Alpha Centauri Forums
Non-SMAC related
Help me upgrade!
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Alpha Centauri Forums
Non-SMAC related
Help me upgrade!
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| Author | Topic: Help me upgrade! |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-23-99 01:31 PM ET  
Your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to aid in the upgrade project that is soon to be initiated by Johan Palme, alias Hugo Rune, alias Cornelius Murphy, alias tOFfGI. From a system specification and a limited figure of funds, you will instruct him in the selection process, help him chose the components necessary to get his aging system up-to-date, and provide a reasonable cost estimate for said components that is to fall within the boundaries he will set to you. His funds are as follows: a total of 9600 kronor (approximately $1120, �700, �1100) from working for a month at Pressbyr�n/7-11 as a networking asistant. This is too low a fee to be taxed, so this is the express amount he will deal with. This is his current system: Pentium 200 MMX What here follows is an excerpt from his own analysis of the situation: "Hi! Look, this is what I need. A new processor, motherboard and RAM, obviously. I would also like a better graphics card if at all possible. Then there's a series of things I could need but ain't in a hurry with: A bigger monitor, a DVD-drive, some sort of backup or removable storage device, a Joystick/pad, and possibly a better sound card. I'm content with my hard drive and modem for now. Whatcha say?" We've analysed this in detail and come up with the following (with a suggestion alongside): Needed upgrades Possible Upgrades This is your mission. This post will self-destruct in 5 seconds. |
| Picker |
posted 06-23-99 01:40 PM ET
Rams cheap, so you don't have to worry about it as much. |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-23-99 01:51 PM ET
See if you can get "Personal Computer World June 1999". They did a review of m/boards. John III |
| Bishop |
posted 06-23-99 01:54 PM ET
If I were you I would wait a year or so until the P III�s are out and the DVD-RAM has dropped in price. That�s my advice  Bishop |
| Bishop |
posted 06-23-99 01:57 PM ET
Hugo, you�re not related to Olof Palme or actor Ulf Palme by any chance ? Bishop |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-23-99 01:57 PM ET
Needed upgrades Memory (128 Mb?) Yes. 256mb if possible. Processor (Celeron 450?) Motherboard (????) Graphics card (Voodoo3? TNT2? Milennium G400? Savage4?) Possible Upgrades DVD-Player (DVD-RAM?) Removable Storage (DVD-RAM?) Joystick (????) Soundcard? (SBLIVE!???) John III |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-23-99 01:59 PM ET
"until the P III�s" Do you mean K7s or is Sweden really backward ?John III |
| Spoe |
posted 06-23-99 02:41 PM ET
Memory: 128 Mb as a minimum Processor: Celeron 466, unless you're up for overclocking, then probably the 400, which has good yields at 500 MHz. Your other option would be the AMD K6-3 450, but(at least at US pricing) it's about $100 more than a 466 Celeron. Motherboard: Slot 1(won't work with the Socket 370 Celeron 466): Abit BX6 2.0 Socket 370: Haven't paid too much attention to these, but you'll need one if you get the Celeron 466 Video: I like the Hercules Dynamite UltraTNT2, though in Europe you might have better luck finding the Elsa Erazor III TNT2(not yet available in UltraTNT2). I tend to prefer the TNTs to the Voodoos and others, but YMMV. For US prices, the above would put you at ~US$650-700(rough estimate) with a Celeron 400(which should be able to run at 500). |
| Spoe |
posted 06-23-99 03:00 PM ET
"Go for a PII/III. More upgradability." A Slot 1 Celeron(all except the 466+ are available in Slot 1 variants) is just as upgradable as a PII/III. Even with Socket 370, upgradability is there as Intel plans on releasing Coppermine PIIIs in Socket 370 format. |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-23-99 03:01 PM ET
Spoe: You're thinking like I did. Cheap Celeron- Overclock, Slot1 motherboard, Good TNT2Ultra Card. One question: Does the TNT2Ultra handle 2d or not? I've heard conflicting answers to this. Bishop: Both. In fact, I'm related to everyone called Palme- it's a well-documented and close-knit family. There is no Palme in the world today not related to me within a few generations... |
| Spoe |
posted 06-23-99 04:32 PM ET
Hugo: "Does the TNT2Ultra handle 2d or not?" Yes, it does. It is not a 3D only card like the Voodoo/Voodoo2. NVIDIA's TNT2 datasheet(PDF) |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-23-99 04:40 PM ET
Just checked a nice price list from my local hardware supplier. 128 Mb SDRAM: 1782 kr TOTAL: Approximately 6000 kr. |
| Bishop |
posted 06-23-99 05:41 PM ET
JohnIII No I mean P III, what do you mean ? Hugo Bishop |
| Spoe |
posted 06-23-99 06:11 PM ET
Hugo: "Not sure if this means it's not overclockable." It'll still work, but a socket Celeron and adapter is almost certainly going to be more expensive than just a Slot 1 celeron, so you may want to look anyway. Bishop: |
| jig |
posted 06-23-99 06:17 PM ET
Ugh. jig |
| jig |
posted 06-23-99 06:20 PM ET
I want a Cray. Would someone donate me some money so I can get a Cray? Or should I break in and steal it? Or maybe I should just take over the building where the Cray is kept, keep someone hostage and live the rest of my life there? |
| Spoe |
posted 06-23-99 06:34 PM ET
jig: The last would probably be easiest. But why would you want a Cray? AFAIK, SMAC hasn't been ported... :P |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-23-99 09:26 PM ET
Hmmm. I'm no expert, because I'm looking into simply getting a brand spanking new computer. Could somebody in the know check out The Computer House and see if those are fair/ripoff prices? Right now, from the catalog they have, I'd be looking somewhere along the lines of- Pent II 450- I don't want to overclock, and I've heard nasty things about the PIII's security leaks. Is there any reason to pay the extra 4 bucks for a PIII? 128 Megs RAM- seems like a good compromise to me. Either 10.1 or 13.1 Gigs HD- They're roughly the same $17 per megabyte. Ironically, it costs more /megabyte for the 20.4. Video Cards- ? Not Sure. I definitely don't want Virge, but there are other options other than 3Dfx. AWE 64- I really don't know the difference between sound cards. But those PCI ones are expensive. No modem- I'm taking this to college, that should be free. Zip Drive- Not much choice here, but then again there aren't many other good options out there. 40x CD-ROM Drive. DVD is too expensive and that's what God made VCR's for. Altech Lansing Speakers- Why not splurge? 3 pieces may be a bit annoying, though. No printer- there should be shared printers at college. Simple Mouse- Yuck, what's the point of the trackmarble? Reminds me of the old Ataris... and expensive too. Win98- I hate Win98, and would prefer Win95, but it's the same cost, and one is more "updated" than the other, and I don't want to get caught with obsolete software that won't run stuff 2 years from now, and I'd hate even more having to pay then for an "upgrade." On the other hand, many of my friends would say I'm insane for not taking NT, but... '17 inch monitor. Not too hard a choice there, the perfect compromise between cost and eyestrain. Ideas? HR, if you can only have one of the luxuries that would require extra money, take the monitor. 17 inches is soooo much better than 15... |
| Spoe |
posted 06-24-99 01:24 AM ET
"Either 10.1 or 13.1 Gigs HD- They're roughly the same $17 per megabyte. Ironically, it costs more /megabyte for the 20.4." Surely you jest...at that rate you're lokking at ~$170000 for the 10 Gb. 1.7 cents/Mb, maybe($DIETY, I haven't been in computing that long and I can remember when a 60 Mb RLL drive was going for about $3/Mb)? That sounds about right($170). Anyway, the increase per Mb is normal at that price range. For as long as I can remember the per Mb price was pretty much constant up to ~$200 and then went up. Early adapter charge, I guess. "No modem- I'm taking this to college, that should be free." ---- As for the Computer House: From what you list it looks like ~$1845(The Voodoo3 2000(for the sake of argument), 10.1 Gb HDD, and they assemble). From Quantex, a company I've had pretty good luck with(family and friends have bought about 5 or 6 w/o technical trouble over the past few years), you can get the same config, with a TNT2 card and PIII(with serial number disabled in BIOS) for $1477 + shipping. With modem and printer, $1756 + shipping. Component by component, I think $250 is a bit much for what amounts to mainboard(should be ~$100), case w/ power supply(~$50), and keyboard(~$20-30). The PII/450 is about $85 too much(compared to buy.com(PII/450 retail box: $259.95)) The rest looks roughly right. |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-24-99 02:09 AM ET
Bishop: He's my grandfather's cousin. |
| GaryD |
posted 06-24-99 04:25 AM ET
I was going to post you a link to my earlier thread regarding upgrading. But it seems to have ben deleted ! (I think I copied most of it locally, but it's really too long for a single post here - and probably incomplete anyway.) But if you can find it hidden somewhere there is a wealth of info there. Is it just me that, EVERY time he wants to upgrade finds that a motherboard is part of the change ? I've come to the conclusion that choosing a processor because of 'ease of upgrading' is a 'red herring'. Bishop : Excuse my ignorance but isn't the P III the Pentium III that has been out ages ? Oh I see Spoe has already asked. Late again ! |
| Bishop |
posted 06-24-99 05:08 AM ET
Spoe & GaryD It seems I was misinformed  Hugo Bishop |
| Spoe |
posted 06-24-99 11:31 AM ET
"Is it just me that, EVERY time he wants to upgrade finds that a motherboard is part of the change ? I've come to the conclusion that choosing a processor because of 'ease of upgrading' is a 'red herring'." Depends on the timeframe involved. If you're saying to yourself, "I don't have enough money for the full upgrade so I'll buy the mainboard and this cheap Celeron and upgrade to the latest PIII when I have money again next spring.", it'll probably work. But if you put the timeframe for the upgrade out more than a year or so don't bet on it. |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-24-99 11:49 AM ET
Spoe: Thanks for your suggestions. I meant $17/GIGAbyte, not megabyte, and now I feel silly. But yeah, $170000 is a mite expensive for hard drives these days. |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-24-99 01:13 PM ET
"A Slot 1 Celeron(all except the 466+ are available in Slot 1 variants) is just as upgradable as a PII/III." AFAIK, Intel have encouraged UK dealers to only stock Socket 370 processors. John III |
| Spoe |
posted 06-24-99 01:21 PM ET
JohnIII: May be true, but you still have the converter cards(while this increase the price slightly it's still cheaper than the PII/III equivalent). Also, as I noted above, Intel has confirmed that Coppermine will be available in Socket 370.
|
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-24-99 04:44 PM ET
I'm still worried that the socket Celerons might be clock-fixed. Intel is supposedly cracking down on "processor labelling fraud" but more likely are just trying to stop us from doing our thing. |
| Spoe |
posted 06-24-99 05:01 PM ET
Hugo: All Celerons are multiplier locked(i.e. how many times bus speed the chip will run -- I've seen this refered to as clock locking on occasion), of course. But I don't think Intel has inserted the circuitry to detect the BUS speed it's running on. A quick survey of the reliable overclocking sites makes no mention of them having done so. The main problem with overclocking the Socket 370 Celerons is that for the present many Socket 370 mainboards will only do 66 MHz. You might take a look at Sharky's Celeron Overclocking Guide or over at Tom's. |
| Provost Harrison |
posted 06-24-99 06:20 PM ET
Look at the K7 or Athlon as they are calling it at http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/index.html . These run at 500/550/600MHz. From what I've read of it, it looks quite impressive. Look out for it, and I don't think they are that incredibly expensive. Memory is good. Look out for TNT2, PowerVR 250, but these things are always changing. |
| Spoe |
posted 06-24-99 07:09 PM ET
Right now AMD is quoting prices from US$324 for the 500 up to US$699 for the 600 in 1000 unit lots. While this is certainly competetive to the PIII, and therefore worth at least looking at for Snowfire(depending mainly on availability, which has always been a bit of a bugaboo for AMD), I'm not sure it fits Hugo's needs(He seems to be looking at around US$100-US$130 for the processor instead of US$300+). |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-24-99 07:31 PM ET
Spoe: Thanks a lot for the site. I think the QP6/450 SM-1X looks quite good and affordable. A few questions, though- What is 1 DIMM in reference to RAM? Is it worth 10 bucks to get? What the devil is the difference between a 104-key keyboard, an "Internet ready" keyboard, and a "natural elite keyboard?" I suppose the "natural elite" keyboard would be one of those keyboards separated into a left hand and a right hand, but I definitely don't know the difference between the first two. And I checked M$'s site as well, and came up empty. As for AMD's, perhaps... I have a feeling that the college computer buying program won't be offering them though, and neither Quantex nor the Computer House made a reference to them. I'll look into it more, perhaps, though I don't really think I need the extra boost from 450 to 500 for awhile yet. |
| Provost Harrison |
posted 06-24-99 08:37 PM ET
All present day RAM comes in DIMMs (dual in-line memory modules). It shouldn't cost any extra, but I believe that the 100MHz SDRAM only comes on DIMMs anyway (this is the kind you want, unless there is something more fancy at the time, without paying a premium). These are opposed to SIMMs (single in-line memory modules) which you placed in pairs. |
| Spoe |
posted 06-25-99 12:37 AM ET
Snowfire: "What is 1 DIMM in reference to RAM? Is it worth 10 bucks to get?" As the Provost says, a DIMM is a memory module. They are offering the option of 2 64 Mb DIMMs or 1 128 Mb DIMM. Now your mainboard will only have a limited number of DIMM slots(usually 3 or 4), so if you plan on upgrading the memory much you'd be better off with the 1 128 Mb DIMM than the 2 64 Mb DIMMs. "What the devil is the difference between a 104-key keyboard, an 'Internet ready' keyboard, and a 'natural elite keyboard?'" The 104 key keyboard is your basic(these days) PC keyboard. QWERTY section, inverted T arrow keys, numeric pad, Win95 keys, with function keys across the top. Provost Harrison: Depended on the system(mainly the mainboard design). Many 486s, IIRC, would take a single 72 pin SIMM... |
| Provost Harrison |
posted 06-25-99 09:47 AM ET
Spoe, all modern memory boards use DIMMs (some may take SIMMs, but getting more and more unlikely). the only reason that SIMMs are available are for upgrading these old computers (like mine!). Besides, from what I can tell, aren't DIMMs cheaper than SIMMs anyway now? |
| Spoe |
posted 06-25-99 11:35 AM ET
Provost Harrison: Yes. All(or almost all) current mainboards take DIMMs. All I was saying is that a good number of 486 mainboards didn't need pairs of SIMMs, they could take SIMMs singly. As for the difference, on the Quantex configurator they have two options for 128 Mb, one specifying 1 DIMM. So it's a choice between getting your 128 from 2 64 Mb DIMMs or 1 128 Mb DIMM(which is slightly more expensive). |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-25-99 01:22 PM ET
Spoe: Thanks. Now it's a toss-up between the standard keyboard and the allegedly ergonomic one. I'm a touch-typist but not a trained touch typist; in other words my fingers are all over the place but I type at a good beat (I didn't use to be a touch-typist, but believe it or not 2 years of posting on forums and talking online can make a hunt & pecker a touch-typist quite easily). I'll have to try them out to see if I can adapt. |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-25-99 01:31 PM ET
Spoe: Youy recall correctly. In my old 486 I used to have a single SIMM... For some reason they had to be doubled up on non-DIMM Pentium motherboards. My current job revolves mainly around inserting SIMMs into old computers... Anyway. Do you know of any way to disable the Windows and Right Click keys on my keyboard (making it essentially a 101-key keyboard)? I never use them, and they are a pain in the ass while playing Quake. |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-25-99 02:03 PM ET
Why? You should use: W- move forward S- move backward A- step left D- step right +mlook RMB- fire LMB- switch weapon [Shift]- toggle speed [Tab]- scores John III |
| Spoe |
posted 06-25-99 02:21 PM ET
Snowfire: I'd go for the standard keyboard then. I'm like you and can basically touch type but my hands are all over the place. If you move your right hand over to the left side of the keyboard or vice versa at all the split design is a real pain. Hugo: Look in the MS PowerToys or KernelToys packages(I think it's in PowerToys). One of the things there is a program called doswinky that'll disable those in dos mode. If running the windows version you might be able to do something with the character mapping utility. Or, as John mentioned, try the mouse setup long enough to get used to it...it makes a real difference in how well you can move. Doesn't affect me; as I mentioned above I use an old 101 key keyboard. |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-25-99 04:10 PM ET
The Win95 key isn't that bad when playing Quake; try playing WarCraft II and you'll go insane. When you Win95 out of Quake, it pauses automatically, you see; if you accidently hit the win95 key in WCII (which I haven't played in a good while), it crashes the game. Better hope you saved. Sigh... all these mouse users. And even worse, a weird keyboard set-up. Come on! Keyboard forever! A and Z to look up and down, space to jump, / to duck, < and > to strafe, and CTRL to fire. And of course the arrow keys for movement. |
| Spoe |
posted 06-25-99 04:12 PM ET
Ah, but you can turn yourself around _so_ much faster with the mouse... |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-25-99 04:15 PM ET
Wow! Never knew that existed... it's in Kernel Toys, not Power Toys by the way. http://www.microsoft.com/Windows95/downloads/contents/WUToys/W95KernelToy/Default.asp |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-25-99 04:17 PM ET
Doh! After being a long-link Nazi myself, I've done the evil act.... I'm growing soft. At least this isn't as bad as most long URL's. On an 800x600 you don't have to scroll. Sorry 640x400 users. Though, to be honest, why would you use 640? |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-25-99 04:25 PM ET
"Come on! Keyboard forever! A and Z to look up and down, space to jump, / to duck, < and > to strafe, and CTRL to fire. And of course the arrow keys for movement. " You are welcome to play me in a DM any time John III |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-25-99 05:08 PM ET
Let me rephrase that. It used to be annoying while playing Quake. Not anymore because (1) I don't play quake, (2) I use the mouse control method. Still, In Half-Life, Ducking is handled with the CTRL key... |
| Hugo Rune |
posted 06-25-99 05:11 PM ET
And JohnIII- Why RMB for fire? Why not LBM? What does it matter? Otherwise our setups are identical. |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-25-99 08:23 PM ET
That's what I meant, but with the keys as they are you should never gi near the Win 95 key. John III |
| SnowFire |
posted 06-25-99 09:02 PM ET
John III: Two problems with that. A) I don't have Quake; I merely played the Episode I demo to the point of memorizing the entire Episode I. B) I haven't played Quake in a good long while. C) Lag would kill me. |
| JohnIII |
posted 06-25-99 09:07 PM ET
That's three. John III |
| SnowFire |
posted 07-02-99 09:03 AM ET
Well, it's July now, and all the college has is a vauge promise of a discount if I buy from either Dell or Apple and identify myself as an Oberlin student. No word on how big a discount though. Here's Dell's model of comparable cost. Some issues include No TNT2 Video Card (Not that I would get it, but maybe...); your choice of Windows NT or Windows NT, combined with the fact that their software bundle and VirusScan software offered for "free" can't be used with NT; and exorbiantly huge assembly costs, with names that make absolutely no sense. |
| SnowFire |
posted 07-02-99 09:08 AM ET
The fourth problem was that I had the wrong number of problems. With that one, there's two. |
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