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So, I was despairing of being able to upgrade my primary box anytime in the near future. I'm working now, but we're still not exactly swimming in cash. My rig was:
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (NF2/400, Soundstorm, all Digital)
Mobile Athlon XP Barton 2500+ clocked to 11x200 (3200+)
1GB Dual-Channel PC3200 (just solid RAM from SimpleTech)
ATI Radeon 9600Pro (clocked up, ATI Beta whamma-jamma BIOS blah blah still 2 years old)
2x120GB SATA Samsung, 1x120GB PATA Seagate
ROM, Burner, etc. etc.
So the seagate finally died. It had been going since the day the warranty ended, I'm surprised it lasted this long. Problem is, I refuse to buy another PATA drive to replace it. And I wasn't exactly about to buy an add-on card, and Julie's machine doesn't take SATA. So what to do? Either way I'd be left with a useless drive.
Plus, any board I upgraded to would be PCI-E, making my AGP useless, and DDR2 making my RAM useless. What to do?
Enter New Egg. I scored, for $99, an Athlon 64 3400+ (runs at 2ghz, I wanna say) with a fan and a free NForce3 motherboard!
The board is kind of no-frills, but that's OK I still have an Audigy hanging around in case the sound sucked... but it really isn't THAT bad (yet, I haven't tried gaming).
Anyway, the board is a Biostar NF3 board, good and solid if a bit large and lacking in extras. But everything works great - no need to twiddle with drivers like on the NF2.
And the chip? It's almost TOO fast. I mean, everything just BLINKS into existence.
I also scored a Seagate SATA drive with a FIVE YEAR WARRANTY. Hot diggety! I knew these things were out there, but I hadn't purchased one yet. FIVE YEARS? I don't think I've ever kept a hard disk that long! *grin*
Ok, I know it's not exactly "top of the line". But seriously, it's a major upgrade. And now I can save up so that the NEXT upgrade is just a complete system replacement. Plus Julie can have my NF2 board, and stop bitching about how hers is a bit sluggish.
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (NF2/400, Soundstorm, all Digital)
Mobile Athlon XP Barton 2500+ clocked to 11x200 (3200+)
1GB Dual-Channel PC3200 (just solid RAM from SimpleTech)
ATI Radeon 9600Pro (clocked up, ATI Beta whamma-jamma BIOS blah blah still 2 years old)
2x120GB SATA Samsung, 1x120GB PATA Seagate
ROM, Burner, etc. etc.
So the seagate finally died. It had been going since the day the warranty ended, I'm surprised it lasted this long. Problem is, I refuse to buy another PATA drive to replace it. And I wasn't exactly about to buy an add-on card, and Julie's machine doesn't take SATA. So what to do? Either way I'd be left with a useless drive.
Plus, any board I upgraded to would be PCI-E, making my AGP useless, and DDR2 making my RAM useless. What to do?
Enter New Egg. I scored, for $99, an Athlon 64 3400+ (runs at 2ghz, I wanna say) with a fan and a free NForce3 motherboard!
The board is kind of no-frills, but that's OK I still have an Audigy hanging around in case the sound sucked... but it really isn't THAT bad (yet, I haven't tried gaming).
Anyway, the board is a Biostar NF3 board, good and solid if a bit large and lacking in extras. But everything works great - no need to twiddle with drivers like on the NF2.
And the chip? It's almost TOO fast. I mean, everything just BLINKS into existence.
I also scored a Seagate SATA drive with a FIVE YEAR WARRANTY. Hot diggety! I knew these things were out there, but I hadn't purchased one yet. FIVE YEARS? I don't think I've ever kept a hard disk that long! *grin*
Ok, I know it's not exactly "top of the line". But seriously, it's a major upgrade. And now I can save up so that the NEXT upgrade is just a complete system replacement. Plus Julie can have my NF2 board, and stop bitching about how hers is a bit sluggish.
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