Is it worth it to pay $100 for a PIII 500.... 5

[hahnsolo]

The motherboard is a supermicro PIIIsed with a intel 810e chipset, 256 mb sdram pc100. It's a complete box ready to go. I checked out the spec's and it says that I can upgrade to a 933 mhz pIII. What do you all think?

Thanks

heres the full specs:

http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/810/PIIISED.htm

 

[ski]

Used computers are hit and miss, unless the person who's sellng it is either a family member or a good friend. And sometimes that can make things even worse.

However, $100 may not be a bad price for that system if it's in good working shape. You may want to ask the seller if you can use it for a few days to see how it works.
If it seems to be in good shape, then try to get the price reduced, especially if the seller is anxious to get rid of it.
However, if he/she refuses to let you use it without buying, then walk away.


Also, if you're a gamer, then this system will leave you greatly disappointed, especially if you play the latest games.
It has only an anemic onboard graphics and no AGP slot(the latter being required for decent gaming performance).
PCI video cards are available, but they fall way behind AGP cards on performance.

 

[killowhat]

hahnsolo i believe ski is right. I have an intel 810 w a p3 550 mhz and as i read this thread i had on my mind to pay the 100 for a p3 1g, he is right it does have onboard video, BUT i did install a pci video card and there is a great difference in performance, you have to decide if you just want a great pc for surfing the web and playing the latest games where your skills will have to make the difference between pci or agp video cards or do you want to be the kid on the block that is always broke because you put every penny you had in the latest cutting edge, kick ass,cpu smoking machine. tough decisions for sure but no one can make them but you. this is a list of what i have done to my 810.
pci 10/100 card; trouble with driver card, defective
256mb ram; trouble with compatability
pci radeon 7500; a little trouble geeting bugs out
westell wire speed adsl modem; always on awesome
linksys 4 port switch; wish i had gotten more ports all full
as you can see a lot of trouble, but in my opinion i have a darn good machine now. and look at what i have learned, ALL THANKS TO MY FRIENDS AT TEK-TIPS. THANKS GUYS; PEARL LOL
ps i am going for the 1gig cpu, it is wort it.

 

[hahnsolo]

Thanks Ski and Killowhat! My job where I work is selling it and I would primarily use it to do AutoCAD and later I want to do video capture and editing. I haven't gotten into the gaming thing yet....

 

[killowhat]

hahnsolo not sure if it could do video capture without a lot of work. I would not pay a lot for it. LOL PEARL

 

[paparazi]

Complete box, ready to go? so it has a hard drive, floppy, CDrom as well?
Not bad for $100 but too much just for the items stated.
Will it do what you want it to do? it certainly won't be very good for 3Dgraphics. Martin Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[drdebit]

Hahnsolo,
The point of Ski's message was what you're going to do with the machine, as well as its price, is crucial in your decision making. I don't do autocad, but I've always thought of it as a demanding high end application. Your proposed system would be great for my spreadsheets, but I think you might rephrase your question for the forum and ask "What do you think about this as an autocad machine-in its current state and at maximum processor speed?". You could very well be looking at something you will wind trying to resell or give away because it is inadequate to your needs. (I speak from a lot of experience with buying on price alone.)
Dave H.

 

[hahnsolo]

Thanks Drdebit,

Ok, I made up my mind to pass on the PIII and to build my own system. With that said I am looking for recommendations on a barebones that i can buildup myself. Like i said earlier I do Autocad and it is a memory and graphics intensive software and I plan on getting into video editing. I mainly want to convert vhs into vcd or dvd. I don't play games right now but would like to have adequate capability to do so. All this on a budget too. I will probably go Athlon XP. Would do you all think? Thanks!

 

[paparazi]

hansolo,
Good job you didn't by the $100 PC, as it is clear from your requirements that you need a pretty high end system to cope with everything you intend to do.
Video editing with gaming capability normally requires a high end graphics card with VIVO connection or seperate specialised card.
As Video editing uses vast amounts of hard drive space you are going to need both a fast and large capacity drive at the same time you are going to need plenty of memory.
So a capable machine is going to cost quite a pile as this aint gonna be no ordinary word processor.
Martin
Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[cdogg]

hahnsolo,
I think you made a good decision to pass! The 450MHz PIII is actually only upgradeable to 800MHz. This is because the 450MHz PIII's were Slot CPU's, not Socket370 like the newer PIII's. Intel discontinued the slots once they broke the 800MHz mark. So, unless you bought a "Slot to FCPGA converter", you wouldn't be able to go any higher.

Also, the motherboard isn't equipped with an AGP slot for upgrading the video card. This is a necessity if you want to have advanced 3D capabilities as supplied by many high-end Matrox cards. Because of the missing AGP slot, the Intel 810 chipset didn't last long. The 815 soon replaced it and became quite popular for the PIII FCPGA cpu's.

Finally, I don't see any indication of the system including the basics like a CDROM, Floppy, or Hard drive. Right there, that'll cost you another $60-$100 depending on how high-end you go. Might as well start from scratch and build the system you want. Besides, $100 is overpriced for a barebones system as old as this one!

Happy Hunting!
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[r00tMonster]

Well if your building a box for autocad and video editing you might want to look at motherboards using the nforce2 and dual channel DDR....

And plan on spending a little cash on a video card x::0:0::::

 

[timkar77]

You can always find somewhere pci-based Geforce II or later modells, but they are - believe me, really expensive ...

 

[cdogg]

timkar,
They're not too expensive if you're talking about PCI GeForce2 MX or GeForce4 MX cards. I've seen them for under $100 (search pricewatch.com). However, they are not powerful enough for the average CAD user, and do not help with video editing. ~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[lucasm]

For a video card with video editing capabilities you could go with one of the ATI All-In-Wonders. I have the 8500DV and it is decent for gaming (not suitable for upcoming Doom III though) but would recommend looking at the newer ones like the 9000 or 9700 Pro (pricy). You could also go for a NVidia GeForce4 with VIVO features, my previous card was a Gainward Geforce3 with video in and out, it was good for the type of vhs captures you are talking about. In fact, I used it to capture all of my little brother's basketball games and compile a highlight vcd and tape. The All-In-Wonders have some nice tv-tuning & TIVO features which are handy for me, since I like to archive tv shows to disk.

I recommend getting a motherboard with onboard RAID. It is very handy to have a fast striped partition for capturing video - you can get a couple Western Digital 80 gb drives for under 100 each these days.

I'm trying to wait until april at the earliest before my next mobo/processor upgrade, I'm currently using a 1.33 ghz Athlon with pc133 memory. I'm hoping to get one of the next generation of AMD processors - if I were buying right now I wouldn't get the 2800+, get the 2nd or third highest speed to maximize price/performance ratio.