How far has your rig "migrated" "morphed'? | Forums

[Worf101]

I was sitting down and tallying up yesterday and got a surprsing result. My current rig was home built June 2004 at that time it contained the following:

AMD Athlon 64Fx-53
ASUS A8V Deluxe Mobo
HIS X800XT PE AGP Version 2
Asus A8V Deluxe VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset ATX AMD MB
1 Gig of OCZ 3200 unbuffered Ram
2 Western Digital 74 Gig Raptors in Raid 0
DVD ASUS 16X DVD
DVD+/-RW PLEXTOR|PX-712A
CPU FAN Thermaltake Silentboost K8
Cooler Master WaveMaster MidTower Case.
Antec Neopower 400 Watt PSU
SB Audigy 2Z Platinum Sound Card
ViewSonic 19-inch CRT.

Today everything's changed in my rig but the CPU Fan and the Mobo:

AMD Athlon 64Fx-60
ASUS A8V Deluxe Mobo
HIS X1950 Pro AGP Version 2
Asus A8V Deluxe VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset ATX AMD MB
2 Gig of Patriot 3200 unbuffered Ram
2 Western Digital 74 Gig Raptors in Raid 0
DVD ASUS 16X DVD
DVD+/-RW PLEXTOR|PX-712A
CPU FAN Thermaltake Silentboost K8
Cooler Master Stacker 830 RC-830-SSN2-GP Full Tower
BFG 650 Watt PSU
SB Audigy 2Z Platinum Sound Card
Dell Ultrasharp 2005FPW 20.1 Wide Flat PanelA

This was a "gradual" process. I keep saying "I'm upgrading this bit so I won't have to do a whole rebuild this year". As you can plainly see it's gotten out of hand. I will say that I've not made the PCI-E jump yet though. Where did your rig finally "end up"?

Da Worfster

[dbillo]

Well, I was gonna ask, "Do you think it was cost effective?", but maybe you don't wanna know!

I've been wrestling with this issue lately. I think the incremental upgrade is economical, i.e. you can spend a little at a time and keep the ol' rig going for a bit longer, but probably not cost effective.

I've only bought two computers, and each time I bought somewhat near the top end. My first was a P90, which I bought in 1995 and used for ten years, the only upgrades being a CD-rom, more ram (16megs to 48megs), used P120 cpu (o/c to 133), and a new humongous 6 gig hard drive. Still using the NEC 17 crt.

My new rig, bought 2 years ago, is/was AMD64 3500+, 1 Gig ram, K8N Neo2 Plat., 2 160 gig S-ata drives, 6800 Ultra, Antec True 480W, Dell 2001FP 20" lcd. The Ultra conked out recently and BFG replaced it with a 7800 GS OC, which is probably overall equivalent. Still waiting for PSU RMA from Antec before I pop it in.

It's AGP, socket 939, so there is still *some* upgrade potential, but at what cost? If I was to buy a new video card, I would go with the 1950 Pro. Sweet spot for CPU right now would be roughly X2 4600+. The next chip up jumps 33% in price. Maybe add another gig of ram.

Add all that up, and it's probably more money than it's worth versus going to new PCIe mobo and video card. Interesting question!

[Worf101]

Well dbillo... I wasn't gonna as if it made "sense" LOL... Most of our rigs "wind up" where they are by chance, not design. Like going from the FX53 to the FX60 that was by chance. A guy had a slightly used one in his shop and I got it almost $300.00 below then list. Couldn't pass it up. My new case came about because my old one wouldn't handle the longer vid cards any more.

Only the Ram and Vid card was a pure "upgrade". But everybody's gotta look at this on their own though. Let me know what you decide to do.

Da Worfster

[dieg777]

Im on my 3rd rig in about 8 years. I buy a good base e.g. motherboard and power supply and then swop in my good quality old components or add into it until the motherboard cant take anymore.
Im currently thinking; hmmmmmmmmm I really need to upgrade processor ......but that means going to pcie........but my cards agp......ach well thatll mean a new base unit then



dont know whats the most cost effective but Im happy doing it this way and ..... she-who-must- be-obayed just sees the steady drip drip of spend and not big lumps of cash flying out the window

[TgD Thunderbolt56]

I just build a new one every other year and pass my older rig down to one of my kids (though my last one was in service almost 3 years due to the lack of really new technology...core2duo changed all that). I'll wipe most of the games and files (though I typically leave IL2 on it hidden somewhere), tweak it a bit and let'em rip.

I save very little from one rig to the next as far as case components are concerned, but I keep my monitor and input hardware.

[SidCheshire]

This is a good question...

8 years ago, my first computer was a Tiny with onboard graphics and sound with something like a Pentium 3 660 ghz. I tried to upgrade that but couldn't - jeez, was I "green".

I have the case I upgraded to 6 years ago that I put the Tiny floppy, CD drive and 16 GB hard drive into - the only bits that survived.

Into that case went a Matsonic MS8167C board with an Athlon 2.5 processor. Despite the fact that it is max 4x AGP, these have remained there along with all the additions.

Graphics cards (all Nvidia) have gone from an MX440, 5600, 6600GT 128mb to a 6600GT 256mb.

Sound cards from a Soundblaster Live, Audigy to an Audigy 4.

Ram has gone from 512 mb to 2 GB.

An additional 38GB harddrive was added into the new case.

Powerpacks have gone from 200W to 400W.

Monitors have gone from the 21" Tiny CRT, a 19" Dell to a 19" BenQ LCD.

The case and motherboard have done fine - the failures have been 1 powerpack and 1 6600 128mb.

The reason for all the changes is, of course, my favourite pastime...IL2 series.

Postscript: I have a 3.0+ GHz Athlon to put in but haven't done it yet...I think I am maxed out then apart from putting in another 2 GB ram..which I am not going to do.

[Tully__]

Mine was built to order in about 2000 - 2001 and contained PII 500MHz, Rage IIC 8MB vid, 64MB SD100 RAM, Creative Vibra128! audio, 8GB HDD and Liteon CD drive on an Abit M/B (don't recall model) with a 250W generic PSU.

It's now a P4 2.0GHz Abit BD7??, 1GB Kingston PC2700, GF4 Ti4600, a Panasonic DVD drive and IIRC 3 HDD's of various sizes (including the original 8GB item), a generic 400W PSU with the same case and sound card.

[stansdds]

When built 2 years ago........upgrade
Gibabyte GA-K8NF-9
AMD 3500+.....................AMD 4000+ last year
2GB Corsair Value RAM
EVGA 6800 Ultra...............Leadtek 7950GT this year
WD 120 Ultra ATA100...........A pair of WD SATA drives this year
SoundBlaster Audigy 2ZS
Fortron 500w PSU..............Antec 650w PSU this year

So I have not changed the case, CD-RW-DVD drive, motherboard, sound card or RAM, everything else has been upgraded in the two years I have had this computer. I would like to migrate to the Intel Core2Duo and perhaps will do so later this year.

[kirkncc1701]

With the onset of next gen content for the pc, dx10 etc i decided to go back to my pc after a couple of years of going console.

Man was it a piece of junk, so i built a new one, lol look at difference.

old
amd athlon XP 2600
mystery gigabyte board
512mb slower DDR Ram
40gb ide hdd
256mb ati 9600 radeon
Onboard sound

new
Pentium D 945 3.4ghz
Asus p5w64 pro MB
1gb DDR2 6400 ram - soon to be 2gb
160gb WD sata2 HDD
Nvidia 7900 512mb
creative audigy2 SE - soon to be creative x-fi fatality series

THE POWER!!!

[WWSensei]

Built two AMD machines and swore I'd never so much as change a mouse unless absolutely necessary. I despise opening the case and cannot stand the almost constant futzing that has to be done with home built boxes.

Bought a Dell AGP 4X, P4 3.06GHz machine about 3 or 4 years back and other than an additional hard drive my son put in and a new video card it's the same box.

It's showing it's age but can easily run the same at 1680x1050x32 with 4x AA and still hole in the 40s-60s frames in Perfect. Downside is that it tends to lock up these days from time to time and seems to be a mobo problem.

IL2 is the only game I play and I mostly code and do video/audio editing. Getting ready to move into move into proper equipment for that rather than a hack job on a PC.

Next machine will almost certainly be a laptop and will probably run Linux. Not really interested in paying in excess of $1500 for a gaming rig and IL2 is the last Mohican of games for me.

Yeah, I'm getting grumpy and curmudgeonly in my old age...