Computer Hope

Other => Computer Hope groups => Self Built Computer Club => Topic started by: SilentAssasin64 on September 10, 2010, 01:22:10 PM

Title: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: SilentAssasin64 on September 10, 2010, 01:22:10 PM
After about 5 1/2 months of being without my own box, I finally fixed it.  The specs are as follows.

AMD Athlon II X3 440 @ 3Ghz
Asus M4A88TD-V Evo
2x 2GB Kingston DDR3 1066
MSI GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3 (old)
1x 160GB PATA (old)
1x BenQ 1640 DVD/CD Combo Drive (old)
2x 19" wide-screen @ 1440x900 (old)
Ubuntu 9.10 64bit (switching to Arch or Fedora soon, though)

Big upgrade from my last build, which took place in early summer 2008.  Next thing to do, when the budget permits, is to get rid of the old PATA hard drive for a nice fat SATA, a new GPU, and a new PSU to power it all.

Overall I'm very happy with the machine.  Paid all of $274ish for the CPU, mobo, and RAM.
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: Computer Hope Admin on September 20, 2010, 10:51:43 PM
Looks good thanks for sharing. I'd also consider adding another 512MB since things now days seem to run a lot better with a min of 1GB of memory.
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: SilentAssasin64 on September 22, 2010, 07:40:46 PM
The system has 4GB of RAM.  The 512MB is in reference to my video card, which by todays standards is pretty outdated (bought it in Summer 2008).
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: SilentAssasin64 on September 30, 2010, 01:00:03 PM
Update:  Installed a 150gb, 10,000rpm VelociRaptor this morning.  I must say, I can definitely see an increase in 'snappiness' already.  Looking forward to playing with it some more.
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: Computer Hope Admin on September 30, 2010, 01:38:20 PM
Very nice. I decided to do the same thing in the past when considering going to either a SSD or 10k HDD. I've been very happy with the decision as well.  ;D
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: SilentAssasin64 on September 30, 2010, 02:29:21 PM
Don't think I could justify the cost of a SSD.  So far I've installed both Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.10 64bit Beta in less than an hour.  Doing a drive-to-drive transfer (old 160gb IDE to new 150gb 10,000rpm) was going at 28.5mb/s while downloading updates.

Very pleased so far.  Will update after I get a chance to play some games on it. 
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: SilentAssasin64 on October 25, 2010, 02:23:24 AM
Another upgrade:  Ordered a new AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition to replace my Athlon II X3 and 4 more GB of RAM.  Should be here Tuesday.  Will update this post when it's all installed and have had a chance to play with it a bit.
Title: Re: Fixed/Upgraded My Machine
Post by: SilentAssasin64 on October 28, 2010, 04:42:53 PM
Update (since it won't let me edit my last post for some reason):  Very happy with the new parts.  My CrystalMark score went from ~147,000 to ~187,000.  After a 200Mhz overclock it jumped up again to ~199,000.  I just moved my tower to a different location to get some better airflow, hence making OC'ing a bit easier.  Will update again after another increase.