Ok I have priced up a system that I am going to suggest to my friend that he should buy (I can build it for him if he is keen)

He currently runs an 800Mhz Athlon with 256mb PC100 and a tnt2 m64 32mb graphics card.

Now I think for the price of this it would blow his old PC away (reusing old HD, case, keyboard, mouse etc).

What are your opinions on the following idea (and what motherboard to use?):

• AMD Athlon XP1800+ 1.53 GHz with heatsink and fan 61.31
• MSI 745 Ultra (SiS 745 + DDR333) with Audio Or Elite (ECS) K7VTA3 (New v3.1) + Raid + Lan + Sound DDR ATA100 KT333 58.69
• 256Mb PC2700 (PC333) DDR Memory (Major) 57.58
• 350W CWT Quiet Dual Fan Version AMD/P4 Approved 34.42
• 64MB MSI GeForce 4 Ti4200 with TV Out 104.58

--------------------------
£316 with XP1800+
£329.53 with xp2000+


Other options to reduce the cost further:

• £290 with XP1800+ and 128Mb PC2700 DDR 32.31
• £268.95 with XP1800+, 128Mb PC2700 DDR, 128MB ATI Radeon 8500LE 83.53
• £234 with XP1800+, 128mb PC2700 DDR, 64Mb ATI Radeon 7500 TV Out 49.35

Any other cheap ideas to reduce the price aside from using SDRam or reducing graphics capability any further...

god that's so close to what I'm upgrading to its unbelievable.
You know more than me, but that looks like a good system...can you tell me where you're getting that PSU from? - oh I see, from Scan.co.uk

I should think that you don't really want to go cheaper than that for good performance....at least don't go to 128mb ram

If you want to cut costs, go for 256mb PC2100, and the Radeon 7500..i shouldn't think that he'd get much of a difference out of the faster memory.

For the sake of £13.53, i would ditch the XP1800+, and go with the XP2000+...

Thats quite an increase in performance for the sake of the price of 6 pints of beer

I'm about to point my mate to this thread...
The ATI 8500 was from www.crucial.com

Although if I get my Asus A7M266 board working again once I put the Bios chip that I ordered into it then I'll sell him that with a 1.4Ghz Athlon on the cheap (runs at 143Mhz fsb @ 1.503Ghz without a hitch).

Arris's Mate

As the afore-mentioned "mate". I'd like to say, what a kind thing to do for a poor old mate Arris. Thanks man.

Is there a big difference between the GF4 Ti 4200 and the Ti4400?

Just wondered.

Oh, and how am I gonna afford this if we go on the usual snowboarding holliday Arris?

/me opens wallet and watches moths fly out.

*sob*

Most people are buying the Ti4200 and overclocking the memory and core clocks a little and getting at least the same performance as the Ti4400 for a reasonably smaller amount of cash.

The Ti4600 is being retired as the up and coming Geforce5 is going to replace the top of the line. Plus I think they must have noticed that most people are going with the Ti4200 and overclocking.

I've been watching prices on the latest and greatest video card, the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro. Been hard to stop my credit card coming out of my wallet (bit like your moths Elros ). If I did upgrade I could pass the Geforce3 onto with the motherboard and processor
Must continue to resist spending money on upgrades that aren't quite necessary yet!!!!! :dead:

Tomshardware Video charts which show performance differences between Ti4200 and Ti4400.
Unfortunately they look at the 128mb version which has slightly slower memory than the 64mb version which in lower resolutions (main benefit of more video memory is for running in higher resolutions like 1600x1200) would be closer to Ti4400 performance.

Thanks Arris old boy.

If you did decide to go up in the world, then I am sure I would take the GF3 mobo and processor off your hands when I got the money together. Compared with my specs it is a big step up. Might actually be able to play Morrowind finally.

No problem old boy. I really will have to pass it on at mates rates since I just proved to you that you can build a new system for just over 260 with better specs! Probably somewhere a little above the £100 mark.... ouchy.

I would say definitely get 256MB DDR, and an 8500LE. With the 8500LE, you're looking at a negligible difference, for £21.

You can also get a Ti4200 that runs at Ti4400+ speeds, either stock or overclocking yourself.

If you were to get any 8500LE, I would say get the Gigabyte Maya. I've been nothing but satisfied with it, the cooling is awesome, the game package is awesome, and it even comes with it's own proprietary overclocking proggie, if you don't want to go to the trouble of getting PowerStrip.

Definitely get 256MB of DDR. Couldn't stress it enough; especially if you're gaming heavily. 256 is the magic number of price<->performance, IMHO.

Plus, look at the memory on the GFX cards. Really, is 64MB really worth £21 over 128MB?? :haha: :haha: Plus look at benchmarks and things, most of the ones I saw favored the Ti4200 only marginally over the 8500. This isn't even with 64MB vs. 128MB.
More performance for less money. What more could you ask?

Hope this helps :grinthumb

So how much do you guys think the following is worth?

• 1.4Ghz Athlon Thunderbird - Runs at 1.503Ghz @ 143fsb
• Asus A7M266 AMD761 with onboard sound - Latest Bios supports XP Throughbreds
• ThermalRight SK6 with Y-Tech 4200 rpm fan
• 256mb PC2100 DDR
• Asus v8200 64mb Geforce3 Pure - Depending on my ability to control my urge to buy a Radeon 9700 Pro

This system gave me 3dmark2001original score of 6511 with detonator 21.81 and Win98SE.