[puntoMX]

CoffeeFiend, on Nov 18 2009, 10:53 PM, said:

GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E5200 - Retail
Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KHX6400D2K2/2G - Retail
Total: $178

CoffeeFriend, you are cheating, you could be starting to work at my shop so sales would go up .

PQI POWER Series 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model MAD42GUOE - Retail $43.99
Intel Celeron E3200 Wolfdale 2.4GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail $52.99
GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $54.99
Total: 151.97USD

With HDMI and DVI:
GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2H LGA 775 Intel G41 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $64.99
Total: 161.97USD

and now the best bang for your money:
PQI POWER Series 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model MAD42GUOE - Retail $43.99
Intel Celeron E3200 Wolfdale 2.4GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail $52.99
GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $54.99
XFX HD-465X-YAF2 Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail $49.99
Total: 201.96USD

Any way, you can't go wrong on both setups, AMD or Intel, the budget market part is already squeezed out as much as it can. I just ordered some of those G41 mobos with the E3200. I'll be OCing them and that's why I went with the Intel setup, later on I will add some HD4650/512 cards to the setup for simple game play, better OC, and freeing up the shared memory. For my main setup I ordered an AMD X2 240, 8GB of DDR3, HD4730 and GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (Better to get a good mobo so I don't need to buy a new version of Windows 7 (Even with the retail version it is pain in the hole here in Mexico) when I need to change my mobo).

[CoffeeFiend]

puntoMX, on Nov 19 2009, 12:49 PM, said:

CoffeeFriend, you are cheating, you could be starting to work at my shop so sales would go up

LOL. When do I start? I merely used that setup he stated out of lazyness (I was genuinely too lazy to price the 3rd option). Then again, all 3 mobos you listed only have 2 DIMM slots...

But yeah, they're basically all decent options, and it'll be a gigantic step up from a P3 regardless of what he picks.

[DL.]

For the simple tasks you mention you could maybe use the old computer for a while and save up some cash, just add more RAM and maybe a newer disk.
You can probably get those things very cheaply or even for free, people throw away computers newer than that one. Installing some light Linux dist might give the machine new life.

But if you choose to go the other route and get a new one...

As others have stated, S775 and DDR2 are practically dead.
Don't buy old stuff even if you need to go cheap, it's not worth it in the long run unless it's very cheap.
Longevity and upgradability should be concerned on any purchase, since the computer will most likely be used over a few years.
Find out how much you can spend, but don't just look at the price.

Don't be afraid to try new things, everything you need to know can be found on the net.

Built-in graphics is more than enough for those tasks, it can even decode HD movies as CoffeeFiend said.

Mainboard: A 785G-based board for AM3, with DDR3 support (4 slots). mATX is often cheaper than full size ATX.
CPU: AMD Athlon II 240/245/250, depending on which one you can find and at what price.
RAM: 2x1GB DDR3 1333, you can simply add 2x1GB later if needed.
HDD: The Seagate 7200.12 is a good choice.
Case: There are lots of cheap generic cases, some better than others. Make sure it has sufficient cooling.
PSU: A good quality brand name PSU is very important, going too cheap here might cost you in damaged components down the line.
DVDRW: Any new DVDRW with SATA will do.

Overclocking the CPU will give you some extra perfrormance for free, but that's probably not needed.

[awergh]

Nah, building something new seems a much better option I don't want to have to go buy PC133, and if you got a new disk does i810 support 48bitLBA besides IDE drives are getting more expensive, and part of the problem really is that the CPU sits at 100% CPU Usage when doing some stuff.

Yeah I need to know when I can do it and how much I can spend.

[Sysdll]

DL., on Nov 19 2009, 06:54 PM, said:

For the simple tasks you mention you could maybe use the old computer for a while and save up some cash, just add more RAM and maybe a newer disk.

Not that easy with this one. A friend asked me to “tune up” a Compaq with the i810 chipset last year.

The ram will have to be 256mb matching sticks of PC100. I found only Micron would work. The only pci graphics card that will work is a Matrox G45. The bios upgrade for XP has disappeared from the Compaq site. Officially the machine has to have ME installed and then upgraded to XP, although booting with an ME floppy and using a reboot utility to trick the cd into booting XP works.

With all the upgrades the thing was more stable but no faster and for some reason the graphics were still fuzzy even with a Matrox card.

All in all it’s a lot of work and I had the parts lying around and didn’t have to hunt or pay for them.

[DL.]

Sysdll, on Nov 22 2009, 03:08 AM, said:

DL., on Nov 19 2009, 06:54 PM, said:

For the simple tasks you mention you could maybe use the old computer for a while and save up some cash, just add more RAM and maybe a newer disk.

Not that easy with this one. A friend asked me to "tune up" a Compaq with the i810 chipset last year.

The ram will have to be 256mb matching sticks of PC100. I found only Micron would work. The only pci graphics card that will work is a Matrox G45. The bios upgrade for XP has disappeared from the Compaq site. Officially the machine has to have ME installed and then upgraded to XP, although booting with an ME floppy and using a reboot utility to trick the cd into booting XP works.

With all the upgrades the thing was more stable but no faster and for some reason the graphics were still fuzzy even with a Matrox card.

All in all it's a lot of work and I had the parts lying around and didn't have to hunt or pay for them.

Compaqs are not the friendliest of computers to work with, that's for sure. They are often picky with components.

The BIOS upgrade doesn't have to be specifically for XP as you incorrectly said.

Adding more RAM and a newer disk is a way of delaying the inevitable. But if you already have or can get those things for free/very cheaply it may be an option for a while...

[Zenskas]

Just remember you can still use that old PC for something! With 320MB RAM and that 800MHz CPU, you would do OK for watching DVD's (just add an IDE DVD drive), downloading stuff off the net (or a torrent box...legal torrents of course ), playing classic old games (any game pre 21st century should work, and there are plenty of fun ones that are easy to get) and even using it to do something like play music. Just don't do all of those things at once
I still have an fairly small, old Dell P3 that up until I built my 'LAN-BOX' was used solely for watching videos and movies on. Plus the odd CS 1.6 Its a 1GHz P3 with 512MB RAM and a 40GB HDD.
Because it used so little power (had a 110W PSU!), made so little heat and so little noise (had just a single 80mm fan in the whole system) it was perfect for what it did. But I really wanted to build a compact PC for LAN parties and loved the look of Shuttles so the P3 is now getting handed down to my little sister for playing old games emulating GBA games, using word and paint, you know just really basic stuff.
Anyways, just give it a format and use nLite and it should still be OK to use XP to do something really basic with. My P3 has a RAM usage of under 120MB when at idle with no open apps! Its got a hugely cut down install of XP though, and boots up in under 40 seconds.

[awergh]

I was never thinking about chucking it out afterwards I only chuck out stuff that doesn't work. Not so sure about pre 21st century games on that I remember playing UT99 on that ages ago when it had 98SE and 128MB RAM and it was a bit slow at the start although I did play it over the network but I've always felt that i810 is a bit low in performance.

Think the suggestion was to give it to someone else.

[DL.]

awergh, on Nov 23 2009, 12:27 PM, said:

Think the suggestion was to give it to someone else.

Either that or use as a router/firewall (easy to do), and it's almost overpowered for that. Compared to most comsumer routers it's rock stable and won't freeze/crash/drop connections with the right NIC.

[Sysdll]

Quote

The BIOS upgrade doesn't have to be specifically for XP as you incorrectly said.

The bios in the last one I worked on was not fully ACPI compliant. Installing XP from the Compaq upgrade disk worked, as did a full install of Windows 2000. A full install of XP did not work. A bios upgrade was necessary to accomplish this.

However Compaq and HP used different i810 boards in their PIII computers and this might not be the same in all of them. I was using this as an example to say as you did the difficulty in upgrading OEM i810 systems.

This post has been edited by puntoMX: 23 November 2009 - 05:11 PM

[awergh]

It is grossly overpowered for a firewall, I have a Pentium MMX 233 with 64MB RAM already running IPCop.
Sometime I should really replace the Realtek 8029AS though but I don't need to that yet.

[Zenskas]

awergh, on Nov 23 2009, 10:27 PM, said:

I was never thinking about chucking it out afterwards I only chuck out stuff that doesn't work. Not so sure about pre 21st century games on that I remember playing UT99 on that ages ago when it had 98SE and 128MB RAM and it was a bit slow at the start although I did play it over the network but I've always felt that i810 is a bit low in performance.

Think the suggestion was to give it to someone else.

Yeah I didn't think you were about to chuck it out or anything judging by your avatar
Don't worry, I still got plenty old PC stuff too
I reckon it would handle UT99. Depending on the GPU. I have a GF4 MX440 in my P3 so UT goes really good. Plays HL1 good too and all its mods/expansions.

This post has been edited by Zenskas: 24 November 2009 - 04:23 AM

[awergh]

Yeah I have quite a lot of old PC stuff, if it had a decent GPU it would run UT good well as long as it wasn't UT with UTRP High-End Textures,
I managed to make UTs framerate too low on a 7300LE with those textures and the high opengl settings like Antialiasing.

I remember using a P3 866 with 320MB PC133, GF4MX 420 PCI and playing Farcry, UT2004 and AOE3 with it although UT99 and AOE2 are both better but you have to play them to know that. Pitty that mobo died on me oh well I got another one that I use that CPU and GPU in.