Sorry for having been so absent lately, I've been working on a very important project lately. I'll probably mention it when it's completed.
Hopefully that project will bring in enough money to pay for the cost of replacing my motherboard, ram, cpu and graphics card. All of which is not only way overdue but consider very old. As far as motherboards and cpu sockets go I'm like 2 generations behind.
It's not easy trying to earn a living on old hardware, and it's even worse when hardware wise one is so behind that you can't simply upgrade just the motherboard, or just the cpu or just the graphics card.
I have a very old motherboard, so old that the bios did not support my Athlon XP 2200+, the manual did not even have jumper settings for it's speed even. I had to use trial and error to find a jumper setting on the motherboard that gave the right (undocumented, not even searching the net helped) clock multiplier. The motherboard/bios still report the cpu as a Duron to the system. *laughs*
And the motherboard uses SDRAM only. And it has AGP graphics port only. and no SATA either. Starting to get the picture? So if I just upgraded the motherboard that would be no good, as I would need new ram to go with it. As I doubt they even sell MB's with SDRAM any more. So MB and RAM has to be upgraded together, and considering that hardly any MB's are sold these days with AGP port but PCIe instead, this would also require a graphics card upgrade. Not to mention that MB's with Socket A is pretty much off the market as well.
I initially pondered Socket 939 MB and AMD Athlon XP64 CPU, plus PCIe gfx card. But since recently the AM2 cpu from AMD has been launched as well as AM2 socket MB's. The cool thing is that as far as costs go, the new AM2 socket CPU's and MB's cost around the same as socket 939's so I'm just gonna skip 939. Yeah sad isn't it. My current hardware is so old I'm skipping two entire hardware generations just to catch up. But I am lucky in a way, I'll be jumping right into the AM2 socket platform instead of wasting cash on 939.
The AM2 socket platform finally allow the new Athlon's to use the popular DDR2 ram modules. DDR2 is as cheap or cheaper than DDR, so once again I'm skipping a full generation, of ram in this case.
When it comes to graphics cards it's a bit different. PCIe is current gen, and I have AGP which is previous gen. My current Radeon 9500 (it's a non-pro as well *sigh*) has been a workhorse, more so than my previous Geforce 2 MX400 before that. The 9500 has DirectX9.0 support, Shader 2.0 support. And is able to run pretty much anything out there, albeit very slowly obviously.
The graphics card I'm looking at now is the best price/performance ratio of any cards I've seen in ages. I'm talking about the Geforce 7600GT. This card has amazing performance, and if you spot this card or a card with matching price/performance ratio then get it. Sure it's a middle range card, but that's the beauty of it. It's not too expensive, and although the top of the line cards currently have twice the performance they also have insane costs. The 7600GT looks to be another workhorse, unclocked I'm sure it will easily survive 5+ years. Meaning you can put it in your "second system" when you later upgrade your main system.
I don't have a "second system" yet. Or rather I'm basically typing on it right now. My hope was to scrape together enough cash to upgrade everything at once, thereby only having to move the soundcard from my current system to the new one. (My soundcard is a Audigy 2ZS Platinum, excellent card indeed) but things cost money, so I'm looking at a partial upgrade instead. *sigh* It's better than nothing I guess.
My main fear is that this current system could die and I would have no backup, thus possibly sabotaging whatever I'm currently working on. Which is very bad when you do contracting work where people rely on you in a timely manner. This is why I've been keeping a constantly updated (both latest cost and components available) "pc shopping list" everything on that list is vital for a full PC upgrade, the current project I'm working on maybe pays only 40% of the total cost if I'm lucky. what is amusing though is that over the months or even years, the prices in the list either drop, or stay the same but the components improve.
I believe it's not worth buying anything below middle range. Low range just isn't worth it, especially if you plan to use it for many years. And high range just isn't worth it either. The cost is so high that despite better hardware, it would be sometimes less than a year until next time you need to upgrade to the latest again. Middle range hardware is best, if the worst should happen and a component dies although expensive it is not impossible to get a replacement moderately quickly. Pick components with care and do not overclock and their lifespan will outlast most highend hardware.
So what is my advice to you? AM2 socket mainboard, Athlon XP3500+ 64 cpu, DDR2 ram go for something in the middle rage there too. Geforce 7600GT PCIe graphics card. Audigy 2ZS soundcard or equal X-FI card if the price is similar. And a 400watt powersupply. Get a case that let you mount at least 1 fan in front and the back, and when I say at least I mean it. preferably 2 in front and back, then get some low noise good performance case fans, and you will get better and very quiet airflow than a noisy single fan or two fan case. And if one fan dies the other 3 or 2 should have no issue keeping your system alive until you get a new fan. Another tip is to avoid turning on or off your PC more than necessary.
Sure it eats up power to leave it on all the time, but if the power is stable where you live, then despite constant power, not having the power on/off cycles so frequent reduces wear and tear on the system. A PC works best if everything is constant. constant power, constant heat, constant humidity and so on. A PC these days is sensitive so under constant conditions it allows all the electronics to "settle", once that is done and it's used in the same or similar environment you will have a very long lasting and reliable system.
I have yet to have this system crash on it's own, corrupt it's own memory or disks or anything like that which seems to plague many other people out there. And keeping your system clean and the registry trimmed also helps, and key thing is to stay away from bloatware. I'm able to keep this system running smoothly 1-2 years turns without major cleanups or reinstalls. And I'm a programmer who likes to experiment. I've lost count of the times I myself have managed to crash the system. *laughs*
The last time I reinstalled this system was summer 2004, give that some thought...