FOAK: Computer Hardware

My mobo is getting long in the tooth and has the fastest processor it
will take (Athlon2 3800+) so time to upgrade. My usual plan is to buy a
decent board with an entry-level processor and then upgrade the processor
to the fastest it will take when the price has come right down. So
present thinking is a DDR3 board with 2 meg to start with and an AM3
socket. Will probably go for the cheapest Phenom for the time being
depending on how prices are looking.

My question is about graphics. I use the machine mostly for web-
development, browsing, open-office suite, pod-cast aggregation, email and
news. I am not a gamer but do rip CDs and DVDs (that I own!) for use when
travelling. I don't need bleeding-edge graphics as I'm not a gamer. So
will on-board graphics suffice? The reason I ask is because AIUI more and
more apps are going to use spare GPU cycles. What's the state of play? Do
enough current apps do this to make a separate card worthwhile at this
time? I run a derivative of ubuntu (that I'm not allowed to mention) as
my main OS with occasional boots into XP for music notation and
communicating with some non-linux-friendly periperals (e.g. TomTom).

 

I'd go for an H55 chipset Motherboard, I3 530 CPU, and 4GB of DDR3 -
lower power conmsumption, decent onboard GPU, much better performance
than the dual core phenoms and for not much more cost, and a newer
32nm processor core so less heat.. Should easily suit your needs for
5 yrs or so.

I'd also ingore the whole offloading to GPU area - it's only really a
concern when you've a hefty video card available, which can be added
to anyting with a PCIe X16 slot if the need arises.

 

Something like this?

<http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/MotherboardBundles/Novatech/MBB-
I3554G.html>

Yes, unless it's going to significantly decrease transcoding times
there's no point.

 

Yeah that sort of thing, but I prefer to choose specific kit over non
specific bundles - that link looks like the mobo only has 2 DIMM
slots on board for example. I like the reliability of Asus
Motherboards so this would be my mobo of choice

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...E-20-(x16)-DDR3-2133(OC)-SATA-3GB-s-mATX-HDCP

Or you could save a few quid with this one... again good kit.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...(x16)-DDR3-1600-1800-2133-SATA-3Gb-s-VGA-uATX

 

I've just popped a black edition Phenom II 965 into Horse's AM2+
motherboard and that's fairly brisk. I got it pre-loved from a chappie
at work that was upgrading to something even brisker.

 

%28x16%29-DDR3-2133%28OC%29-SATA-3GB-s-mATX-HDCP

Yes my last two mobos have been Asus so I'll stick with what I know.
Thanks for the heads-up, but **** me Scan want £70+vat to ship to Jersey
and charge vat on the goods, too.

Fortunately Amazon stocks it, vat-free and free delivery.

 

Hope you mean 2 gig there...
2 meg wouldn't even load a doctument into a wordprocessor these days...
Wouldn't even fit the word processor in fact.

 

Oops, so I do. My first microcomputer came with 16 kilobytes and my brain
hasn't caught up!

 

My old one any good? Main IDE broken (secondary for optical fine, has
sata (2 IIRC for RAID O or 1), firewire, 2 LAN 4 external 1 internal USB
comes with 2Gb DDR Athlon 3800+. AGP 8X. Was the dogs bollocks for AMD
when bought. Intending to keep the AGP card (nVidia GT6600 IIRC) to
upgrade my mum's machine but could be persuaded to part.

 

Oh, could you drop me an email then? BTW, is the MoBo a micro-ATX?

The AGP card, I'm not fussed about, as I bought a half size one recently
to fit into my media PC.

 

That pretty much mirrors my own situation and I've been looking at the
same sort of upgrade with exactly that in mind. It's exactly what I did
the last time and it paid off quite well, not having to swap out every
year or two.
Mind you, I've just re-installed a clean Acronis backup from 2007 and
**** me, the machine flies along with no shit bogging it down. It'll do
for a few months yet.

 

ZX Spectrum perchance?
Me too

 

Pikey git. I had the luxurious 48k version.

 

Exidy Sorcerer. An extra 32K came in a box the size of a small suitcase
which had room for expansion boards for luxuries such as a real-time
clock.

<http://oldcomputers.net/sorcerer.html>

the S100 expansion box is shown down the page a little!

we also added twin 5.25inch floppy disks so I could program in MBASIC
rather than use the 8-track ROM.

 

I use an ubuntu-derived OS so no registry to slow it down. My performance
issues are with transcoding and (and it's my own fault because I use a
lot of compiz bells and whistles) screen re-drawing. For most of what I
do, as you say, it flies along.

 

So did I, after my 16k broke and the price had dropped.

 

ingenue.

My first couple of computers came with 1k (ZX81) and 6+6K (Acorn Atom)
respectively.

Sure, I had a Spectrum 48k, but that was *much* later.

 

YHM

 

I've got one of them! I added the expansion box ($400) and
a 32K RAM board (added a switch so I could use just 24K if I was using
a ROMPAC or the full memory otherwise; IIRC I had a word-processor and
an assembler ROM image on disk to load into RAM). A Micropolis dual
315K floppy drive cost me $2000 tax-free (for export to Antarctica!).
Ran CP/M, CBASIC, etc... It's sitting in boxes in my front porch in
Byron Bay.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

We didn't have any of those 8-track ROM thingies. Instead CP/M and MBASIC
lived on one floppy while the program lived on the other. Once loaded
into RAM the basic interpretor disk could be removed and replaced with a
random-access data disk to store results. The machine was controlling an
experiment via the S100 bus. ISTR that the disk drive was higher-than-
normal capacity only Verbatim high data-density disks would work. Just
wikied it: 720Kb.