Oh woe is me: Upgrading my RAM

[KittKitt]

I'd like to build my own system, and I have knowledgable friends, but I always figured that would be the most expensive route. Am I wrong to think this?

Erm, yes and no.  In terms of strict dollars, probably.  But as with all things, a direct cost comparison isn't a very good measure, as the true indicator of overall value is more a comparison of "bang for your buck".

You can probably buy a pre-built system with "equal" specs to what you could build on your own for slightly less dollars (in most cases), though by really shopping around I've always been able to vastly minimize this down to where it's negligible at best.

The thing is though, to get the prices as low as the 'giants' do, they use often sub-standard, usually proprietary (hard-soldered) components.

For example, a friend of mine bought a shiny new Dell Dimension (something-something) a while back, and the spec sheet sounded pretty good.  It even included a Geforce 6x00 (I can't quite recall) and 1 gig of RAM, and it was a few hundred cheaper than the one I built around the same time with relatively "comparable" specifications.

Here's the deal though..  Not only was the memory 4 chips of 256 (meaning no empty slots to just add more, you had to yank some to add any -which blows) and about the most craptastic stuff they could find... The Geforce was actually hard-wired right in the MOBO, and what's more, Dell decided since they went that way, there wasn't any point in putting an AGP or PCIe slot in there whatsoever!  The space is on the board for one, but they never even soldered in a socket, so in order to upgrade the video card, she has to buy an entirely new motherboard at a minimum, and with a Dell, that pretty much means you're best off just waiting and buying a whole new system.

They love to do that with all sorts of things, even the power supply (which is junk compared to the Antec models I always use to begin with), and even though you can get converters to use standard PSUs in a Dell, it's more aggravation and crap that no one needs.

Now granted, I'm pretty biased.  The last good complete systems I saw that weren't either built out of proprietary and crappy components OR ridiculously priced (say like Alienware) was back with this company called Zeos, and they've been dead and gone for at least a couple decades -mainly because you can't afford to build quality machines at a competitive price en masse and expect to compete with companies like Dell or Gateway who sell 'mostly functional not-quite junk' to the masses at an attractive price in a nice wrapper.

About the only reason I ever suggest someone go with a pre-built system is for the warranty and support if that's something they really need OR if they either really just have loads of money and not a load of time to burn, in which case I'd go with one of the shiny Alienware-like deals where you're getting ultra cutting edge, but you're paying for it too, or if bottom line cost really is their main factor, in which case sadly the pre-built is about your best choice in most cases but again, overall performance and system satisfaction generally end up taking some hits along the way.

Sorry it's getting so wordy.  I'm pretty verbose to begin with, and certain subjects (like this one) really get me going and I forget how to STFU for a while. 

-Kitt

[angelyne]

building your own system need not be the most expensive route.  You are in control of what you put in it.  That's what I did, I picked all the components I wanted, went to a local shop and had them build it according to my specs.  They did charge me for putting it together, but it wasn't a lot. (50$).  I could have done it myself, but I did that out of sheer lazyness.

Be careful however, to fall in the trap of hobbling your new system because you are trying to keep old components like your hard drive.  Most hardware has evolved since your GX400.  Hard drives are generally SATA.  They also run at 7200 RPM or better.  They willl perform better than your current drive (which I assume is a 5400 RPM IDE drive).  TS2 peformance depends on more than just memory.  Hard drive speed is another factor.  How big is it?  If I remember correctly, that generation of desktop came with  20-40 GB drives.  Compared with the size of modern drives, that's like a drop in the bucket.  Not even worth installing in a new system.  You are better off trying to sell your old system and make a few bucks off it, which you can't really do if you take it apart.

You might read the thread that is stickied in this forum.  It should tell you everything you want to know about picking a computer for TS2


Edit:  I agree with you Kittkitt.  Dells do have their uses though.  I am buying one for my mother.  All she does is surf the web (a little), so a low-end one is good enough for her.  Also the warranty means that if something goes wrong, I am not stuck trying to troubleshoot a computer, over the phone, with an almost complety computer illiterate 84 year old woman. (I live out of town).

[kutto]

Due to me being a perfectionist, I'm going to go over a checklist, so fill in my holes, or correct me where I'm wrong.

Hard Drive: I am currently using a master-slave system with two hard drives: a 40G and a 20G. The 40 I bought myself, and I assume that it is new enough. The 20 came with the computer, and I planned to use it for overflow off my 40. Currently, it is still empty. It was the master, but I made it the slave once I found out that it was a Maxtor. Not a big fan of Maxtor. In short, I should have this covered.

RAM and Motherboard: What kind of motherboard am I looking for? And what specs are important when looking for one? What kind of RAM should I look into? How much would a gig of that set me back?

Other stuff: Well, I know to get the obvious. CD-ROM, maybe a DVD-ROM. Do you think a floppy disk reader is still essential? What am I looking for in a case? Anything I forgot?

I know this is a lot of questions, and you're likely fed up with me by now. If you are, I understand completely. I just really want to get this right. I use my computer a lot and don't want to screw this up. Thanks again, and thanks a lot.

[KittKitt]

First, quickly to angelyne:  Agreed completely.  I'm not saying "Dell is crap!  Burn Dell!", but it's one of the very last recommendations I'd tend to make to someone trying to build any sort of gaming rig, or one they'll probably want to update in the next year or two.

They're awesome for uses like you've described above, as also are E-machines I've found.  Take it out of the box, plug it into the cable (or whatever) and zing.  Off you go.  It'll do what they need, and if it breaks, it's some tech support person's problem, which is a very good thing under the circumstances. 

Now, back to you, kutto.

Honestly, not trying to be mean but...  your HD solution is, as angelyne more or less tried to indicate nicely, crap.

Your M/S configuration is not teeny by today's standards (you total 60 GB on both drives, whereas even only my primary drive is 130 GB, and the other is larger yet), but also almost certainly some generation or another of IDE.

This is bad.  Today's drives are faster, more reliable, but they run on the SATA interface, which won't use an IDE drive no matter how much you beat on it.  Now, you could buy a MOBO that still carries an IDE port or two (Giving you 2 or 4 available IDE devices respectively) and toss the old drive on there just to pull stuff from or bulk store junk that access time really isn't even a factor in.

Personally though, I'd just move everything off the thing to a newer, superior, larger and faster drive and use the old one for a paperweight.  Or if you take them apart, you can make some really cool looking wind chimes out of 'em, but obviously you want to be absolutely sure you never need anything from that drive ever again.  I've got some old 20 meg 'chimes around here someplace from further back than I care to remember offhand. 

Anyways, you can keep the drives you're using, but I don't recommend it.  Today's applications LOVE to munch on your HD for data swapping.  Windows itself does it, your video card does it, and the Sims2 LOVES to do it.  Having an old and slow drive in there is non-awesome.

Now, as to the mobo... well, personally I always go with either Abit or Asus, but really that's a matter of personal preference.  In my experience, I find them to make solid, reliable boards and it's never been worth it to me to save the few bucks with a lesser known compared to the problems it's caused in me in the past.

That out of the way, the features you want depend largely on your overall plan.  Usually, when I go to build a system, the first thing I decide on is the processor I'm going to be using, since that dictates a range of boards right there that you'll have to go with to have the right socket.  For me, that means looking at the top of the heap for the two big chip makers and then dropping down the price sheets a few notches.  You can lose a few hundred MHZ in processor speed and not suffer any significant performance hit, but dropping down a few spots from "top of the line" means huge dollar savings.

Next thing I look at is what sorts of ram speeds, types, and configurations are available on boards with that slot, and doing a little research to catch up on all the new advancements, I pick the one that's at the right balance of cost vs performance depending on the sort of system I'm aiming at -again, for me this tends to be aimed mostly toward performance, because in my case, being an avid gamer as well as using a lot of graphic intensive apps, I don't see a point in building a new system that's just 'eh, so-so'.  These days, most of your better RAM runs best if you can run it in dual channel mode, so whatever I buy it come in pairs.  To use dual channel mode, you have to be using an even number (and they really really should be identical) of chips, so if you want 1 gig, grab 2 512 meg modules.  Which slots you'll need to use will be listed in the spec sheets for your mobo.

The next big factor in a gaming rig tends to be your video.  Personally, I'm an Nvidia gal, but again, that's a matter of preference.  What's truly of consequence here is again, you can save a LOT of money if you drop just a couple spots down the 'totem pole', and you really won't miss very much performance doing so in the long run.

I would advise against any sort of SLI or Crossfire (dual video) solution, as from what you've said so far, the gains you can get in performance in certain situations would be far outweighed by the massive cost of two cutting edge video cards.

Typically, the main factor right now for video cards is interface.  I highly suggest going with PCIe, as AGP is a slowly dying breed and you immediately breed in lack of upgrade option plus usually having to select a sub-standard card even in today's market with AGP.

Then there's the "generation vs memory" issue..  Personally, I have excellent results with dropping my core down a bit (say for example instead of grabbing a shiny new 7950 series, I might drop back to the 6800's) but I keep to the 'upper end' of the 'last generation' down so as to maximize the core and memory clock in those models, as well as providing more video memory.

The geforce 6800 ultra 512mb PCIe for example can be had for about $225 US, whereas you won't even touch a 7900 with 512 meg for less than around $400 -and those aren't even quite the top of the pile anymore.  The cost drops really fast, so it just depends on how awesome and shiny you really need to be.  Sure, the newer one will definitely be more awesome and faster, but enough so to justify double the price (or more?) Not IMHO.

Now... with those core components chosen, in my example we'd have narrowed our field of mobo choices down to something with SATA and good bus speeds that supports whichever processor I initially decided I wanted to go with, and has the right type of RAM banks to support my spiffy 1 gig of dual channel memory (and in my case, it'd have to have at least 4 slots so I could add more later.  RAM can make a massive difference to boost a slightly tired, but not entirely defunct system a year or so down the line).

So with that in mind, I'd start looking over the choices that leaves me with and find one that has a good combination of spiffy features (built in good network, extra IDE controllers just 'cuz..and either a neutral BIOS, or one that matches my choice in video card (Nvidia and ATI are both making 'em these days, and if you decide to use a board with one of their chips, it's generally a wise choice to use the same one as what you prefer in video card).

Whew... Past that, you drop in some sort of sound card -I'm using the Audigy 2 line which still works splendid with my 5.1 speaker setup and sounds better than many people's home stereo I've heard, one or two optical drives (DVD/CD-R/W, possibly a really fast plain reader, or whatever combination you prefer), a bunch of cooling fans and a good (I use aluminum for the better heat dissipation) case with lots of bays for drives and room for moving air around and places to put fans that not only cool your RAM and CPU, but also your drive and expansion bays for todays faster, hotter running hardware...

Oh, and as I mentioned before, I use Antec PSUs..  any of their "whatever"Power lines are good.  They provide solid, constant, reliable voltages and true rated wattages and thus don't tend to fry things like your $300 video card because they decided to fluctuate .3v just for giggles.  That happens sometimes with crap PSUs, and it can be really catastrophic.

Since I'm now getting to the point of practically writing a book here, and much of this is probably already covered in that post about system recommendations for a Sims capable machine, I'll leave it there for now and let you digest a bit before I assault you any further.  Trying to get too terribly specific usually leads to problems here anyways, as again, much of the process of choosing components is based on what exactly you're trying to accomplish coupled with your own experiences and opinions.

-Kitt

[Hegelian]

First off, one thing we have neglected to mention as part of the cost of upgrading is the price of an OEM version of Windows XP, since the Optiplex probably has Win2K pre-installed.

As far as the cost of building your own goes, it's neither necessarily more nor less expensive than buying a prebuilt PC. At the low end (~$550), you will be hard-pressed to build a machine that will outperform what you can get for the same price from one of the online vendors unless you have access to wholesale prices. You do need to shop carefully though when buying a pre-buit or built-to-order PC, to avoid the common pitfalls of cheap/ínadequate/custom parts like the four 256 MB RAM modules described above.

Once you approach US$1500, the chances of building a better machine for less are much greater, if you get your parts from online discounters like Newegg, Zipzoomfly, MWave, or Buy.com.

The big advantages of building your own are getting exactly what you want and only what you want (this includes having a quality case and power supply), and knowing exactly how it all works together, because you configured it. The disadvantage is that you are your own tech support, and if you break something there aren't more on a shelf in the back room.

That said, a prebuilt machine in the US$550 range from one of the big vendors that has 1 GB RAM will give you pretty much all you need to have a good gaming experience with TS2. The integrated graphics won't be on a par with a current add-in graphics board, but it will certainly be far superior than the nVidia TNT board that's probably in the Optiplex, and will be good enough until you can afford a proper graphics board. As KittKitt mentioned, the best value in graphics boards tends to be the top-of-the-previous-model-line-now-at-discount-prices. In the nVidia line, that would be the 6800 series, and in the ATI line it would be the X850 XT (which, at around US$115, is easily the best value out there), which is generally a better performer than the 6800 boards and some 7000-series boards as well (and it seems most reviewers feel ATI's image quality is better).

Intel's new Core 2 CPUs are at the top of the performance heap for now, by a significant margin. However, you aren't going to get one in a budget PC, so you're best bang for the dollar is still the Athlon 64. If possible, try to get one in the new AM2 socket format, to maximize your future upgrade options. TS2 is CPU-limited, so get the fastest CPU you can budget.

If you aren't archiving MP3 files, hi-rez images, or video, you don't need a giant hard drive. My three drives total 102 GB (formatted), and I have 43.5 GB free, even with a lot of applications installed. If you can only budget an 80- or 120 GB hard drive, don't worry about it. But do be sure it is SATA and spins at 7200 RPM (the hard drive is one place the big builders sometimes cut corners on budget PCs, using cheap 5400 RPM drives).

Since someone mentioned partitioning the hard drive, let me point out that while this was a useful practice when using FAT32 (because of issues with cluster size, slack space, and the maximum size of a partition under Windows), from everything I've read it appears NTFS functions best on an unpartitioned drive. If you want the "housekeeping" and paging file advantages of multiple partitions, it is best to install a second hard drive.

[KittKitt]

First, I just wanted to pop in and echo the endorsement for Newegg.com.

I've ordered oodles of stuff from them, and while you must read very carefully (some items are specifically designated as "OEM" -which means they lack manuals, warranty, and sometimes even installation software where applicable), I've never yet been dissatisfied with any purchase there.  Their prices are competitive (though not always the lowest) and they ship what you order when they say they will in well-protected shipping containers.

So yeah, you could most definitely do worse for where you shop.

Also, I agree with pretty much everything Hegelian with the sole exception that as I already stated, I prefer the Nvidias to the ATIs.  Honestly, it's mostly because I had a string of really bad experiences with some (older) ATI boards and never quite let go of the ire it caused.  Couple that with the fact that regardless of what anyone says, the simple fact is that both companies continually play leap frog as far as who's board is faster, better quality, better value, etc etc , and that leaves me in the Geforce arena for the foreseeable future.

I will however strongly remind that I am in no way saying ATI is a bad choice.  Go read several 3rd party reviews of the boards on both sides of the fence that sit well within your price/performance ranges and make your own better-informed choice based on as much hard fact as you can scrape together.

Sorry to babble, but I can't help but giggle at how we're already so clearly illustrating just how huge a role  opinion and past experience can play in the recommendations for system building game.  Easily amused I suppose. 

-Kitt

[angelyne]

I think nothing gets us going more than a "which computer should I upgrade to" thread.  Except maybe for a "where can I download the best hair" thread

[kutto]

I got my video and sound needs covered. I myself am partial to nvidia, and a Soundblaster card tags along.

As for the rest of the parts, I will make contact with my friend to start plans for building my computer, as well as ask him about wholesale prices he may have access to.

I'll keep reading this over, and if I run into problems, you'll be the first to know. Thanks again. Wish me luck.

[MxxPwr]

...The thing is, your new computer is likely to be a sata drive, while your old drive is likely to be an IDE drive.  So the whole concept of "slaving" a drive doesn't apply here. (Actually that's a pretty outdated concept.  It refers to installing a second drive on an existing IDE port, something that you rarely do nowadays.).  The easiest way to do it is to unplug your IDE DVD drive, from your new system (just the cables, don't remove the drive), and plug in your old drive in its place...

Well, most bios...es(biosi ?) still use the terminology slave/master; even with SATA drives. And most motherboards still have primary and secondary IDE ports. Secondary for DVD drives and such and the good ol' primary for boot drives; why? I dunno. Most of these primary and secondary IDE ports can also slave/master so you can install 4 drives of various types at once. You'll see them described on mobo specs as 4 x PATA.

Anyway, a word of warning that I didn't mention earlier about installing an old IDE HDD on a new computer with a SATA boot HDD: Go straight to the bios setup when you reboot and make sure it isn't installing the IDE HDD as your boot drive. Most do; old programming habits die hard I suppose. You'll probably have to manually configure the SATA HDD back to being your boot device.

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, most bios...es(biosi ?)

Biosen.

still use the terminology slave/master; even with SATA drives. And most motherboards still have primary and secondary IDE ports. Secondary for DVD drives and such and the good ol' primary for boot drives; why? I dunno. Most of these primary and secondary IDE ports can also slave/master so you can install 4 drives of various types at once. You'll see them described on mobo specs as 4 x PATA.

Anyway, a word of warning that I didn't mention earlier about installing an old IDE HDD on a new computer with a SATA boot HDD: Go straight to the bios setup when you reboot and make sure it isn't installing the IDE HDD as your boot drive. Most do; old programming habits die hard I suppose. You'll probably have to manually configure the SATA HDD back to being your boot device.

Why would you even *HAVE* a SATA HDD if you were buying an upgrade replacement to your old computer? Since you'd already have a hard drive, there'd be no reason to buy one. I have yet to see a commonly available motherboard that comes with no IDE capability.

[MxxPwr]

Due to me being a perfectionist, I'm going to go over a checklist, so fill in my holes, or correct me where I'm wrong.

Hard Drive: I am currently using a master-slave system with two hard drives: a 40G and a 20G. The 40 I bought myself, and I assume that it is new enough. The 20 came with the computer, and I planned to use it for overflow off my 40. Currently, it is still empty. It was the master, but I made it the slave once I found out that it was a Maxtor. Not a big fan of Maxtor. In short, I should have this covered.

RAM and Motherboard: What kind of motherboard am I looking for? And what specs are important when looking for one? What kind of RAM should I look into? How much would a gig of that set me back?

Other stuff: Well, I know to get the obvious. CD-ROM, maybe a DVD-ROM. Do you think a floppy disk reader is still essential? What am I looking for in a case? Anything I forgot?

I know this is a lot of questions, and you're likely fed up with me by now. If you are, I understand completely. I just really want to get this right. I use my computer a lot and don't want to screw this up. Thanks again, and thanks a lot.

For what its worth, my list of components for what I like to call my 'Cheap Ass Intel PC':

APEVIA (ASPIRE) X-DISCOVERY-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: X-DISCOVERY-BK
$75 US

ASUS P5LD2 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #: P5LD2
$125

ASUS EN7600GT/2DHT/256M Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: EN7600GT/2DHT/256M
$200

ENERMAX Noisetaker II EG701AX VE(W) SFMA ATX12V Ver 2.2 600W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: EG701AX VE(W) SFMA
$175

Intel Pentium 4 531 Prescott 3.0GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80547PG3000EK - Retail
Model #: BX80547PG3000EK
$100

Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model KVR667D2N5K2/1G - Retail
Model #: KVR667D2N5K2/1G
$100

SONY Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Windows 98SE/ ME/ 2000/ XP - OEM
Model #: MPF920 Black

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD1200JS

SONY Combo Drive Black IDE Model CRX320EE/B2S W/O SW - OEM
Model #: CRX320EE/B2S W/O SW

Prices on the retail parts are pretty general. I gave no prices on the OEM parts; that would depend on the store you bought them from.

This assumes one reuses (as I would) the keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor, and modem from an old PC.

I don't personally endorse any OS.

[MxxPwr]

Well, most bios...es(biosi ?)

Biosen.

still use the terminology slave/master; even with SATA drives. And most motherboards still have primary and secondary IDE ports. Secondary for DVD drives and such and the good ol' primary for boot drives; why? I dunno. Most of these primary and secondary IDE ports can also slave/master so you can install 4 drives of various types at once. You'll see them described on mobo specs as 4 x PATA.

Anyway, a word of warning that I didn't mention earlier about installing an old IDE HDD on a new computer with a SATA boot HDD: Go straight to the bios setup when you reboot and make sure it isn't installing the IDE HDD as your boot drive. Most do; old programming habits die hard I suppose. You'll probably have to manually configure the SATA HDD back to being your boot device.

Why would you even *HAVE* a SATA HDD if you were buying an upgrade replacement to your old computer? Since you'd already have a hard drive, there'd be no reason to buy one. I have yet to see a commonly available motherboard that comes with no IDE capability.

In the beginning, Kutto's first thought was: Buy new prefab PC; put old IDE HDD into new PC; transfer data to the new HDD. Most new prefab PC's should have a SATA drive.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yes, but that would be a stupid, overpriced, Kutto thing to do. And prefab PCs are crap and they cheat you by using substandard and proprietary parts.