Need some upgrade advice
Hi folks,
Would be grateful for some advice as to whether I should upgrade now or hold off particularly with the AMD64 processors being relatively new and presumably coming down in price.
My current system is as follows:
AMD 1.4ghz
K7ama mobo
512mb DDR PC2100
120gig ATA HDD 7200rpm
Radeon VE 32mb graphics card
CD writer
DVD-/+ writer
Win XP Pro
At the moment I have no problems with my current setup at all although I realise that my processor and graphics cards are well below what could be considered the usual spec of todays pc's. I mainly use the pc for broadband access, downloading and editing photos, some scanning, maintaining a personal website, usual office applications and flight sims (FS2004 and Precision Simulator). Have never tried any of those memory intensive games that people rave on about.
So the choices I am facing seem to be:-
- pay £300 or so for a bundled mobo and AMD64 3.0ghz processor plus a new graphics card (another £150 for a good'n)and I guess some higher spec DDR ram to avoid any sort of pipeline (another £60-70 for 512mb).
- pay considerably less than above and get a new "full featured" mobo (£50-80 seems to get you USB 2.0, firewire, onboard sound, and LAN), throw in a AMD XP2.8ghz or similar sort of spec processor, plus a new graphics card.
So here is the dilemma I am facing:-
- spend top whack for option 1 but have the option of being able to upgrade later (assuming AMD doesn't play dirty tricks and change sockets/pins again)
- stick to the lower cost upgrade option 2 and get another few years use out of the system and then start over again
One thing that strikes me though which may sway the decision is how much of a performance increase is there to be had with say going from a XP2.8ghz or XP 3.0ghz (with either a 333 or 400FSB)to a AMD64 3.0ghz chip? Do you really get more bang for your buck?
Sorry for the long post. Hope someone can enlighten me or at least steer me in the right direction.