CPU/Video Card Upgrades

[darthsabbath]

Hey guys,

I've been looking to upgrade my PC, and wanted to get some opinions.

I've heard a lot about the new AMD64 chips, and am considering getting one of these. However, I have heard that Linux support for them is buggy (at least from reviews I've read recently).

Currently I'm running an Athlon XP 2400+, and my motherboard can support up to a 3000+.

What would you guys recommend? Cost-wise, it would obviously be cheaper to stay with my current mobo and upgrade to the XP 3000+. I'm not a big gamer... mostly play games on the consoles, and my 2400+ handles Knights of the Old Republic and Sims 2 fine.

However, 64-bit processing is the future, so I'm unsure which direction to go.

Also... I'm looking to get a video card as well. From my research, nVidia cards tend to work better with Linux, so I will probably go that route, perhaps a Geforce FX5500. Again, I don't need the latest gaming device, just want to upgrade a bit.

Any comments would be appreciated.

BTW... I am dual booting with Windows XP, and do not have XP 64-bit Edition, if this would make any difference as to the options I should choose.

Phil

[logan2004]

i have two systems right now:

one of them is a athlon xp 2500+ with 1gb of ram, and a 6800gt, nforce2

the other one is sitting in my closet right now, it's a athlon 64 3400+ nforce3. i don't use it because i gave up after sound, networking didnt work after install and had no need to reinstall windows with my 2500 working fine,

if i were you i would stick with the socket A platform until better hardware support for the athlon64 boards is available.

you woluld greatly benefit off a 2500+, 2800+, 3000+, or 3200+ athlon xp barton because of the extra L2 cache. you should notice a great difference especially in multitasking even if you just got a 2500+. these bartons are also easily overclockable as you should have no problem getting atleast 2800+ speeds if you buy a 2500+(just make sure you have ddr400 so you can up the FSB)

i wouldnt bother getting an ati card if you plan on sticking with linux because the driver support from ati is less than exceptional. if you're not into and gaming you don't need much at all as far as a video card goes, you may be able to stick with the one you have.

i've had no experience with the fx5500's, nor have i heard any bad news about them. i would definetly upgrade the CPU though, how much memory do you have??

[poofyhairguy]

Don't get the 5500. Good reviews will tel you that it is not that much better (like 4-12% at most) than the 5200.

Now for a non-gamer, the 5200 is great. For a medium gamer get a 5700.

[darthsabbath]

Well, I really want to get rid of my current ATI card, as it's essentially a no-name Radeon 9200, and I've had driver issues with it in both Windows and Linux, so that's why I'm looking to upgrade my video card. I did notice, however, that the 5700 wasn't much more than the 5500.

I did check on New Egg for the lower end Barton cores, and saw that I can get those for between ~$80 - $120. I think that would definitely be the best option.

Any other opinions? :D

Phil

[Wardhog]

I have a 3000+ running on a VIA chipset board, it used to be nforce2 until it went 'poof'. I can do pretty much anything I want with it, any bottlenecks I encounter are most definitely not CPU.

AMD XP 3000+ (stock speed) + 512MB RAM = good Ubuntu experience.

I'm going to stick with it for a while yet until 64 bit AMD chips stop having the horror stories associated with them.