Upgrading old Athlon 1800+ system - worthwhile?

Jamp

Hi All

I've been wondering about a new PC for a while but could do with saving the funds really. I've just had the side off my current system to see how many spare PCI slots I have for an ethernet card and possibly a USB2 card, and it got me thinking about the possibility to upgrade cheaply. I'd like to have a smoother running system, particularly with SolidWorks and SolidEdge CAD as well as general internet/office type usage and a bit of basic photo editting. A bonus would be being able to play Flight Sim X and X-Plane 9.

Currently my system spec is as follows:

MSI MS-6380E motherboard with VIA KT266/333 chipset
AMD AthlonXP (Palomino) - I thought this was 1800+ rated but it runs at 1200MHz according to CPU-Z rather than the 1533MHz an 1800+ should run at... Could there be something wrong in my bios?
256MB PC2100 + 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM
Geforce4 Ti 4200 AGP
WD 1600JB 140GB HDD about half full
Win XP SP3, might play with Ubuntu one day
Driving a 21.6" screen by DVI at 1680x1050

I believe the motherboard will support up to a Thoroughbred (133/266 FSB) 2600+ CPU. I have a spare RAM slot so could add 1GB PC2700 but should I remove the PC2100 and add some extra there too? What would be a worthwhile upgrade on the graphics front? Am I mad considering upgrading such an old system, or would these basic upgrades give me a good boost in performance for £100ish? I've never done anything more than RAM and drive upgrades in the past, but if I were to get a new system I would be looking at building it. I'd also be willing to do some reading up and look into overclocking if there are gains to be had there too.

fwor

I tend to upgrade my old PCs to the max spec they will take when they are old enough for the parts to be really cheap on Ebay. I stick to sellers who state that the part is tested and working, and I've not yet had a faulty part.

Yes, replace the PC2100 RAM, as having that installed almost certainly means that all of the memory will be running at the slower clock speed. You may be able to install more, but personally I wouldn't bother going over 1Gb with XP - a second half Gig of PC2700 should be fine.

If you haven't done a fresh install of XP in the last year or so, you may see a (temporary) improvement by doing that. Other people use things like Ccleaner, but in my experience a fresh install involves much less risk of a system that won't boot...

And yes, take a look at Ubuntu or another distro, either via a LiveCD, or by setting it up to dual-boot, which is extremely easy to do. In my experience, Ubuntu is not much less resource-hungry than XP, but you can get current versions of Linux (e.g. DamnSmall or Puppy) that are really fast and minimalist on even very ancient PCs.

Conor_3

It's at the point where honestly it's virtually complete upgrade time if you're wanting to play flight sims.

DatabaseError

probably available cheaper (I haven't looked) but better use of £100 or so from ebay

price the components at sites such as ebuyer

Trouche

I know a great place to check out other similar systems and to price out what you can see works for other guys.

DatabaseError

trouche, that looks like a place to show of your system, though I'm not convinced anyone would want to look.
Can't see it helping the OP though

startech

The FSB is probably running at 100MHz and not 133Mhz giving you the lower reading. Either correct through the BIOS settings, or update if need be. Flight Sim X has fairly low minimum requirements, so I would do something like:
- remove 256MB PC2100 and add another 512MB PC2700 stick (like fwor said)
- replace CPU to something like an XP2400+/2600+
- your board can only handle AGP4x I believe, but something like an FX5900 would be the next step up.

If you're going second hand should be able to pick up parts pretty cheap.

robredz

Then save up for a new system you could put something workable together for around £220 if you use your existing case & screen. Check out Ebuyer aria & microdirect
You can get a dual core athlon 4200+ for around £45

patman99

Maplins are doing a good deal at the mo. , for £100, you get an ECS AM2+ motherboard, AMD 64 bit x2 5000 CPU, and 1Gb DDRII memory.
This board will quite happily take the fastest AM2+ cpu out there, and with a PCI-Expressx16 slot, the fastest graphics card.

DDR 1 ram like that in your current system, is getting expensive, DDRII or the other hand, is very cheap as it is latest technology.

The best bit is that you get to keep your HDD, PSU, Case & CDROM. You could then sell the old board on ebay & use the cash to buy another upgrade.

I would disagree that more than 1Gb Ram has little effext under Win XP, I upgraded to 2Gb & speed tests indicate a 30% speed gain.

Jamp

Thanks for the mix of replies, they're very informative. Particularly thanks to the poster about the FSB speed - my CPU is now running at 1.6GHz as it's actually a 1900+!

I take on board what some of you are saying about doing a full upgrade inc mobo and effectively having a new system. The trouble with that is I would then want to also replace the PSU for a quiet one and the case for one without 6 years of tea stains on it, have a bigger HDD so I can install games to exploit the new performance, and so on, so I'd end up replacing nearly everything. I've priced up what I would want for a new system and it would be around £400. I would prefer to wait a while, probably until Windows 7 is established, to build a new system and keep my existing machine as a going concern so it can be passed on to a relative or something.

Therefore I'd like to make the best of what I have for the time being, particularly as I think I can do it for substantially under £100 using ebay bits. I appreciate that I am unlikely to get the latest flight sim games running well; MS Flight Sim X is notoriously demanding and unrealistic with quoted minimum specs, but X-Plane just about runs on my existing system (even when the CPU was running at 1200MHz!) so I'm hopeful for that. The games are not my priority though, I just want a system that runs smoothly, loads things quickly and is reliable.

My plan now is:

1GB PC2700 DDR (on ebay about £12-25 depending on brand) to add to the existing 512MB and ditch the PC2100
Thoroughbred 2600+ if one comes up on ebay cheaply but 2400+ is more common and substantially cheaper (£25+ for 2600, £10+ for 2400+)
As for gfx I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I know the Ti 4200 was reasonable in its day but presume there must be substantially better options even limited by AGP 4x? If the previous suggestion of an FX5900 is the way to go then this would be about £20.

I think this combination would be a good value for money upgrade and give a pretty decent performance boost for £60ish, what do you reckon?

GunJack

really interesting, this thread....I have my old pc in use for my boys, but got them lappys for xmas so thought I could turn it into my "experiment, learn and hobby" machine...it's an Athlon xp1900+, 512MB SD RAM, good CD-ROM and DVD burner..running a bit slow at the mo it's so bogged down with their kid's stuff, so wanted to do a fresh install of xp on a spare HDD I've got, try some bios and other setings, maybe look at overclocking and the like, maybe have a look at linux, etc., to see what I could get it to do and have a bit of fun along the way.......if I ever get enough spare time, that is