Upgrading

[xestanz]

I currently have a:
-1000 megahertz AMD Athlon
-Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. 7ZX 1.0 Mobo
-384 Megabytes of RAM
-Nvida Vanta video card

and i was thinking of upgrading to:
-AMD XP 2100+
-ALBATRON KX400+ PRO Mobo (This and the amd are in a bundle)
-Kingston 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM
-Gainward GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB DDR AGP Golden Sample

This is my first time doing this so any tips or pointers would be helpful. If you need any more specs just ask.

One other question is do you really need the Thermal Gel and the processor coverings?

Im thinking of running Windows XP.

Thanks.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Quote:

Thermal Gel and the processor coverings?

I assume you mean Thermal Paste and no you don't need it if it's a boxed processor it has a thermal pad which will do fine as long as you aren't overclocking.

processor coverings??? a heatsink? yes you need one of those. (unless it's a boxed processor which comes with one that should be sufficient providing you aren't overclocking.

You may want to check your power supplys wattage, 350W or higher would be recommended.

Make sure you are grounded, (you can leave the PC plugged in if it has a physical Off switch on the back and just touch the case to discharge any static, tho I've never had a problem with this, it's advisable.

Also make sure your case has at least 1 other fan besides the Powersupply fan, an exhaust at the rear should do. Just allows the heat to get out of the case.

Sorry, how rude of me, Welcome to TechIMO.

[bill1971]

Welcome, xestanz:
You've come to the right place for advice. Folks here won't hesitate to help. offer advise, and tell you exactly what they think.

Looks like a nice system. Will you be building it yourself? Not quite sure what you mean by "processor coverings," but if you mean a heatsink and fan combo, the answer is definitely YES!!
The gel should work fine for you.

I have no experience w/ Albatron boards at all.
What wattage/ brand power supply are you using?
Also, if you don't mind, will you share the pricing on the items listed? We might be able to help there as well.
What hard drive will you be using? Thanks.

- Bill

[screen]

xestanz: Are you talking about the copper shim? I did not put one on the CPU for my earlier builds. It might help a little bit. Not absolute necessary though. If your AMD processor is not in a retail package, get a good AMD approved heatsink+fan. Newegg has severl of them at a good price.

[chris64]

Just be carefull when you put the heatsink on the proccesor because you could easily chip the core. The shims are used to protect the core.

[xestanz]

Hey, thanks for the fast resposes. Sorry for the "processor coverings" mix up, i was talking a bout the copper shim. My current power supply is 250w so ill need to upgrade that. My current hard drive is 120gb.

Also yes bill1971 i'll be buiding it myself. I have built a computer before, but that was to help out a friend who already had the parts.

The 512mb of RAM is $113 at newegg
GeForce4 Ti4200 is $172 at allstarshop
and the bundle is $174.99 at tigerdirect

Any recommendations on the heatsink and fan?

Im also woundering if I should go to fry's and get the retail package of the processor and just buy a mobo seperate.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1983.html

The rating for tigerdirect is kinda iffy (around 5/10) if you can find the bundle elsewhere it might be advisable.

http://www.techimo.com/forum/t49177.html

XP2000+ and ECS K7S5A for 100$, at fry's, The board is stable and should perform well with DDR memory, I found it runs a bit slow on video with SDram, but with DDR it's supposed to be very good.

[xestanz]

Thanks wizzard. Ya, i was wavering on tigerdirects dependability.

Anyone know if theres much of aperformance gap between the 2000+ and the 2100+?

Thanks for all the help.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

You won't notice it unless you are doing something like photo rendering, but for games you won't notice it at all, I'm running an XP1600 @ 1.53Ghz (you can't really overclock with that board easily but it can be done) and I have no problems with any game out there, except Ghost recon, I can't run it in 1600x1280 with everything maxed, but I think a lot of people have issues with that

[xestanz]

Thanks. I was looking around and noticed that on Fry's website it says $139.99. Is it an walk in price or maybe they just haven't updated their site.

Also I saw the AMD Athlon® XP 2100+ Boxed CPU With Soyo KT333 Dragron Lite Motherboard It comes with the CPU fan( hopefully thats enough) which is -$20 (about) and I can drive there so - $10 for shipping.

So is it worth the money?