Darren Lewis
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2000
- Messages
- 534
Hi Chris.
Well, lets see if I can help out a bit. You've got quite a few choices available to you, depening what you want to change in your current system. I'll try to cover a few options.
If you want to keep you CPU and change only the motherboard, then you're really going to be looking at another slot 1 mobo (assuming your CPU is a slot1 - which I think it is).
To find a slot1 mobo you'll be looking at the second user market, or perhaps a shop with one lying around. Your CPU will probably run at 100MHz clock speed, so you'll be looking for one that can handle this. Look for one that has an Intel BX chipset on it (I think some of the non-intel chipsets such as the ones by VIA will do but I'm not familiar with these) Do NOT go for anything that mentions the Intel 440LX chipset as these cannot support the Pentium 3. Once you've got your new(ish) board you can move all the components over and plug in some more RAM (The BX chipset can take up to 1GB if the board has 4 DIMM slots, or 768Mb if the board has 3). These older boards though will not be able to support CPUs much beyond about 600-800MHz if you want to change the CPU on the future.
If you want to change the CPU as well, then you've opened up some more doors. The choice you'll have to make is between Intel and AMD. I've always used Intel, mainly because I was led to believe that Intel were better at handling complex calculations, such as in CAD etc. I'm probably wrong on this point. Looking at one of the PC mags the other day, they were reviewing new systems, and were raving about the AMD Athlon CPUs, especially those that use DDR memory.
Intel's new baby is the Pentium 4, but this hasn't been so popular. The first P4s had to use special RAM, called RAMBUS (or RIMM), and this was expensive. It's got a bit cheaper, but is still more expensive than your standard sticks. Intel have released another version of the P4, which does not need RAMBUS, but I don't know much about it.
Intel still make P3 CPUs, but only in the Socket370 (aka FC-PGA) variety. There is a new breed of P3s on the market which run faster than 1GHz. They are code-named "Tualatin" - don't knwo who invents these names! The motherboard must be able to support these types of P3.
The new motherboard for the CPU will depend on which CPU type you go for. I'd recommend ASUS boards. The boards have different chipsets made by Intel/VIA etc. Intel has the 815 series chipsets to support the newer P3s. Interestingly they can only support upto 512Mb RAM, which seems a bit of a backward step to me. The chipsets by VIA can (I think) support more RAM.
If you do change the CPU, then your old 128Mb RAM may not be able to be used - it's probably 100MHz RAM annd unless you get a 100MHz-type CPU you won't be able to use it (most of the newer Intel CPUs, and I thinnk the non-DDR Athlons, run at 133MHz). This isn't such a big deal as RAM is pretty cheap at the moment (prices of RAM are VERY volatile). Remember you can run 133MHz RAM at 100Mhz, but not the other way.
As regards the rest of your kit, you can use it in pretty much any machine. Hard Drives have gotten bigger and faster. The latest interface (not including SCSI - good performance but EXPENSIVE) is UDMA100, so look out for this on the motherboard if you want to run a UDMA100 drive.
Promise make an IDE RAID card, which allows you to plug in, say two 20Gb Drives and do some clever things to either boost their performance, or to use one drive as a backup of the other one instantaneously.
I think that'll do for now
------------------
My HT My DVD Collection
Well, lets see if I can help out a bit. You've got quite a few choices available to you, depening what you want to change in your current system. I'll try to cover a few options.
If you want to keep you CPU and change only the motherboard, then you're really going to be looking at another slot 1 mobo (assuming your CPU is a slot1 - which I think it is).
To find a slot1 mobo you'll be looking at the second user market, or perhaps a shop with one lying around. Your CPU will probably run at 100MHz clock speed, so you'll be looking for one that can handle this. Look for one that has an Intel BX chipset on it (I think some of the non-intel chipsets such as the ones by VIA will do but I'm not familiar with these) Do NOT go for anything that mentions the Intel 440LX chipset as these cannot support the Pentium 3. Once you've got your new(ish) board you can move all the components over and plug in some more RAM (The BX chipset can take up to 1GB if the board has 4 DIMM slots, or 768Mb if the board has 3). These older boards though will not be able to support CPUs much beyond about 600-800MHz if you want to change the CPU on the future.
If you want to change the CPU as well, then you've opened up some more doors. The choice you'll have to make is between Intel and AMD. I've always used Intel, mainly because I was led to believe that Intel were better at handling complex calculations, such as in CAD etc. I'm probably wrong on this point. Looking at one of the PC mags the other day, they were reviewing new systems, and were raving about the AMD Athlon CPUs, especially those that use DDR memory.
Intel's new baby is the Pentium 4, but this hasn't been so popular. The first P4s had to use special RAM, called RAMBUS (or RIMM), and this was expensive. It's got a bit cheaper, but is still more expensive than your standard sticks. Intel have released another version of the P4, which does not need RAMBUS, but I don't know much about it.
Intel still make P3 CPUs, but only in the Socket370 (aka FC-PGA) variety. There is a new breed of P3s on the market which run faster than 1GHz. They are code-named "Tualatin" - don't knwo who invents these names! The motherboard must be able to support these types of P3.
The new motherboard for the CPU will depend on which CPU type you go for. I'd recommend ASUS boards. The boards have different chipsets made by Intel/VIA etc. Intel has the 815 series chipsets to support the newer P3s. Interestingly they can only support upto 512Mb RAM, which seems a bit of a backward step to me. The chipsets by VIA can (I think) support more RAM.
If you do change the CPU, then your old 128Mb RAM may not be able to be used - it's probably 100MHz RAM annd unless you get a 100MHz-type CPU you won't be able to use it (most of the newer Intel CPUs, and I thinnk the non-DDR Athlons, run at 133MHz). This isn't such a big deal as RAM is pretty cheap at the moment (prices of RAM are VERY volatile). Remember you can run 133MHz RAM at 100Mhz, but not the other way.
As regards the rest of your kit, you can use it in pretty much any machine. Hard Drives have gotten bigger and faster. The latest interface (not including SCSI - good performance but EXPENSIVE) is UDMA100, so look out for this on the motherboard if you want to run a UDMA100 drive.
Promise make an IDE RAID card, which allows you to plug in, say two 20Gb Drives and do some clever things to either boost their performance, or to use one drive as a backup of the other one instantaneously.
I think that'll do for now
------------------
My HT My DVD Collection
