Upgrade options ..eMachines T6000

[twark]

Hello,

I was hoping someone could help with possible upgrade options to my aging machine (of tell me if it's even worth it). I have had my eMachines T6000 for a few years now. I have doubled my memory and put in an ATI 9800 Pro, but other than that, no further upgrades. I am probably a year or so out from building a more current rig or buying something better so I think it might make some sense to get a more current agp video card and power supply. Is this a waste of time or would I see some performance gains? Better to just wait and get something new in a year or so? Any help is greatly appreciated!

I am looking at the Gecube x1950 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241041) which appears to be a significant upgrade, but it starts to get confusing w/ the power supply requirements.....or am I wasting my time and should be just waiting and buying something more current?

Here is the systems specs on my T6000 before my ram and video card upgrade:

Specifications
CPU: AMD Athlon™ 64 3200+ Processor64-bit Architecure operaties at 2.000GHzSystem Bus uses HyperTransport™ Technology operating at 1600MHz1MB L2 Cache
Operating System: Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home
Chipset: VIA K8T800 (AMD Athlon 64 VIA Apollo K8T800 (VT8385))
Memory: 512MB DDR (PC 3200)
Hard Drive: 160GB HDD -- 7200rpm with 8MB Buffer
Optical Drive: 48x Max. CD-RW Drive; 16x Max. DVD Drive; 8-in-1 Media Reader(Secure Digital™ (SD), Smart Media, Compact Flash, Micro Drive, Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO, Multimedia Card, USB 2.0); 3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Video: ATI Radeon® 9600with 128MB/128-bit dual channel video memory
Sound: 6-channel Audio
Network: 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet

THANK YOU!!!

 

[thebaronjocelin]

Can you include some details on the PSU?

I went through much the same situation with this old HP I used to have. I popped in a Geforce 5200 in 2004, it worked fine for a while, and began to lag behind. I seriously considered upgrading it, but I figured I could get the cash to build a new rig.

As for my amateur advice, I would say build early. Wait until DX10 crests on the market, and some good, mid-level cards with support come out (don't splurge for the 8800, in a few years they won't even be average-performance cards). So that'd be about 5 months.

If you can't stand it until then, I would recommend just a moderate upgrade. Nvidia is selling off some old AGP cards- 6800's and whatnot, which would get you decent performance to tide you over until you build a new system.

Also, nothing you buy is going to be even moderately effective if you keep that RAM the way it is. 512 MB is not too much of an upgrade, and with the oh-so-common PC3200 standard waning it's especially cheap right now. You can get 512 MB budget memory for anywhere from 30-70 dollars, depending on whether you do it online or not.

Hope this helped.

 

[twark]

Baron, thank you!

My power supply is only 300W, specifically its a Delta Techonology DPS-200PB-1A.

I was debating getting 2 1mb sticks of RAM to replace the two 512's I've currently got installed, but I think I read soemthign somewhere about my system recognizing more than 1 mb of RAM.

 

[twark]

bump

anyone else have some advice for me? Thank you!

 

[CMH]

I'd say retire this old computer. Its reached its time.

Sure, you can get yourself some moderately powerful AGP cards, the best is the X1950Pro at the moment, but your CPU would bottleneck that. Your PSU probably won't power that neither. Even then, you're prolonging its life by maybe a year, maybe 2 with that. Thats even if they released a new graphics card for the AGP.

 

[thebaronjocelin]

I'm with CMH on this one, altogether. Like I said, if you're really desperate to keep the beast around, there's things you could do- RAM, video card. But the 1950 is way too advanced to perform well on the AGP bus; it's just doesn't have the throughput.

 

[halo71]

I agree with CMH. Why not just build a new one and use your HDD, optical etc. from you existing computer. I surely would not put any money into upgrading an eMachine. Just my .02 though.....

 

[twark]

Thanks for the suggestions all. I think I might get a PS3 to tide me by a bit and look at building a new PC in a year or so.

Appreciate all the advice!

 

[thebaronjocelin]

Careful with them Sony boys, they be dane-gerr-uss.