To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question...

[Cookiemaker]

I currently have a
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ @1540mhz.

I want to upgrade to either a
AMD Athlon XP 2400+ "Thoroughbred"
or a
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton".

The 2400+ is clocked faster at 2ghz but the 2500+ has a faster fbs of 333mhz.

Would there be a significant performance boost between my current processor and the new ones to justifty a 90 dollar purchase?

[Scott Tiger]

What type of motherboard and memory do you have?

Your upgrade could cost quite a bit more than you think depending on what you have now.

Also, what are you planning on doing with the computer? Most apps don't require much cpu power.

[Cookiemaker]

I currently have a Gigabyte GA-7VRX and 768MB 2700 333mhz ram. If I get the Barton I have to change my motherboard and I'd rather spend that extra money on like heatsink and speakers, etc etc. But the motherboard I would choose is the ASUS A7N8X Deluxe.

Mostly play games (new games require more), watch movies, and occasionally do some photoshopping.

[Martoch]

Overclock!!! Push that 1800+ to the limit...

[blubomber]

How about the 2400+ to avoid having to buy a new mobo. You could probably run the 2400 on a 333MHz bus, just adjust the multiplyer and voltage. If you can that is.

Although, the 2500+ Barton does have 512KB cache, which would benefit you in your gaming and photoshop work.

Can you do a BIOS upgrade on your board that will support the 2500 Barton?

[Dazbo666]

From my experience (upgrading from XP2000 to XP2600 speeds), I don't think you'd notice very much difference, except for benchmarking, or distributed computing projects

[Cookiemaker]

I don't think a bios upgrade would support the barton.
I kind of want to get a new mobo because I might get the ATI Radeon 9600XT. The new mobo would support 8X AGP. My current mobo only supports up to 4x.

My current video card is Aopen Geforce4 Ti4200.

PS: For every upgrade I get my friend is willing to buy the old parts. That should shave off a few dollars on the new parts. His computer is pretty bad lol.

[Martoch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cookiemaker
The new mobo would support 8X AGP. My current mobo only supports up to 4x.

8x AGP = marketing hype

Quote:

What 8X AGP does is double the bandwidth between the videocard and the system from 1.06 GB/s (4x AGP) to 2.1 GB/s. This means that potentially twice as much data can reach the videocard at any given instant. While this sounds great on paper, in real world situations it doesn't really boost performance as much as you might imagine with today's games.

[Ace McGirk]

Go for the new mobo.

I got the A7N8X and a 2800 barton and I love it.
lan works great as well as the onboard sound(I don't do mp3s).
With the 9600xt you will have a rockin rig.

[Cookiemaker]

I think this is what I'll do.
First I'll spend money on smaller things. (eg. logitech z640, cdrw-dvd drive, heatsink/fan, etc).

Then when christmas/new years/my birthday (all pretty close together) rolls around I'll get the new mobo, cpu, and video card.

I'll be a little fickle on the order of things I'll get lol.
How far would I be able to OC the Barton with a good heatsink/fan/thermal grease with it staying at around a cool 50 celcius at load?

Just so you guys can analyze my situation a little better I'll post up my specs.

Cpu : AMD Athlon XP 1800+ @1540mhz
MoBo: Gigabyte GA-7VRX ver. 1.1
Memory: 768mb 2700 333mhz (256 samsung)(512 crucial)
Video card: Aopen Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb
HDD: Maxtor 80gig
Sound card: Creative Labs Audigy Gamer
Case: Unknown (3 Drive bays)
CD-rom: Lite-on (Damaged)
Speakers: Yamaha YST-MS201
Monitor: Envision 985e
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard (OEM)
Mouse: Microsoft Intelimouse Optical

Heat: Cpu 63Celius Idle (hence the need for the heatsink, running stock)
Case 40-45Celius