System Upgrade. Which is best ? 5

[kwunder]

Hi,

At the moment I have an AMD Athlon XP1800 system (on a Jetway mobo) which has been nothing but trouble from the start. During video playback mainly but sometimes during copying files to/from DVD drive, the thing continually freezes. (Running XP PRO)
My thoughts are that the power supply isn't enough (300w)

So,,, I'm looking to upgrade.
I've found 2 systems which to me sound OK. Question is which is best ?

System 1 :- £561 GBP
XPPro
Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3400
Memory - 512MB PC3200 400Mhz DDR Ram
Hard Drive - 200GB SATA 7200rpm Hard Drive
Graphics - 256MB DDR GeForce FX5500 AGP Card
Sound - Integrated, 5.1 channel AC97 (Realtek)
Optical Drive - 16x Dual Layer +/- DVD Burner
Integrated, 5.1 channel AC97 (Realtek) Sound

System 2:- £620 GBP
XPPro
Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3000 Winchester 939
Memory - 1024MB PC3200 400Mhz DDR Ram
Hard Drive - 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
Graphics - GeForce 6200 128MB PCI-E
Sound - 7.1 8-Channel Capable Sound
Optical Drive - 16x Dual Layer +/- DVD Burner

There could be a 3rd option which is the same as system 2, but with an Athlon 64 3500 and 300GB HDD at £680 GBP

These are from

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/PCRanges.html

Any advice would be welcome

Thanks

 

[kwunder]

Well, there I was, just about to press the "CHECKOUT" button, when I discovered another PC supplier here in the UK, that can do a system that has all the same bits as the above, but it has an AMD 64 3500 (VENICE CORE) chip on an ASUS mobo. ALso for the same price, I'd get a Sound Blaster Audigy ZS card and a 256MB Radeon PCI-E graphics card instead of the 128 MB car in the previous Novatech deal. IT is EXTREMELY tempting. Only thing is, I don't know what is the best - the Winchester or Venice CPU ?

Any ideas before I commit ?

Cheers

 

[paparazi]

Kwunder
Pactically nothing or if you want an actual figure, an average 0.7% faster.
And if you are saying for the same price you can have a Asus NF4 mainboard, the same graphics card but with 256mb plus an Audigy ZS then thats definately the deal.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-venice_11.html

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[paparazi]

Sorry (just read my post back)
The Venice being the E3 (newer core) is on average 0.7% faster
In other words things like ram cache latency have more effect than a miserly 0.7%
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[kwunder]

Hi Martin

Just checked the spec and it is an ASUS® A8N-E: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI board


???
Any good ?

 

[paparazi]

Kwunder
Asus is the biggest motherboard manufacturer in the world, they are regarded as a FIRST TEAR manufacturer, that is to say one that works in conjunction with the chip manufacturer and is a highly regarded marque.
I would rate Asus up there with the top 5 manufacturers ie: MSI, Abit, Gigabyte, DFI etc
This particular motherboard is also based on Nvidia's Nforce4 ultra chipset (one down from the SLI)
Features are similar to those of the Foxconn but Asus is regarded more highly (of course that depends on individuals own experiences)
The only negative is that Asus tech support in my experience isn't the best but no complaints about the actual products.
See: for one review

http://www.a1-electronics.net/AMD_Section/Mobos/2005/Asus_A8N-E_Sept.shtml

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[kwunder]

Cheers again

 

[BrucesXP]

Oh the joys of shopping . .

Just to hark back to the beginning though Powersupplies are the non-sexy backbone of the system. Worth overspecifing (or asking a system builder for an upgrade) now to remove the PSU from future reliability/upgrade calculations.

I'm not a sales promoter for PSU's but over the years and particularly recently recently as we al stuff extra drives, bigger graphics cards, etc etc in our systems post purchase I've resolved more "Windows" "HDD", "processor" and "motherboard" faults by swapping the cheap/underratted PSU's than by wasting time swapping HDD's and MB's !