TR Forums

Hey guys, just registered after reading for a week or two. I've been very impressed with the site as a whole and the community

I had been out of the hardware loop for a while, but thanks to this site and its helpful reviews I'm back up to speed again.

Basically I've ordered a new comp (see sig) and I was wondering about the best way to get extra life out of my old comp, whcih im giving to my dad.

old comp:

Athlon xp 2000+
1.5 gig pc2100 ram
Radeon 9800 pro
Gigabyte GA7VRXP mobo
80 gig ATA HD

Clearly the main kickers are slow cpu and slow ram, plus lack of cpu upgradability.

It was pretty kick ass when i bought it a few years ago. Originally had a geforce 3 ti 200 and 512mb pc2100 ram, then i added the 9800 pro and an additional gig of ram which i think is pc2700, havent checked in a while


I was thinking about replacing the motherboard with ASRock 939Dual-SATA2, since its not only cheap, but it has both an AGP and a PCI-E slot, combined with a socket 939 slot. Since the 9800 pro is agp, and its not entirely useless just yet (plus money issues) I thought this was a nice way to go.

With an A64 3000+ to go in the socket 939, and maybe a SATA hard drive, I'm thinking this would get much more out of the system.


But I would like input on the motherboard etc. How much of a difference in practice would getting SATA HD make? I realise the ram is pretty old, so would i be just aswell aiming to get 1GB pc3200 to replace it with? Would the pc2100 ram even run on the new mobo and cpu?

First stage would be mobo and cpu, which i think is great performance for the cash. But if the ram wont work then its going to have to wait till i can get more of that aswell. And when 9800 pro is completely useless, can always get a cheap 6800 or 6600 gt.

Input appreciated )

Unless your dad is doing mission critical work and/or gaming, your old systems is fine as is. You've proposed good upgrades, but if you're upgrading almost every single component in the system, it's not longer just an upgrade, it's a whole new system.

The only place where your system could use an upgrade to squeeze the last bit or performance out would be some PC3200 RAM (from Crucial or Corsair, at best) and maybe you coudl overclock the CPU a little bit. Of course, depending on what your dad will be doing with the PC, these upgrades may or may not be beneficial.

What will your dad be doing with your old PC?

Welcome to the boards.

Sorry, forgot to mention it was really to make sure newer games are playable. He loves stuff like battlefield 2, call of duty etc.

Have tried overclocking the cpu before, but the system doesn't cope very well with it,, and even getting it up to 2100+ speeds totally throw stability out of the window.

A good NF2 board like the Abit NF7S v2 and a AXP 2500 or 2600 mobile will run at 2.2+ with ease. Thats if you feel like spending that kind of money for the old box. Throw in some decent 3200... and for less than $200 or so you should be in biz.

I have to disagree with LicketySplit here. I believe that 2005 is not the year to spend your money on new Socket-A motherboards or processors. I am much more on-board with your ULi M1695 socket-939 idea, or even an NForce3-250 socket-754 combination.

Have you tried over-clocking the video card to eke out a few more frames/second? After I installed a VGA Silencer on my Radeon 9800, I was able to overclock it significantly.

I agree with JAE here. The Asrock deal seems like a good one. What CPU would you add to that? The Venice 3000+ looks like a good deal.
PS, moved to SBA.

Venice 3000+ seemed like the way to go.

I haven't tried overclocking the 9800 pro, as I considered any bottleneck to be with the cpu, which may not be strictly true, but for games like half life 2 it certaintly seemed that way.


Overclocking it with a new cpu would be a good idea however, I remember there being a 3rd party program for ati cards somewhere, will look it up. Not sure how good it is compared to the nividia version though.