How old is your comp, and how much have you upgraded?

[Snipawolf]

Mine, 4 years old. Hp Pavilion, 3.2ghz processor, 512mb RAM, geforce 5200, CD-writer/DVD writer combo, cd rom drive, 180 gigs of memory, 5 usb sockets, that's about all the important stuff.

(I bet it seems worth that 1.5k we paid for it back then, huh!)

Now, 180$ upgrade, 512 more mb of RAM, and a geforce 6600GT....

What's yours?

[Neddie]

ASUS laptop, Core Duo 1.83 GHz, GeForce Go 7600, 100 GB, 1 GB RAM, DVD/CD Burner, 5 USB 2.0 Ports.

$1.2 K
Eight Months

I should have gone for a desktop, but I was led under false pretenses.

[jackalope]

180 gigs of memory is a lot I bet you can really multitask

[Felix the Cat]

ASUS laptop, Core Duo 1.83 GHz, GeForce Go 7600, 100 GB, 1 GB RAM, DVD/CD Burner, 5 USB 2.0 Ports.

$1.2 K
Eight Months

I should have gone for a desktop, but I was led under false pretenses.

Those who made the recent spate of "I'm getting a laptop" threads, read carefully, this man speaks wisdom as usual.

[AF]

I bought a 450mhz laptop fof of ebay ont he cheap and put ubuntu 7 on ti and got wifi card and it runs fine now. It has no cd drive either its that old.

[Relative]

I'm currently using a five year old Dell desktop, which was the family computer a while back as my temp as I save up to build a new one. It has generic dell/intel parts which frankly suck and a northwood @2.5 Ghz. I spent ├âÔÇÜ├é┬ú100 to upgrade it with two sticks of generic 512MB DDR3200 RAM and a ATI 9800 pro 128MB.

When we bought it five year ago it cost $1200 USD. It cost that much because we bought a $400 15" LCD screen. My family and I didn't know anything about hardware back then. A waste of money in hindsight.

[Deathblane]

Athlon 64bit 3200+ (It's not really, I've just got a lower one OC'd)
Epox Mainboard, nForce4
1Gb Ram
ATI X800 256MB
450GB In 2 SATA hard drives
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
Nice case, fans, PSU, DVD writer, DVD drive, Mouse, Moniter, Speakers, Headphones.

512 of the Ram I got for free/part exchange of old kit.
Everything else was bought at such a time that it was pretty cheep. For example both drives cost me about ├âÔÇÜ├é┬ú70, but they were brought about 6 months apart hence why one has 50GB more space.

The chip, board, cpu cooler and gfx Card came to about ├âÔÇÜ├é┬ú300 last year, but all in all the systems probably cost me about ├âÔÇÜ├é┬ú800 over a 3 and 1/2 year period.

[Licho]

I have about 4 years old Athlon 2500+
Now upgraded to 2GB RAM, Geforce 6600GT and 370GB hdd, SB X-fi

I'm trying to resist temptation to upgrade it all, I can afford new machine easilly I just don't like spending on stuff I don't really need (not a model customer..)

[Cabbage]

October 2005 -

athlon64 x-2 4400+
geforce 7800GTX
1Gig PC3800
(added another gig since then)
decent 250gig HD (cant remember model)
DVD/CD-RW + another CD-RW drive
soundblaster audigy 2 ZS
5.1 speakers
19" LCD (Not amazing, but by no means crap - semidecent refresh rate etc)
Joystick, pedals etc (bundled)

├âÔÇÜ├é┬ú1,400 or there abouts (Expensive card at the time ^^ )

Planning on building a new one in september / october depending on prices / whats available - hopefully 2 R600 cards in crossfire, a raptor for the OS and a fecking sexy 24" samsung LCD ^^

[Pxtl]

I don't even remember when I got this thing, but it's a 2Ghz Dell desktop that I won in a draw. The damned thing came with 128 megs of ram and a 15 gig HD and windows XP, making it, out of the box, the most painful machine in existence.

Obviously, it has much more ram and HD now, but still the same processor and the same 14" 1024x768 LCD display it came with. My desk is too cramped to put back my 21" CRT on it, and I'm too cheap to fork over for a new LCD (but those 20" ones at Canada Computers are looking pretty damned good to me).

[Lindir The Green]

~2 weeks old dell inspiron E1705 (17 inch screen), with a 2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 Gigs of RAM, a GeForce Go 7900 GS, and a 160 GB HD.

It cost $1703 including shipping and tax, and I have not regretted getting it for a second.

[Ishach]

Core 2 Duo E6300
1gb DDR667 Dual Channel
7900GS Video card
Gigabyte 965-s3 motherboard

I salvaged all my other parts from my old computer and I think it came out to be about $700 Australian dollars




My computer before that was pretty decent for its time and I think only cost me about $500 because I lucked getting a graphics card and hard drive for free.

[Ishach]

I don't even remember when I got this thing, but it's a 2Ghz Dell desktop that I won in a draw. The damned thing came with 128 megs of ram and a 15 gig HD and windows XP, making it, out of the box, the most painful machine in existence.

hahaha

[LathanStanley]

Prescott 3.4 GHz, OC'd to 4.8 GHz (hyperthreaded)
Mobo is Fatal1ty AA8XE with lots of home-brew upgrades (thermal sensors, and resistors to expand the voltage on the CPU), OC'd to 282 FSBx4 or 1128 mhz
Ram, 4 gigs OCZ PC6400 DDR2 titainum ed. Over Volted, and clocked, (strapped at 3:4 ratio) running 846MHz, in a 3-3-3-12 clocks.
3 SATA harddrives mediocre 40 gig Seagate drives (I forget the specs and lazy to find) but two of them in a Raid-0 for data, and games.. the other is a dedicated drive for the OS and related programs...
its got an ATI x1600 Pro 512mb card, tricked a lil.. and overclocked
Water cooled, 13 fans, lots of ducting, and a 500watt modular PSU from Ultra X-Connect.
DVD-R, CD-RW, and all the rest of the crap you could ever need.
19" TFT flatscreen with 1400:1 contrast and a 4ms refresh its pretty.

I've done about 3 upgrades to it in the last year... its only about 12 months old...

the best part was the price tag, 1250$ (+325$ for the monitor)

I'm looking into a new motherboard soon too

droool http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/pro ... &model=333

[Relative]

I'm looking into a new motherboard soon too

droool http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/pro ... &model=333

pfff

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... uctID=2455

[KDR_11k]

Don't remember when the last upgrade was...

Athlon 64 3000+
GeForce 6800
1024 MB dual channel PCsumthin RAM (those numbers change so fast I have no idea when I bought mine)
Asus A8V (I think it's called)

[SpikedHelmet]

Dell Dimension 4700, it's about 3 years old.

Pent IV 2.8GHz
1GB RAM
128mb X300
Up until about 2 weeks ago I had only a 40GB hard drive. Then it got smashed (by my fist) and so I upgraded to an 80GB drive. Yay me!

[LathanStanley]

I'm looking into a new motherboard soon too

droool http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/pro ... &model=333

pfff

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... uctID=2455

you must be kidding...

do you have any idea the overclocking capability of the abit board? The abit has genius cooling systems built right on, its set to overclock through windows with the click of a button... the mosfet cooling systems on the Northbridge, Southbridge, and PWM's just, well, kick the crap out of the gigabyte "basic heatsink" setup. the AN9, is.. just wow... I've got the "precursor" to this board, and its fucking stable as a rock at a 15% overclock! without ANY hardware modification, with some hardware mods, I can push over 25% and still be stable... The IN9 32X-Max is going to blow the doors of the gigabyte... just omgwtfpwn it...

you compare the stats:

All comparisons are Gigabyte followed by Abit.

CPU:
Gigabyte:
- Supports Intel├âÔÇÜ├é┬« Core├â┬ó├óÔé¼┼¥├é┬ó2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core├â┬ó├óÔé¼┼¥├é┬ó2 Duo / Intel├âÔÇÜ├é┬« Pentium├âÔÇÜ├é┬« Extreme/ Intel├âÔÇÜ├é┬« Pentium├âÔÇÜ├é┬« D processors
- Supports 1333/1066/800/533 MHz FSB
Abit:
- Designed for Intel LGA775 processors with 1333MHz FSB
- Support Intel Quad Core, Core 2 Duo & Extreme Edition, Pentium├âÔÇÜ├é┬« D & Pentium├âÔÇÜ├é┬«4 Processors
- 5-phase Digital PWM Designation provide high quality and efficient power

(overclocking ability pwns Gigabyte, Abit wins)

Chipset: (mostly extra gobblediegoup, but the NB and SB info is good to know)
Gigabyte:
- Northbridge: Intel├âÔÇÜ├é┬« P965 Express Chipset
- Southbridge: Intel├âÔÇÜ├é┬« ICH8R
- Gigabit LAN Controller (Marvell 8056)
- Realtek ALC888 8 Channel Audio Codec
Abit:
- True SLI Nvidia nForce 680i SLI
- Dua lNVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet
- Timing and TCP/IP acceleration
- On board 7.1 CH HD Audio CODEC
- Supports Jack Sensing and S/PDIF In/Out

(True SLI, Dual Gigabit, TCP/IP acceleration, vs 8 channel Audio, Gigabyte might be better sound, but Abit wins)

Memory:
Gigabyte:
Supports DDR2 800/667/533 memory
Dual Channel architecture support up to 8GB by 4 DIMM slots
Abit:
4 X 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. memory capacity 32GB
- Supports Dual channel DDR2 800 Un-buffered / ECC or Non-ECC memory

8GB vs 32GB (Abit wins)

Expansion Slots:
Gigabyte:
- 2 PCI Express X16 slot(x16, x4)
- 3 PCI Express X1 slots
- 2 PCI slots
Abit:
- 2 x PC-EX 16
- 1 x PCI-EX16(X8 bandwidth for X4, X8 and X16 devices)
- 1 x PCI-EX1
- 2 x PC I

(Abit has an extra EX16 slot for a physics card, Gigabyte has 2 more X1 slots for things like ethernet cards that Abit has included on the mobo, Abit wins again)

Internal Connectors:
Gigabyte:
- 8 Serial ATA 3Gb/s connector
- 1 UDMA ATA 100/66/33 connector
- 1 FDD connector
- 3 USB 2.0/1.1 connectors (support 6 ports)
- 1 audio pin header (support 8-Channel)
- 1 S/PDIF In pin header
- 2 IEEE1394 connector
- 1 Chassis Intrusion connector (power connector)
Abit:
- 1 x Floppy port
- 1 x ATA 133 connector
- 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
- 3 x USB 2.0 headers
- 2 x IEEE1394 headers
- 1 x FP-Audio header
- 1 x HDMI header
- Quick Power & Reset Button
- HDMI ready header (SPDIF header)

(I'll give this one to Gigabyte, the 8 SATA connectors is very, very, very nice, and I'm a big fan ov RAID! and thats a big win.. Gigabyte wins)

Rear Panel I/O:
Gigabyte:
- 4 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
- 1 RJ45 port
- 1 COM port
- 1 LPT port
- 6 audio jacks
- 1 IEEE1394
- 1 Optical SPDIF OUT
- 1 Coaxial SPDIF OUT
- PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
Abit:
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse
- S/P DIF Out and IN
- CCMOS switch
- 4 x USB 2.0
- 2 x RJ-45 LAN
- 2 x eSATA
- nVidia MCP55PXE: 6 x SATA 3Gb/s supports nVidia MediaShield RAID with SATA RAID 0/1/0+1/5 and JBOD
- Silicon Image Sil3132: Support 2 ports eSATA


(ok, who uses a COM or LPT port anymore? those died in the 90's... they are ruled out as obsolete, SPDIF outs co-ax and Digital is nice, but c'mon, this is top of the line gear, whoooopie if you got co-ax, both have digital, but Abit supports digital input, but lookie here, dual LAN again, and oh noes! there's the other two SATA ports, and guess what, its better lols, Abit wins hard.)

ok, in conclusion, I know this Abit board is needing a new BIOS (from the manufacturer's stock 1.1 BIOS, but, it has been updated twice and Abit is good about releasing fixes for issues...) and that is fixed... basically I know of no drawbacks on the Abit board, sure the voltage swings alot when its at a high overclock and high voltage.. but thats expected, not to mention that the damn uGuru chip controls that for a reason, it also takes the CPU heat into consideration etc, and it spikes the processor with voltage (to a limit) as needed. Its a mild cooling bonus. However though, most older OC'ers see this as a fault because older boards that would swing that hard, well, were VERY unstable. not this one though.

anyways All of the rest of the boards specifications are in favor of the Abit, ALL OF THEM...

sigh... Trust me when I tell you that this board is the most powerful board on the market.

you just gotta get two nVidia cards to unlock all of it... and thats, well, not cheap...

[Relative]

Anyway, they are both great broads, but they target different audiences. The Gigabyte board is the best budget overclocking board currently on the market. Its not meant to compete with your board directly, as reflected in its price at about half of the Abit.

[LathanStanley]

Better overclocker? pfff...

Gigabyte DS3P

- Supports 1333/1066/800/533 MHz FSB

Abit IN9 32X-MAX:

Supports DDR2 800/667/533 memory

Well that just killed your argument.

Anyway, they are both great broads, but they target different audiences. The Gigabyte board is the best budget overclocking board currently on the market. Its not meant to compete with your board directly, as reflected in its price at about half of the Abit.

(retracted demeaning statements, you pulled your clown comment, but I'll leave it up as a point for others... its ok, I didn't know this about RAM either about 2 years ago, and lost 200$ on pointless 667 MHz ram when I tried to overclock it )

In case anyone else sees RAM as otherwise:

RAM is strapped at a variable ratio of the FSB. and Abit has a 1333 MHz FSB.. (also faster if you overclock, all the way to 2600MHz and some higher!!!) the ratios RAM is at is commonly 1:1, 4:3 and 3:2... (RAM/2xFSB) thus, at a FSB of 1333 MHz (if you can run it stable) your ram runs at,
1- 1333/2*1/1 = 666.5 MHz
2- 1333/2*4/3 = 888.667 MHz
3- 1333/2*3/2 = 999.75 MHz

If you run the Gigabyte board at 1333MHz FSB, you cannot, CANNOT run the ram, if its 800MHz RAM (PC6400) at anything FASTER than a 1:1 ratio... (guaranteed...)
It'll fail if you try to, and probably force you reset the BIOS or possibly attempt to flash the BIOS in the old skool manner .

The Abit board however, has the overclocking specs to run at FASTER than 800 MHz, and it will. Mine, thats 2 years old, runs at 846MHz right now, and the RAM is only rated to 800MHz...
edit: this is due to the overvolting capabilities, cooling capabilities on the backside of the board, the whoopass DUAL! memory controllers, and the OTES cooling system... (if you got it off the 'ole Fatal1ty's)

FSB is by no means a direct comparison to RAM's MHz speeds...

EDIT 2:
oh, another point I missed, I shoulda said this, RAM is clocked at a Standard of 1066 MHz. not 1333, anything over 1066 is overclocked.
thus:
1- 1066/2*1/1 = 533 MHz
2- 1066/2*4/3 = 666.25 MHz
3- 1066/2*3/2 = 710.67 MHz
where 800MHz exceeds the requirement. and is supported..

Also, the boards WILL support faster RAM than 800 MHz, they just lol, its a OC'er secret.. the MoBo I have States "667 MHz supported" and I'm running 800MHz at the 846MHz...
Its like when a computer says it can only run like 2 gigs of RAM, but when you put 4 in it, you see 3.27 whatever gigs.. (windows x32 limitation is 3.27..., windows x64 runs ALOT more, all the way to 32 gigs! hince why I'm running Vista x64, I have 4 gigs of ram... ) for example, on my Laptop, it was stated "Max 768 MB RAM" as a single SDIMM 256MB and a single SDIMM 512 mb... but I have a 256 and a 1024 chip in it, whats windows read as? the whole effing 1280 MB!... the reason they limited it at 768 in the documentation is due to OVERHEATING!!! I had to casemod the laptop to keep it cool.. lol (I learned that by frying the mobo the first go-around... glad I could RMA it under warranty though )