After getting my 24" wide-screen at a bargain price, I thought I'd give my aged rig a little boost.
What with the on-going lack of demand for one-armed bricklayers - plus the need to divert cash towards getting our house roof repaired - I could only find a hundred and fifty quid in my pot. Here's what I got with it:

Against the current wisdom, I decided to stay with AMD and buy a new mobo, CPU and memory. Call it 'product loyalty' or sheer conservatism, I just feel comfortable with Award BIOS and Ati cards and stuff like that; so I was pleased to find that Abit have a mid-range AM2+ mobo, the AX78 on the market for under £50. The CPU and memory are shown on the same page. I squeezed the last drop from my debit account, and hired my body to the missus to purchase a 40mm fan and a tube of Arctic Cooling MX2 to go with it. Things were looking up!

Two days later the friendly courier was at my doorstep - and I sat down and read the appropriate Abit forum page and some other useful stuff before setting to it. I spent the rest of the day checking over the board and doing a simple mod to NB and PWM sinks. That consisted of popping the four push-pins out, cleaning off the dies with surgical spirit and lapping the sinks (using Brasso on a sheet of plate glass) before replacing them on light beds of MX2 and putting in new push-pins. While the blocks were off I also screwed the 40mm x 20mm fan onto the PWM sink. It actually has slots defined for the purpose - which is the attention-to-detail that I've always enjoyed about Abit.

As the moment arrived I realised that I really didn't want to mess about doing another reformat/fresh install of Windows Just at the minute we are playing host to Valda's Australian relatives and I didn't want to spend days backing up and all the rest - so I Googled up this nifty article and read it carefully. I followed all the instructions about making the board "platform-agnostic" and made the final shut-down, followed by draining-down the cooling system and dismantling the necessary hardware.

The whole transfer took about four hours, shut-down to reboot. Having the main cooling hardware (pump, res and rad) mounted on the outside is useful in this way, leaving only the loop to sort out inside the case. No alternative mounting is needed for the shift from 939-pin to AM2, and the Alphacool water-block went back down onto a thin bed of MX2 once I'd ripped out the old mobo and replaced it. Likewise the x1950Pro just dropped in easy along with the X-Fi.
Allowing for *a possible (debatable) 15% fall-off of efficiency* I decided to go ahead with using the Hiper 670W that had been powering the DFI mobo. (*...* That's what someone told me - but I think Hiper gets a bad press outside the UK) It works faultlessly.
I took care to plug into the same SATA channel (1) that I'd used before.

The first re-boot was a bit freaky It fired into the BIOS first time, version 1.2 which is reassuringly the latest, and I set all to stock - and switched off the on-board sound and Cool 'n Quiet, reset the clock and checked the memory timings - and promptly booted into a BSOD. Nothing Blue though - just a Big Siren Of D'oh! Back to BIOS after a quick physical check to disable the EQ system too, and then I F10'd ....straight into Windows! After installing the Ati chipset driver and the 7.11 Catalysts I was good to go.

It takes a while to eliminate all the ghost devices in Device manager after running the set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 command prompt, but the results are good. The only glitch was getting the X-Fi to work. No surprise there, and it was my fault anyway for dropping it into the wrong PCI slot. I uninstalled it, physically shifted it, and reinstalled the drivers and here I am; listening to a Bob Dylan album, watching the temps and experimenting with multitasking. The CPU temp never exceeded 31*C during three runs of the Black Death, while the System and the PWM remained @ 35*C for the whole time. Bobby D never missed a beat

I know people will say "what's the point?", changing to a nearly redundant platform which is anyway outdone by Intel. I'll just refer them to the thread title I don't have a job . I still have the opportunity to upgrade to a quad-core Phenom if/when the prices drop, and I can get another x1950 on Ebay if I want to check out Crossfire. I should have saved enough disability cheques by the time BOB appears, and meanwhile I have something to play with.......

B

This message has been edited. Last edited by: x6BL_Brando,

Clever job B!

What's the result performance wise, FPS and such?

(Oh, and a great read too!)

AMD just has a better price/performance ratio than Intel, with there upcoming GFX cards its gonna get even better.

I would stick to a X2 6000+ (wich you already have) or X2 6400+ if you can get one since theres no reall advantage yet in having a Quad Core yet wen it comes to gaming.

Since you already got the 6000+ i dont think there would be a noticable advantage of upgrading to a 6400+ unless its a Black Edition.

So instead of a new CPU and a second hand X1950 you can get 1 or even 2 ATI HD3870 cards wen the new HD48xx cards come out and the prices drop for the HD3870 cards.

As long as AMD doesnt have a 3.0GHz Quad Core im sticking with my X2 6400+ 3.2GHz here for sure.

quote:

What's the result performance wise, FPS and such?

Hi FT

I didn't run a framerate test yet - mainly because I had several programs open at the same time as I was watching TBD play - such as media-player, task-manager, EQ and several web-sites. It certainly looked good!

I'm going to introduce it to Sandra. After that, if it ain't broke, I'll do a few Fraps runs.

Camp - yes, it's the price/ performance ratio that keeps me coming back

cheers

B

Cool B!
What happens when you do actually go to reinstall and re-activate windoze in the future? Will the OS be then tied to the new mobo? I ask 'cos I have an oem copy of XP and I hear you need a new copy with a mobo change.If the method listed above avoids that then it would be perfect!

I so far have only had to call once to reactivate my XP OS, Uther.

I've been through four motherboards/upgrades/rebuilds since 2002. (maybe even more if I do a full count) No problem so far.

I used to reformatt 2x a year. I haven't done it since about a year ago so we'll see what happens in a few weeks when I do reformatt.

The time I had to call Microsoft was when I did a reformatt, not a new piece of hardware.

I'm in the U.S. if that matters. AND I should have added it's OEM. (more germain to your post oooopsie)



Congrats Brando. Hope the new upgraded PC works smashingly for you.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: knightflyte,

quote:

'cos I have an oem copy of XP and I hear you need a new copy with a mobo change.If the method listed above avoids that then it would be perfect!

By OEM do you mean that you purchased a copy independently from your rig using, for example, Overclockers.uk or some other retailer? There shouldn't be a problem either way, as long as you didn't register it with M$. My copy has survived several motherboards and hard-drives; complete machine changes in fact, and many many reformats, and the mechanism has never activated.

AFAIK, the method I've linked to doesn't make this happen. I migrated with XP SP3 onto this new set-up, and then ran Windows Update; which dropped a bunch of Security updates and the monthly naughty-bits Remover on me, as well as an update for the X-Fi. Nothing about validation or changed equipment though, so I would guess you'll be OK.

Thanks Knightflyte, for the congrats. I've had a lazy day here - ran some Sandra checks, watched a vid, re-attached my CH gear and tuned my TS link ready for the Friday night on Hyperlobby - and watched the temps and volts as the day got hotter. Not much different from watching paint dry, that last part, nothing changes So far so good - tonight will be the test, playing in a busy coop as usual.

Watch this space.........

B

Yes its an oem copy from overclockers,bought when I built this rig.I have changed the mobo on it before,about a year ago or so,and with that had to ring MS to reactivate and explain that my last mobo failed.I had heard since then though that if you change the mobo then MS consider it a new computer!

Awesome job mate.

I too LOVE trying to get the best bang for buck system possible rather than just spending loads on the latest kit, its much more fun and challenging. Plus I dont have loads-a-money either.

About 8-10 months ago I did this upgrade :-

Skt 939 X2 4200+ - £35
Asus SLI A8N - £35
Geforce 7900GS - £60

Which was great value at the time. It STILL runs all the games I try at decent settings. The only one it struggles with is Crysis on the 'high' settings, I have to play on medium, but that didnt surprise me at all.

For bang-for-buck I STILL think AMD are competetive in the AM2/Skt 939 range. Not sure about Phenom tho, it needs to come down in price a lot before it can compete with Intel's Core2 and Quads.

Good on ya mate!!

Remember, I did something similar a few months back.

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/49310655/m/793...931030526#7931030526

quote:

Originally posted by Monterey13:
Good on ya mate!!

Remember, I did something similar a few months back.

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/49310655/m/793...931030526#7931030526

Nice job.

It seems that a few of us have the same opinion on upgrades (why spend silly amounts of money when you can get a great upgrade for far less money)

We should keep in touch and give each other tips on good 'bang-for-buck' parts/cpus/gfx cards etc.

The AMD 6000+ and CPU's around that speed seem to be bargains at the moment.

If someone just wants a CPU for browsing the and web/word processing, then the AMD 64's around the 4000+ mark are real bargains.

What gfx card would you guys recommend as best bang for buck right now? I noticed the 8800GT's are good value at around £119.

One here for £102 :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Zotac-NVidia-GeForce-8800GT-512MB...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I havent heard of the name 'Zotac' before however.

However I'm more for spending around £60 on a Gfx card for a real bargain. My 7900GS does a great job at present. I might think about a 8800GT when they come down in price some more.

If you are building a comp for your grandma etc, these AMD 64 chips are bargains.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1-x-used-ATHLON-64-ADA3200DAA4BW-...QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You could knock up a nice AMD 64 comp for the internet etc for £100 total.

I fly IL2 in perfect mode at 1680X1050 very nicely with my 4000+ CPU,so they ain't dead yet

When SoW arrives,thats when I will start looking for upgrades myself.

quote:

Originally posted by JG52Uther:
I fly IL2 in perfect mode at 1680X1050 very nicely with my 4000+ CPU,so they ain't dead yet

When SoW arrives,thats when I will start looking for upgrades myself.

Of course Uther, I have a 4200+ myself and its greatfor gaming, but I dont think I would get a 4000+ CPU for gaming if I was buying a CPU today, and I dont think you would either. We would be wanting something a little more powerful minimum, say around the 5000+ to 6000+ mark so that we have some future proofing.

Thats my point about the AMD CPU's around the 4000+ mark, they are great buys even now if someone doesnt want it for gaming. Of course its good for gaming right now, but it may be struggling a little in a years time. I dont think anyone buying a PC would want to be upgrading the CPU in under a year.

I always say you should at least double your speed when you go for a CPU upgrade or its not really worth it, so I will be waiting until I can afford around the 8000+ equivelent.