Upgrade advice

[Mbarb]

Since this site contains the largest wealth of computer knowledge anywhere on the planet I thought I would look here for advise on my next little upgrade. I have a very small amount of money to work with (~150.00) and want to get the most “bang for the buck”. I’m not a game player except for flight sim 98 and now 2000. Other than that all it’s used for is e-mail, interment and some personal web page building. I think I’m looking at either a processor or memory upgrade. See below for my current system. I think for the small amount budgeted I can get a k6 3-400 or add 64 meg of ram. So, which one is going to give me the most increase in performance???

Epox mvp3G-M
AMD k6 2-350
Viper 550
64 meg ram
8.4 gig drive
ect....


[This message has been edited by Mbarb (edited 11-17-1999).]

[nuthouse94]

Given the limited finances and the system layout that you already have, combined with the limited gain in system speed that changing from a 350mhz to a 400mhz I would certainly be inclined to go for an increase in ram capability , What speed is your processor running at?-have you got it overclocked at present? The AMD 350 is a good candidate for overclocking! have fun!!!

[Mbarb]

I may need to clarify that I'm planning to go from a k6 2 350 to a k6 3 400 or higher MHz if its available

[This message has been edited by Mbarb (edited 11-17-1999).]

[Petros]

From what I've read, there isn't that big of a difference between the K6-2 and K6-3. Go for the extra memory.

[Brangwen]

If you can't wait (like many of us!), get the ram. If you CAN wait, the prices may drop. Check out sites on memory news on sites like www.zdnet.com, (http://www.zdnet.com,) etc.

Good luck! /forum/smile.gif

[Pat Kennedy]

I'm probably going to make a lot of people mad by saying this but...

Save your money!

To me it sounds like you don't tax your computer too much. Save your money until you feel that there is a bottleneck in your system. It would be stupid to put money down right now if yu really don't need to. If you can wait a few months something better will be available for the same price.

Pat

[bigslammer]

I'd have to agree with Pat kennedy and say that for what you're doing you may want to save your money. but yeah there isn't much of a difference between k6-2 and k6-3. but if that money is just burning a hole in your pocket and you gotta spend it go with the ram. Or if last comes to last and you can't make up your mind you could store it in my piggy bank /forum/smile.gif.

[pickel]

If you can wait and save up your money, AMD is coming out with a K-6-2+ chip early next year. It has an 18 micron scructure instead of 23 and would make more of a cost effective upgrade. That's what I'm going to do. Good luck, whatever /forum/smile.gif

the pickel

[This message has been edited by pickel (edited 11-18-1999).]

[welsh wizard]

Wait.
After Xmas ram prices will pos fall, there to high at the moment, if you go for ram get a 128 stick of the fastest you can run on your sys and sell your other 64 stick , 128 is really close to the standard issue now, by doing so you can transfer to higher spec mobo latter on.
if you want speed in the mean time overclock your CPU ( take it up till it can't cope then cut it back till it does.)
WW

[Dave2]

If you upgrade to a K6-3 400 you are going to want to upgrade the cpu again in 2 months from now. I suggest you save up a little more. I hear that there are going to be K6-3 500s soon.

[alpha]

There will be a good increase in power with a K6 III because it runs 256kb of full speed on board cache as well as the motherboard L2(3).

[grandslammer]

Hey, check out the prices for AMD processors at this site! Unbelievable!

http://www.amtguide.com/

http://www.accessmicro.com/productlist.php3?catid=125&majorcat=08

Mike P.


[This message has been edited by grandslammer (edited 11-20-1999).]

[This message has been edited by grandslammer (edited 11-20-1999).]

[This message has been edited by grandslammer (edited 11-20-1999).]

[This message has been edited by grandslammer (edited 11-20-1999).]

[adam-sith]

Whats wrong with you?! 64 megs of ram isnt enough! /forum/smile.gif /forum/smile.gif /forum/smile.gif /forum/smile.gif

L8r /forum/biggrin.gif

[dawgtuff]

Hmmmmm....I'd say save your $.There's been many times I wanted to upgrade by bits and pieces.I'm glad I didn't(except for a faster modem,and much faster vid card).However,when you get $300-350 saved up,get a "good" monitor....DawgTuff.