Buying a new Socket AM2 MB with 2GB of DDR2 RAM and a low-end Athlon 64 and a good PCI-E Video card will cost you less than a near-mythical decent PCI video card. Especially if that's PC3200 RDRAM rather than DDR SDRAM. PCI is long-dead as a video interface as it doesn't provide enough bandwidth for anything beyond basic 2D graphics. Any use of the GPU n
I picked up a solid little HP Pavilion a1710n for $330 a couple weeks ago. Athlon 64 x2 4200+ (2.2GHz) Dual-core CPU, Asus MB with 4 slots for DDR2 SDRAM, 1 PCI-E and 3 PCI slots, 1GB of RAM, 320GB HD. Dropped a Radeon HD 3850 256MB card, Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (32.GHz Dualcore), an extra 2GB RAM, extra 500GB drive and a 430 watt PSU (upgrade over the stock 300W unit) for about $500, all prices in Canuck Peso's. It'll last me a while. But even the basic system with a low-end video would likely stomp your old machine, especially if you spend the $40 it costs to add 2GB of DDR2 RAM. -Adam On 12/28/07, cbwaters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Youse guys often talk about obsolescence. > I'm running into a problem with my computer more often these days. Some of > you might have older computers than I have so you should just quit reading > now because I'll sound like I'm whining for nothing. > It seems the upgrade parts, being so far out of production are either scarce > or more expensive than newer/higher performance parts. My guy told me today > that the PC3200 memory my computer uses is actually getting more expensive > because production has ramped down to make newer stuff. I'm trying to find > a decent but cheap video card but I don't have an AGP slot, let alone a > PCI-E slot. PCI cards cost more. > > Oh, I suck... but I still feel like I have a valid problem. I can't afford > to throw away computers that work well enough (mostly) and buy new > technology for the sake of keeping-up but I've fallen behind the curve now > and being three or four generations behind current sucks too... > > Anybody got a 256MB PCI video card lying around? > > CW > grumpy because the wife is late getting out of work and we're supposed to go > out for dinner. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
