboard I have now.....damn Phoenix BIOS)

I also plan on getting a CD burner, 40GB hd, new graphics card and some more RAM. Does any1 know of a good place to buy all this stuff. I was looking at www.komplett.ie and they seemed good but I didn't shop around. Has any1 bought from them? Or know of any other sites / good shops in Cork?

Thx, sorry again if this is in the wrong forum.

phaxx

Moved to Technology.

If you're looking to buy a complete system, I'd get all the components from www.dabs.co.uk - their prices are good, and they charge £20 shipping to Ireland no matter what you buy. I'm not sure what it will be like with the exchange rate to sterling so crap at the moment though.

I've found a good Irish hardware shop to be www.itdirect.ie - in the middle of Dublin, easy to get to, prices not bad.

Gerry

I'd recommend komplett, above any Irish retailer. They beat some of the trade places on pricing, especially for high end gear, and they have a fantastic range. I've already bought 3 pc's worth of parts from them, and it always gets here in under 48 hours.

=BoA=Raider

Ok, thanks for the advice.

Quigs Snr

I buy most of my parts from www.ebuyer.com in the UK. Go for AMD processors, they give better performance for half the price.

Don't forget you will almost surely need to upgrade your power supply also. Your P3 case may also be too small.

You will need a new motherboard as well. Ebuyer do the ECS K7S5A which is largely a hit and miss affair, I am typing this up on one and it's great but I also got 2 duds. Not quite as smart in the performance stakes, (very little in it though) is the Shuttle AK32 which is extremely overclockable. Very stable and reliable too. About 50 quid sterling for either of them, both can take DDR as well.

As for graphics cards Geforce 2 Ti minimum. Avoid GF4 MX cards, a good buy these days is the Geforce 3 Ti 200, probably the average new card bought by most people these days (I ordered one and ebuyer sent me a Geforce 4 Ti - can't complain with that !) Radeon 8500 also a good buy. I have one but all the rest are Nvidia cards. Better drivers.

phaxx

I have to recommend ABIT motherboards, I have a KT7 and it's one of the best pieces of hardware I own.

Go for a KG7 if you can afford it, looks like a nice board.

Quigs Snr

Can't disagree there. The ABit 266E I have in an older machine (since donated to a family member) is possibly the best piece of hardware I have ever owned also. Unfortunatley it costs twice as much as the shuttle, is based on the same chipset (depending on which one we are talking about). Nonetheless if money were no object, I'd always go for an Abit board, however if I were on a budget, I'd go for the shuttle or something of that type. In real world terms once they are working correctly there is nothing between them.

PPC

Originally posted by phaxx
I have to recommend ABIT motherboards, I have a KT7 and it's one of the best pieces of hardware I own.

Go for a KG7 if you can afford it, looks like a nice board.

KG7 is a lovely board.
Really stable.
i recently got a Soyo Dragon Plus and its the best mob i've ever used.
So easy to OC and looks great too.
Also comes with a simcard reader to unblock simcards and use as access cards and also lets you have 6 usb ports.
Has onboard nic and digital audio and optical. Really good board but it was €239.

=BoA=Raider

I think I saw in some other post that a lot of the parts you buy online don't come with cables. So I was wondering if my old cables will work with a new motherboard (I'm on about hardrive to motherboard cables and DVD etc....IDE i think).

I thought that these were all standard but I think I heard some1 mention about some new cables being 40pin where as some are 20pin.

You can find the specs for my old motherboard here http://www.gw2k.com/s/MOTHERBD/INTEL/4000510/400051002.shtml when I get a new motherboard will I need to get different cables or should the ones for that board still work.

Thx again.

The_Conductor

The new IDE cables are 80 ridge ribbon cables, but still have 40 pins. They support 66/100/133 transfer modes. While you could use your old cables, and they would work, you would be seriously limiting the data transfer potential for the new devices you mention introducing on your PC, and introducing a bottle neck in your system for no good reason.

The UDMA cable (the new IDE cable) is less than a tenner- go for it.....