Upgrading my computer

**The_Doctor** · 02-13-2005, 16:38

I have decided to buy:

2 if these
http://www.pcwcomponentcentre.co.uk/...mvaluevdt6464q

and 1 of these
http://www.pcwcomponentcentre.co.uk/...at,4,shop,f,fa

The graphic card is out of stock so I will wait a week or two until I buy them.

Can anybody see any problems with these items.

**Clips** · 02-13-2005, 16:55

One thing to make sure you look for on RAM is the power or voltage amounts for example if your pc processor is running at 333Mhz then you need to get PC3600 or something close RAM wise, havent gone through this in ages ^^
Problem is many wh o are new to pcs dont understand to look for certain settings such as FSB (front side bus) speeds and voltages and so many people who are using decent stuff in there pc's arent even running it all at the correct speeds for there components to be worthwhile.

**The_Doctor** · 02-13-2005, 17:02

The is 266Mhz and my motherboard is 266Mhz, but the voltage is 3.3 and my motherboard is 2.5. But fret said

Voltage is largely irrelivant to most users, unless you are going to be seriously overclocking systems.

.

**KukriKhan** · 02-13-2005, 18:16

Originally Posted by Martinus

I have decided to buy:

2 if these
http://www.pcwcomponentcentre.co.uk/...mvaluevdt6464q

and 1 of these
http://www.pcwcomponentcentre.co.uk/...at,4,shop,f,fa

The graphic card is out of stock so I will wait a week or two until I buy them.

Can anybody see any problems with these items.

Those selections seem to match up with your mobo spec's. Looks good to me. Seems you found a good deal on the vid card.

**The_Doctor** · 02-13-2005, 21:11

Seems you found a good deal on the vid card.

I agree. I was going for a 128Mb then I found this, which was cheap, powerful and works on my computer. The cheapness worries we though...

**Red Harvest** · 02-13-2005, 23:43

I am not sure what to make of the "supply voltage: 3.3V." 3.3V is used for SDRAM. DDR DIMM's run 2.5 V and use their own internal voltage regulation from what I've read. You can give them more juice from motherboard jumpers or BIOS settings, but it is only likely to help if your motherboard's signal is poor. So the 3.3V listing has me baffled and appears to be a typo.

They have a DRAM Value PC100 PC133 listed as well with 3.3V...so it looks like they made a bad assumption/forgot to upgrade the fields for DDR.

A FX5200 looks like a downgrade from a GF4 Ti4200, sorry. Check out Toms Hardware Guide VGA CHARTS III

What you really want if you are looking to upgrade is a true DX9 card. The 5200 really can't do the DX9 shaders well--it actually does a poorer job of them than the GF4's (look at the Aquamark comparisions for pure DX9 benchmarking.)

Entry level for a true DX9 card is twice as much, something like the 9600XT (beware of other 9600's some have a stripped down memory bus--never buy an ATI card with "SE" in the name, they are crippled.)

**The_Doctor** · 02-14-2005, 11:17

Thanks for the warning, I will keep looking

**fret** · 02-14-2005, 14:20

I agree the 3.3 Voltage thing is a bit weird.

When I referred to the voltage only being necessary for overclocking, I was referring to the same thing as Red Harvest; where you can force the voltage supplied to the memory modules via the motherboard BIOS (on decent mobo's at least).

This is only used when you are seriously overclocking the memory, in the same way you need to increase CPU voltage, because if you want to run the module ~30%+ faster than its rated speed, the module will require greater voltage otherwise it wont get enough power to operate properly. The side effect of this is of course increased temperature.

**The_Doctor** · 02-14-2005, 14:58

I agree the 3.3 Voltage thing is a bit weird.

I think they puy the wrong info on the website. They have done it with some of the graphics cards. Its say 8x AGP, but on the image of the box it says 4x/8x.

Next question: ATI or nVidia?