Upgrading My PC!

  • Thread starter Thread starter hongteck
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hongteck

hongteck

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I'll be upgrading my PC from a Pentium 166 to Celeron 433. The old guy won't boot anymore! Here are my specs

* Abit BH6 or ABIT BX6 Revision2.0
* Kingston 64 MB * Celeron 433 Socket-370 * AOPEN KF-45 A/B (Mid-Tower Casing
* QUANTUM Fire Ball LCT 4.3GB Ultra ATA 66

I'll be keeping my old SBLive & SB PCI64 soundcards, CD-ROM, Monitor and Maxtor 4.3GB Harddisk.

What do you guys think of the setup ?

By the way I'm using N-Tracks.

[This message has been edited by hongteck (edited 01-26-2000).]
 
If nothing else I would beef up your ram to at least 128. I've always prefered Celeron over a full pentium chip of the same speed simply because the price and the whole "finding a word in a smaller dictionary" theory. I've had two maxtors fry up on me, fortunately I had everything backed up, but that's just my experience. I'm not familiar with "N-Tracks" but if it's anything dealing with multitracking or audio editing, or even video for that matter, I would consider getting yourself a SCSI drive with a controller. Your computer will run a little hotter but the speed and reliablity is well worth the tempurature increase.
 
That Quantum got great reviews for a 5400 RPM drive. But: for $143 you could get a 13.5 GB 7200 RPM IBM deskstar HD. You'll really like the extra space and it's a solid drive. If you gotta have Quantum- their Fireball plus is only $165 for 13.6 GB. But the IBM has a 2MB buffer vs. 512KB for the Quantum. And I'll second the motion on 128MB RAM. I use a Celeron 433 w/128MB at work and it's a nice little machine. Don't forget the CDR/RW drive! If you do any audio work, they're the thing to have.
 
n-Track writes directly to disk. If you read the FAQ written by the author, there is little benefit to memory above 64MB....if that's all you're doing. Of course running NT and Win2000 might like the extra RAM. NT4 takes 32MB right off the top. But I'm running NT4 on 64MB and have never had a memory related performance problem running n-Track.

Realize that you'll need a 370 to Slot1 adapter if you're going to run that Celeron on a BE-6 mobo...that's an additional 15 bucks. Right now, however, I would avoid the Celeron because the prices on PII processors have really dropped. You can find a PII450 for $110 if ya look hard enough. It will outperform the Celeron.

Don't blow your money on Kingston memory either. I have never bought anything but generic memory and have never had a single complaint. You're not running a mission-critical application here....n-Track will crash on its own without any help from hardware :) You can find 128MB unbuffered non-ecc stick for the same price as a name brand 64MB stick. That'd be the way to go. Don't get stuck like I did....I was thinking "I'll just add more memory later"...and suddenly the prices tripled and stayed that way for many months. Now they're back down unless you're buying the "good" stuff. Get it while it's hot.

AND, don't blow your dough on that tiny little hard drive. I didn't realize that they made em that small any more. A 13GB 7200RPM Maxtor can be had for $129.

And, don't bother with SCSI. You should see decent transfer rates in the 50MB/sec range with a 7200RPM ATA/66 drive (closer to 66 depending on the chipset). SCSI will get you 80MB/sec (actually up to 120 now) but you're going to pay 3X more which is not worth it. There are plenty of articles out there on the pros and cons of SCSI vs. EIDE in recording applications. Do a search. You'll hit the cost vs. performance intersection just right with ATA/66.

Finally, you might as well get the BE-6 II which has been out for some time now. I'm running the BE-6 and it's fairly decent. Had some troubles with the Highpoint UDMA controller but resolved it by obtaining current drivers & BIOS upgrades.

If you're set on the Celeron then consider your overclocking options. The faster your processor the less likely you'll be able to overclock it. CPU Speed = bus speed x a FIXED multiplier. My 400Mhz Celeron is running nicely at 500Mhz via an 83Mhz FSB.

Have fun. (BTW, your choices are fine. I just think you're limiting yourself a bit. Better stuff can be had without spending much more)

Slackmaster 2000
 
Hey, hongteck, I didn't know you were in Singapore! I assumed HK from the nick.
 
Hi SlackMaster2K, thanks for the tips. I'm kinda tight .. so that's why the specs' as much as I can squeeze out of my dollars.

Yeah Dobro, I'm in Singapore.
 
Ok dude, but you're tossing your cash away on a Socket 370 CPU. Look for Abit's BE6 II motherboard and go with a Slot 1 CPU. Slot 1 celerons only run a few dollars higher than socket 370's. If you go with a socket 370 motherboard then you're screwed unless they make a 370 to Slot 1 adapter which I've never seen.

Then look into getting a generic 128MB stick for the same price as the Kingston 64MB.

Slackmaster 2000
 
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