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Upgrading an older system

Discussion in 'Processors and Motherboards' started by Big_Twinky, Sep 5, 2003.

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  1. Big_Twinky Newcomer, in training

    Hi,

    My wife started using an older system I had and we are looking into upgrading it. Money is somewhat tight, so we are going for essentials.

    The system is about 3 years old and is the following:
    AMD t-bird 900mhz
    512mb SDRAM PC133 (1x 256 + 2x 128)
    Asus Geforce2 Mx400 64mb
    Gigabyte GA-7IXE4 mobo

    The three first things we are looking at upgrading are the ram, the vid card and the processor (in that order).

    After reading up on the motherboard, I see that each ram slot takes up to 256mb sticks, PC133, double sided. So I'm gonna switch out the 2 sticks of 128 for 2 sticks of 256. Shouldnt be a problem.

    I'm currently looking into the graphics cards. My problem is that I cant find out what type of card my mobo will support. I was looking at the Geforce FX5200 128mb Magic card, as its pretty damn cheap and this will last me for at least a few years until I can do a bigger upgrade. But I dont know if my mobo will support this vid card. I have read about the mobo having troubles with gf3 cards. Is there a way to find out?

    The processor will be the next step. I believe the max for the mobo is a 1.4gig processor. Better than nothing. hehe

    Thanks for any help!!
    Big_Twinky, Sep 5, 2003
    #1

  2. conradguerrero Newcomer, in training

    im feeling ur pain as i also just recently had an ancient 3 year old machine .

    looks like the mobo will be ur bottleneck
    as u can see almost any upgrade would require flashing the bios

    so as mobos go i would get one with Nvidia's nForce2 chipset like this one from newegg.

    that way u can keep ur existing processor and upgrade ur memory to DDR and video card.
    conradguerrero, Sep 5, 2003
    #2

  3. snowman Newcomer, in training

    you know where i could get a new mobo for an intel p3 1 ghz?
    snowman, Sep 5, 2003
    #3

  4. Rick TechSpot Staff

    To be honest, your current system is about as good as it is going to get. If you plan on upgrading, your next step should be to replace the whole system. Adding memory, a better CPU or better video card is not going to make a whole lot of difference.. Not enough to justify the cost anyway.

    And snowman, why buy a new motherboard for an Intel P3 1GHz? Do you have currently have one?

    The best place to look for these is usually www.ebay.com ... If you don't mind online auctioneering.
    Rick, Sep 5, 2003
    #4
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