upgrading motherboard, cpu and memory

Hi There,

I was wondering if this would be a good upgrade for me.

MSI K9MM-V Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor 2.0GHz.
I will also get 1 gig of ddr II memory.

I am on a very tight budget. I am not a real gamer. The game I am
currently playing is Fable - The Lost Chapters. I also do video and
photo editing. I would like to keep my AGP card.

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.

My system specs a

AI7 Pentium 4 motherboad
1 GB of ocz memory (512 x 2)
MSI NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (128 MB)
2.8 Pentium 4 CPU
WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 SATA II
WDC WD1600JD-75HBC0 SATA I
ASUS CRW-5224A (52x/24x/52x CD-RW)
LITE-ON CD-ROM LTN-527T (52x CD-ROM)
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M
Ultra ULT31841 V-Series 500 Watt power supply.

Thank you for any help!
Laurie

lamba wrote:
Hi There,

I was wondering if this would be a good upgrade for me.

MSI K9MM-V Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor 2.0GHz.
I will also get 1 gig of ddr II memory.

I am on a very tight budget. I am not a real gamer. The game I am
currently playing is Fable - The Lost Chapters. I also do video and
photo editing. I would like to keep my AGP card.

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.

My system specs a

AI7 Pentium 4 motherboad
1 GB of ocz memory (512 x 2)
MSI NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (128 MB)
2.8 Pentium 4 CPU
WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 SATA II
WDC WD1600JD-75HBC0 SATA I
ASUS CRW-5224A (52x/24x/52x CD-RW)
LITE-ON CD-ROM LTN-527T (52x CD-ROM)
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M
Ultra ULT31841 V-Series 500 Watt power supply.

Thank you for any help!
Laurie

The K9MM-V has one IDE connector, for two drives. You have three optical
drives I can see in the list, which means one of them cannot be connected.
There are two SATA connectors on the motherboard, and you have two SATA
drives, so that is OK.

In terms of performance, a 3200+ is single core, without Hyperthreading
to make a second (virtual) core. That is one advantage your P4 at 2.8GHz
with FSB800 has. I have an AthlonXP 3200+ and the machine I'm typing on
is an overclocked P4 running at about 3.2GHz, and the P4 is slightly
better and smoother in the desktop by a fraction.

You could spend a few more dollars, and get a dual core 3800+. Take
the rating with a grain of salt. The processor is basically like
having two 3200+ processors. The clock speed is 2000MHz, cache is
512KB per core. Most of the time, it won't seem that much faster,
like for single threaded programs, it would be the same speed as
the 3200+. But when a game runs on one core, the second core can handle
the OS and background tasks, which can be a benefit. If you had a lot
of modern software, then the dual cores would be used more often (as
you can see on the benchmark page listed further down).

ADO3800CUBOX 3800+ dual core 65W 2000MHz
http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskto...ail.aspx?id=55
ADO3800CUBOX $64
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103733

The 3200+ single core is listed here.

ADA3200CNBOX 3200+ single core 62W 2000MHz
http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskto...il.aspx?id=100

So for an extra few dollars, you'll have a smoother desktop.

There are benchmark charts here, but they emphasize the benefits of
dual cores. And not all programs benefit from two cores. This is one
of the few, where I think only one core is being used. The 3800+
only has a slight lead on the 3200+ here.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_20...32&char t=422

I tried to price an equivalent Intel solution to your old motherboard and
processor, but that cost more again. A processor similar to your old one
was $80 and the motherboard was $60. The motherboard does have two IDE
connectors though.

Intel Pentium 4 631 Cedar Mill 3.0GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116004

GIGABYTE GA-8I865GME-775-RH-AS LGA 775 Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128051

Read the reviews on the K9MM-V before you make your final decision.
I wouldn't mind buying this motherboard locally, as returning it
locally would be much easier. It is too bad that decent quality AGP motherboards
are so hard to find.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130064

HTH,
Paul

"lamba" wrote in message
...
Hi There,

I was wondering if this would be a good upgrade for me.

MSI K9MM-V Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor 2.0GHz.
I will also get 1 gig of ddr II memory.

I am on a very tight budget. I am not a real gamer. The game I am
currently playing is Fable - The Lost Chapters. I also do video and
photo editing. I would like to keep my AGP card.

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.


The hardware you need depends a lot on the software you use.

Just for an example...if you use Photoshop (CS2/3) a very fast CPU is needed
if you process large images...
a dual core CPU is not a bad idea here...but for RAM...2 gigs is sufficient.

OTOH: An application such as Publisher, though it may not require the
fastest CPU...
for a large document...a lot of RAM is needed...and 2 gigs may not be enough
to efficiently run it.

Since you mentioned you were on a budget...
I'd probably get (as suggested elsewhere) an AMD-3800 X2

As for RAM, though you could start out with just one gig...
you could always add a 2nd gig or more later if needed

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:05:18 -0400, Paul wrote:

lamba wrote:
Hi There,

I was wondering if this would be a good upgrade for me.

MSI K9MM-V Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor 2.0GHz.
I will also get 1 gig of ddr II memory.

I am on a very tight budget. I am not a real gamer. The game I am
currently playing is Fable - The Lost Chapters. I also do video and
photo editing. I would like to keep my AGP card.

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.



The K9MM-V has one IDE connector, for two drives. You have three optical
drives I can see in the list, which means one of them cannot be connected.
There are two SATA connectors on the motherboard, and you have two SATA
drives, so that is OK.

In terms of performance, a 3200+ is single core, without Hyperthreading
to make a second (virtual) core. That is one advantage your P4 at 2.8GHz
with FSB800 has. I have an AthlonXP 3200+ and the machine I'm typing on
is an overclocked P4 running at about 3.2GHz, and the P4 is slightly
better and smoother in the desktop by a fraction.

You could spend a few more dollars, and get a dual core 3800+. Take
the rating with a grain of salt. The processor is basically like
having two 3200+ processors. The clock speed is 2000MHz, cache is
512KB per core. Most of the time, it won't seem that much faster,
like for single threaded programs, it would be the same speed as
the 3200+. But when a game runs on one core, the second core can handle
the OS and background tasks, which can be a benefit. If you had a lot
of modern software, then the dual cores would be used more often (as
you can see on the benchmark page listed further down).

ADO3800CUBOX 3800+ dual core 65W 2000MHz
http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskto...ail.aspx?id=55
ADO3800CUBOX $64
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103733

The 3200+ single core is listed here.

ADA3200CNBOX 3200+ single core 62W 2000MHz
http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskto...il.aspx?id=100

So for an extra few dollars, you'll have a smoother desktop.

There are benchmark charts here, but they emphasize the benefits of
dual cores. And not all programs benefit from two cores. This is one
of the few, where I think only one core is being used. The 3800+
only has a slight lead on the 3200+ here.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_20...32&char t=422

I tried to price an equivalent Intel solution to your old motherboard and
processor, but that cost more again. A processor similar to your old one
was $80 and the motherboard was $60. The motherboard does have two IDE
connectors though.

Intel Pentium 4 631 Cedar Mill 3.0GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116004

GIGABYTE GA-8I865GME-775-RH-AS LGA 775 Intel 865G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128051

Read the reviews on the K9MM-V before you make your final decision.
I wouldn't mind buying this motherboard locally, as returning it
locally would be much easier. It is too bad that decent quality AGP motherboards
are so hard to find.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130064

HTH,
Paul
I can get rid of the one of the optical drives as I use the DVD drive
the most. So that shouldn't be a problem.

Thank you for this info, more checking to do. I am not up on the
newest stuff. And I havn't used AMD since my first build.
The AI7 board has served me well, and thought that it would be a good
upgrade for my son. He alway's gets my hand me downs.

Again Thank you,
Laurie

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 05:29:09 -0500, "philo" wrote:


"lamba" wrote in message
.. .
Hi There,

I was wondering if this would be a good upgrade for me.

MSI K9MM-V Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor 2.0GHz.
I will also get 1 gig of ddr II memory.

I am on a very tight budget. I am not a real gamer. The game I am
currently playing is Fable - The Lost Chapters. I also do video and
photo editing. I would like to keep my AGP card.

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.


The hardware you need depends a lot on the software you use.

Just for an example...if you use Photoshop (CS2/3) a very fast CPU is needed
if you process large images...
a dual core CPU is not a bad idea here...but for RAM...2 gigs is sufficient.

OTOH: An application such as Publisher, though it may not require the
fastest CPU...
for a large document...a lot of RAM is needed...and 2 gigs may not be enough
to efficiently run it.

Since you mentioned you were on a budget...
I'd probably get (as suggested elsewhere) an AMD-3800 X2

As for RAM, though you could start out with just one gig...
you could always add a 2nd gig or more later if needed

That is what I thought I would do, get one gig, and add another gig
later.
Thank you for you info
Laurie

"lamba" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 05:29:09 -0500, "philo" wrote:


"lamba" wrote in message
. ..
Hi There,

I was wondering if this would be a good upgrade for me.

MSI K9MM-V Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Processor 2.0GHz.
I will also get 1 gig of ddr II memory.

I am on a very tight budget. I am not a real gamer. The game I am
currently playing is Fable - The Lost Chapters. I also do video and
photo editing. I would like to keep my AGP card.

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.


The hardware you need depends a lot on the software you use.

Just for an example...if you use Photoshop (CS2/3) a very fast CPU is
needed
if you process large images...
a dual core CPU is not a bad idea here...but for RAM...2 gigs is
sufficient.

OTOH: An application such as Publisher, though it may not require the
fastest CPU...
for a large document...a lot of RAM is needed...and 2 gigs may not be
enough
to efficiently run it.

Since you mentioned you were on a budget...
I'd probably get (as suggested elsewhere) an AMD-3800 X2

As for RAM, though you could start out with just one gig...
you could always add a 2nd gig or more later if needed

That is what I thought I would do, get one gig, and add another gig
later.
Thank you for you info
Laurie

Going from P4 2.8 to Athlon 3200 is only 14% increase, and will be even less
for video work. You will not see an improvement! You need at least an x2
3800, x2 4200 would be better.
Mike.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:32:57 +0100, "Michael Hawes"
wrote:


Going from P4 2.8 to Athlon 3200 is only 14% increase, and will be even less
for video work. You will not see an improvement! You need at least an x2
3800, x2 4200 would be better.
Mike.


Thanks for your input. I guess that mabey I should save some more
money and get a better system. Not much offerings for us poor
folks.
Laurie

My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.

My system specs a

AI7 Pentium 4 motherboad
1 GB of ocz memory (512 x 2)
MSI NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (128 MB)
2.8 Pentium 4 CPU
WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 SATA II
WDC WD1600JD-75HBC0 SATA I
ASUS CRW-5224A (52x/24x/52x CD-RW)
LITE-ON CD-ROM LTN-527T (52x CD-ROM)
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M
Ultra ULT31841 V-Series 500 Watt power supply.

Thank you for any help!
Laurie

Ok here is what I am thinking of buying Friday.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157115

If they still have this motherboard then.

Cpu:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819112234

Ram:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820161675

Will this be budget upgrade for me? I would like to get another 1 GB
ram in the near future.
Thank you in advance,
Laurie

lamba wrote:
My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.

My system specs a

AI7 Pentium 4 motherboad
1 GB of ocz memory (512 x 2)
MSI NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (128 MB)
2.8 Pentium 4 CPU
WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 SATA II
WDC WD1600JD-75HBC0 SATA I
ASUS CRW-5224A (52x/24x/52x CD-RW)
LITE-ON CD-ROM LTN-527T (52x CD-ROM)
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M
Ultra ULT31841 V-Series 500 Watt power supply.

Thank you for any help!
Laurie

Ok here is what I am thinking of buying Friday.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157115

If they still have this motherboard then.

Cpu:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819112234

Ram:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820161675

Will this be budget upgrade for me? I would like to get another 1 GB
ram in the near future.
Thank you in advance,
Laurie

It will be budget, but it will perform about the same as your old system.
Your old processor was 2.8GHz, supporting Hyperthreading. The new processor
is 3.06GHz Celeron, which lacks Hyperthreading, and usually the cache is less
than an equivalent P4 (equivalent in this case, would be comparing it to a
P4 Prescott with 1MB cache), which makes a slight difference. So the new processor
is in the same ballpatk, but my guess would be, slightly slower for some
things.

Asrock is the "king of tricks" when it comes to motherboards. Yes, the
motherboard is fine for your stated purpose.

The fun comes, when considering upgrades to your system, at a future date.

1) The PCI Express slot is x16 in size, but is only wired with x4 lanes.
See the Asrock manual, section 1.4, for a list of approved video cards
known to work in such a slot. That reduces the performance of the PCI
Express video slot, compared to a normal PCI Express motherboard with
true x16 wiring.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/downloads/p...comparison.pdf

ftp://download.asrock.com/manual/4CoreDual-SATA2.pdf

2) We're not sure about the memory slots. Yes, there are four DIMM slots.
Two are for DDR (2.5 volt) memory. Two are for DDR2 (1.8V) memory. But
the memory does not operate in 128 bit mode (what everyone else calls dual
channel). I think that VIA's lawyers consider it fair game to refer to
two, independent memory channels, as "dual channel".

In any case, you can only use a maximum of two of the four slots at a
time. A maximum of two DDR memory sticks can be installed or a maximum of
two DDR2 memory sticks can be installed, but not all four slots can be
occupied at the same time.

About the only way to verify the "lawyer style" specification, would
be for someone to benchmark with one or two sticks of memory present,
to see if it functions in 128 bit mode.

So, yes, the motherboard is fine for your usage. The surprises may come
later, if you want to upgrade the system further. I'm not saying it is a
bad product. To judge that, all you have to go on, is previous customer
reviews for the product and the product's predecessor.

It is just I am not in favor of "tricks" or "lawyer style" specifications.
A manufacturer should be able to be honest (i.e. two single channel memory
channels, one for DDR and one for DDR2, one PCI Express x4 video slot),
as otherwise they'll get a reputation for being a "snake". Notice, now,
that when I analyse their products, I always assume the worst, because of
their "lawyer-talk".

For your choice in memory, read the customer reviews in the Newegg
page, to get some idea as to what to expect. With that product, as
soon as the computer is assembled, your Windows repair or clean
install is finished, I would run Orthos to verify everything is OK.
Memtest86+ is a good thing to run from a floppy, first, before booting
into Windows, but you'll also need to test with Orthos, as it tests
in a more stressful way than memtest86+ does. Orthos should run for
hours, without stopping or reporting an error.

http://www.memtest.org ( http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70....70.floppy.zip )

http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm

Good luck,
Paul

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:42:56 -0400, Paul wrote:

lamba wrote:
My motherboard, cpu and memory will be going to my son to upgrade his
Pentium III based system. He just bought a AGP Nvidia graphics card.

My system specs a

AI7 Pentium 4 motherboad
1 GB of ocz memory (512 x 2)
MSI NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (128 MB)
2.8 Pentium 4 CPU
WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 SATA II
WDC WD1600JD-75HBC0 SATA I
ASUS CRW-5224A (52x/24x/52x CD-RW)
LITE-ON CD-ROM LTN-527T (52x CD-ROM)
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M
Ultra ULT31841 V-Series 500 Watt power supply.

Thank you for any help!
Laurie

Ok here is what I am thinking of buying Friday.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157115

If they still have this motherboard then.

Cpu:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819112234

Ram:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820161675

Will this be budget upgrade for me? I would like to get another 1 GB
ram in the near future.
Thank you in advance,
Laurie


Paul,
Thank you for your detailed answer, much appreciated.

It will be budget, but it will perform about the same as your old system.
Your old processor was 2.8GHz, supporting Hyperthreading. The new processor
is 3.06GHz Celeron, which lacks Hyperthreading, and usually the cache is less
than an equivalent P4 (equivalent in this case, would be comparing it to a
P4 Prescott with 1MB cache), which makes a slight difference. So the new processor
is in the same ballpatk, but my guess would be, slightly slower for some
things.

That is what I was afraid of, I know nothing about these new
processors. Only that I can't afford anything higher right now. Want
to save for a better cpu.

Asrock is the "king of tricks" when it comes to motherboards. Yes, the
motherboard is fine for your stated purpose.

The fun comes, when considering upgrades to your system, at a future date.

1) The PCI Express slot is x16 in size, but is only wired with x4 lanes.
See the Asrock manual, section 1.4, for a list of approved video cards
known to work in such a slot. That reduces the performance of the PCI
Express video slot, compared to a normal PCI Express motherboard with
true x16 wiring.

The only time I would upgrade to PCI Express is when my old AGP dies.
If I ever do, memory then cpu would be my first upgrade.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/downloads/p...comparison.pdf

ftp://download.asrock.com/manual/4CoreDual-SATA2.pdf

2) We're not sure about the memory slots. Yes, there are four DIMM slots.
Two are for DDR (2.5 volt) memory. Two are for DDR2 (1.8V) memory. But
the memory does not operate in 128 bit mode (what everyone else calls dual
channel). I think that VIA's lawyers consider it fair game to refer to
two, independent memory channels, as "dual channel".

In any case, you can only use a maximum of two of the four slots at a
time. A maximum of two DDR memory sticks can be installed or a maximum of
two DDR2 memory sticks can be installed, but not all four slots can be
occupied at the same time.

About the only way to verify the "lawyer style" specification, would
be for someone to benchmark with one or two sticks of memory present,
to see if it functions in 128 bit mode.

So, yes, the motherboard is fine for your usage. The surprises may come
later, if you want to upgrade the system further. I'm not saying it is a
bad product. To judge that, all you have to go on, is previous customer
reviews for the product and the product's predecessor.

It is just I am not in favor of "tricks" or "lawyer style" specifications.
A manufacturer should be able to be honest (i.e. two single channel memory
channels, one for DDR and one for DDR2, one PCI Express x4 video slot),
as otherwise they'll get a reputation for being a "snake". Notice, now,
that when I analyse their products, I always assume the worst, because of
their "lawyer-talk".

For your choice in memory, read the customer reviews in the Newegg
page, to get some idea as to what to expect. With that product, as
soon as the computer is assembled, your Windows repair or clean
install is finished, I would run Orthos to verify everything is OK.
Memtest86+ is a good thing to run from a floppy, first, before booting
into Windows, but you'll also need to test with Orthos, as it tests
in a more stressful way than memtest86+ does. Orthos should run for
hours, without stopping or reporting an error.

I would get the same memory as soon as I could to have 2 gigs of DDR2.
From other reviews, people seem to like it.

http://www.memtest.org ( http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70....70.floppy.zip )

http://sp2004.fre3.com/beta/beta2.htm

I have heard of memtest, just never used it. Never heard of Orthos,
thanks for the links.
I also like that fact that it has sata 2.

Again, thank you for taking the time to look and give me this
information. It is helping me.

Good luck,
Paul