PC Peripherals Can you please help me with the PC upgrade?

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moni87

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Hi All.
I am a new member of Tech Enclave.

Presently i have an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ system. Looking to upgrade the following components:

CPU (preferebaly AMD )
Motherboard (with onboard graphics)
Hard Disk
RAM
Cabinet
Power Supply
UPS

I dont want to go for Cor2DUO since the premium i pay (around 6k is it?) for Intel isnt justified i think.

Some more points to consider.

1. The mobo should be able to support latest DDR2 RAM.
2. The mobo should support integrated Graphics as i will be adding a high end graphics card later on within 6 months.
3. Can my existing PATA hard disk connect to the SATA Board? I dont want to sell my existing 40GB HD.
4. Budget is 15k-20k.

Any more suggestions welcome.
 
A64 X2 3600+ ~ 5.8k

Asus M2N-MX ~ 4k

Dynet 1GB DDR2 (or 2 x 512MB) ~ 4k

160GB Seagate ~ 2.9k

Any decent cabinet ~ 1k

Powersafe 400W ~ 1.4k (If you cant get your hands on a Powersafe, i've found the Zebronics Platinum to be pretty decent too. Cant recall other value brand PSU's as of now)

APC UPS ~ 2k

Total ~ 21.1k

A bit over your budget, if you're looking to cut down anywhere - i would say give the UPS the axe for now (unless you're living in a place with really bad power).

The board has PATA ports, so you should have no trouble connecting your PATA disks.
 
Thanks for the quick reply..

Yes i live in a area of very poor power supply.. so UPS is a must!

I have a some doubts..
1. you suggested Asus M2N-MX, how is it better than MSI K9ngm2 and why i should not go for the latter?
2. Can i go for 512 MB memory, so that i can add a 1 GB memory card later on when i buy the GFX card after 6 months?
 
moni87 said:
Thanks for the quick reply..

1. you suggested Asus M2N-MX, how is it better than MSI K9ngm2 and why i should not go for the latter?
2. Can i go for 512 MB memory, so that i can add a 1 GB memory card later on when i buy the GFX card after 6 months?
Click to expand...

I would suggest to go with the MSI as i have found replacements and service of MSI to be very slow as per experience. Not that Asus service is damn fast but since sales of Asus is more i expect better availability of products in case of replacement and such.. Check out the availability of both brands with ur local dealer first.
512 Mb is enough for day to day tasks and light gaming. Since the onboard 6100 graphics card is only suitable for 'light gaming' buying 512 mb for now is fine and upgrade later when your buying a graphics card.

Moreover with rumours of a RAM price decrease it makes sense if your on a budget to skimp on RAM for now and wait for the cut.

(Btw, ur onboard graphics can take away around 128 mb of that 512mb RAM u got so its net effectively 384 MB of RAM..)
 
So it seems this is the config i should go for:

AMD 64Bit X2 3600+

Asus M2N-MX or MSI K9ngm2

Dynet 512MB DDR2

160GB Seagate

Cabinet (?)

Powersafe/Zebtronics 400W

APC UPS

So the next question, please suggest me a good dealer in Nehru Place. Not Vampire (its more crowded than Trade Fair!!)..
 
I hope u were referring "Empire" not Vampire.:D

SMC international is other one i prefer but their prices are on higher side. BTW, they are AMD distributors.

I also need few things for my new rig, and would be getting them from SMC most probably.
 
One more quick question.

Supposing i get a good deal on some graphics card, and my mind is changed to buy an external GFX card, then what should be the Motherboard then?

Thanx
 
moni87 said:
One more quick question.

Supposing i get a good deal on some graphics card, and my mind is changed to buy an external GFX card, then what should be the Motherboard then?

Thanx
Click to expand...

:sos: Please help!
 
Motherboards with onboard graphics are usually cheaper than those boards with no onboard graphics.

Performance wise there's negligible difference between the two - except that the boards without onboard graphics usually are full-sized ATX (more PCI, PCI-E slots) and have better overclocking/tweaking options.
 
My recommendation:
AMD X2 3600+ Processor (5.6k)
MSI K9NGM Motherboard (3.8k)
Seagate 250GB SATA II HDD (3.6k)
Zebronics NVidia1 Gamiang cabinet with SMPS (2k)
Corsair 512 MB DDR2 RAM 667 MHz (2.8k)
Microtek 800VA UPS (2.2k)

Total: Rs. 20k

NOTE: I have suggested MSI K9NGM over ASUS M2N-MX as it has 2 IDE Ports which supports up to 4 IDE Devices as compared to 1 IDE Port of ASUS which supports only 2 IDE Devices. MSI K9NGM2 is not required as you will be buying a Graphics card later on.
 
arnov said:
My recommendation:

AMD X2 3600+ Processor (5.6k)

MSI K9NGM Motherboard (3.8k)

Seagate 250GB SATA II HDD (3.6k)

Zebronics NVidia1 Gamiang cabinet with SMPS (2k)

Corsair 512 MB DDR2 RAM 667 MHz (2.8k)

Microtek 800VA UPS (2.2k)

Total: Rs. 20k

NOTE: I have suggested MSI K9NGM over ASUS M2N-MX as it has 2 IDE Ports which supports up to 4 IDE Devices as compared to 1 IDE Port of ASUS which supports only 2 IDE Devices. MSI K9NGM2 is not required as you will be buying a Graphics card later on.
Click to expand...

Wow thanks a lot for the recommendation. BTW whats the difference between K9NGM2 and K9NGM other than the chipset (6150 vs 6100)
 
^ Apart from the chipset (and its accompanying differences), there's nothing else different. There does appear to be an optional FireWire port on the GM2 though.

For a comparison between the 6100/6150

6150 Northbridge has higher clocks for the GPU compared to the 6100, and also supports additional features like TV-out, DVI-out, HDTV support.

430 Southbridge offers 4 SATA ports vs 2 SATA on the 410, More RAID options (RAID 0+1, 5), Gigabit LAN and nVidia's ActiveArmor Firewall.
 
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