Posted: 12/10/2006 12:51:06 PM EDT
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So my father has a computer that he put together a few years ago and would like to upgrade it a little to speed it up a little. Here's what he has: Motherboard: ASUS P4T-E i850 P4 (Northwood) 478 socket ATX motherboard Processor: Intel Pentium 4 1.6GHz 478-pin CPU w/ 512KB cache Ram: 2 sticks of Kingston Rambus 256MB 800Mhz ECC RIMM memory Power supply: Antec True380 380W ATX12V PSU And his main HDD is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X 80GB 72000RPM ATA/133HDD I was doing a little research and it appears that his motherboard will take 512MB sticks of RDRAMs, but these seem to be going for more than a $100 a stick. Can I mix the 512RDRAM sticks with the 256MB RIMMS that he still has? He can get a faster processor and upgrade the ram and powersupply, but what would you do to speed up the computer without spending a bundle? |
Not really - you'd have an extremely hard time finding a motherboard that is going to support all your other old generation hardware No offense, but the computer is several years old, and was low end when he bought it -(1.6 pentium 4 was a budget extreme low end chip even when first introduced) As everyone else here will likely tell you - save for a new computer. You can probably call Dell and get a low end budget computer for ~500 that will do more than what he needs to do. Good luck! |
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The system should be fine for browsing/email type stuff, but not overly quick these days no doubt. The Kommando rule of upgrading: Add up the cost of the upgrade Add up the cost of the new computer If the upgrade is more than 50% of a new computer, then buy the new computer. On this system, RAM is the 1st step of extending it's life, but at $100 a stick...that's a deal-killer right there. To go through and completely upgrade the system (depending on how much power you're looking for)...you might keep...uh....the case? :) You're probably better off to buy a new $500 Dell with a LCD flatscreen and Intel Core Duo CPU (watch http://www.fatwallet.com for coupon deals) and then eBay the Rambus sticks off to some other poor bloke needing RIMMs. |
No You will end up spending close to as much as just buying new. And a new machine will be usable for longer. |