What would you pay?
What would you pay?
Money is tight so we've decided to buy a 2nd hand PC to replace this aging p3 733 system that we use for the internet because it's often pretty damn slow. What would you say is sensible to pay for a refurbished P4 2.0gHz system with Intel 845G chipset, 256mB ram (upgradable to 1gig) & a 60gig HD with XP pro SP2 installed?
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netguyjoel
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Re: What would you pay?
I found a refurbished HP evo at a local reseller housing a P4 2.4, 1GB RAM, CDROM/Sound/LAN onboard and a XP Pro COA sticker for 79,-
refurbisched means as a private customer you get 1 year warranty for it (here).
if you can spend some bucks more, look for a HP XW4300. they go around 250,- here (with 3.8GHz, 4GB RAM, NV Quadro PCIe GFX et al...).
-greetings, markus-
refurbisched means as a private customer you get 1 year warranty for it (here).
if you can spend some bucks more, look for a HP XW4300. they go around 250,- here (with 3.8GHz, 4GB RAM, NV Quadro PCIe GFX et al...).
-greetings, markus-
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I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Re: What would you pay?
I would do what you can to get something newer than a P4. The amount of wasted power compared to newer chipsets is ridiculous. Also if you have a decent case that will fit m-atx I would actually suggest getting an AMD 780G based motherboard (or NVidia's counterparts but I find the AMD platform cheaper on the low end with still acceptable performance.) The main issue for me when purchasing low end components is choosing a vendor with decent customer service. A company that focuses on this will not only be easier to deal with if a part fails, but will pay more attention to bug reports and so rev2 & rev3 or higher boards will fare much better than other cheap vendors. Also it's nice to have a few bios updates once a platform is past its initial sales peak...
Anyway the AMD 780G has onboard 3300/3400 ati graphics (last gen entry level but good enough for web/video/movies and full Vista/Win7 Aero) and everything else you'll need but cpu/ram/hd. In fact I spent $75 on the one in my wife's pc, and the cpu is a 2.1ghz dual core athlon xp with 45w thermal envelope, cost $20 (its entry level but it runs COOL). She was using a 733mhz p3 as well so her case was actually too old, but I found an Antec case with 500w 80% efficient PSU for $100 on sale. Then I saw a 500GB WD Caviar 'green' HD on sale for $50 and grabbed a $19 samsung dvd-burner while I was at it. $38 for 2 sticks of ddr2-800 and total cost for her new pc was $302, all new parts. I did everything from places that were running specials that included free shipping, or via amazon.com (where my prime membership gives 2nd day air for free).
Of course this is WELL BEYOND what you seem to be looking to spend, but consider that I spent this money over the course of about 4 months by keeping an eye on specials online (there's nothing worthwhile locally where I live) and had I really wanted to I could have made use of my existing case, the ancient tiny&slow harddrive and optical drive and been up & running sooner. In the long run it's still best to avoid using the old HD imo.
In any case, with some patience I built a machine that she can actually play modern games on (albeit with everything turned WAY down) and now when she's on a social networking site that feels like running 8 flash ads at once her machine doesn't even blink. The old p3 was having issues running 2 flash windows at once and would frequently require that she kill the FireFox process and just avoid whatever page she had visited on reload.
I did also recently add an ATI 4770, which JUST came out here in the US. It's ATI's first 40nm card, and is considered entry level and priced at $110-120 (I got this one for $109 with $10 instant rebate--$99 total). It's a strong enough card that she can now play Left4Dead with me with every setting cranked up to max & 4xAA, anisotropic filtering was oddly the only thing that gave a performance hit (so she's set to Trilinear). At 1680x1050 she's getting 60-70fps in a machine that has now cost roughly $400 total. I find that amazing for some reason, and even odder out of the 5 pc's I have here (2 of which are Xeon machines) it's the one I am most proud of. Oh, did I mention before adding the 4770 it pulled 70w from the outlet under normal use? 40w in 'sleep' and 10w in hibernation...the p3 pulled a constant 85w (with 2 20GB hd's) and could not sleep or hibernate.
Sorry this was long winded, but it's amazing how even entry level parts perform these days.
Anyway the AMD 780G has onboard 3300/3400 ati graphics (last gen entry level but good enough for web/video/movies and full Vista/Win7 Aero) and everything else you'll need but cpu/ram/hd. In fact I spent $75 on the one in my wife's pc, and the cpu is a 2.1ghz dual core athlon xp with 45w thermal envelope, cost $20 (its entry level but it runs COOL). She was using a 733mhz p3 as well so her case was actually too old, but I found an Antec case with 500w 80% efficient PSU for $100 on sale. Then I saw a 500GB WD Caviar 'green' HD on sale for $50 and grabbed a $19 samsung dvd-burner while I was at it. $38 for 2 sticks of ddr2-800 and total cost for her new pc was $302, all new parts. I did everything from places that were running specials that included free shipping, or via amazon.com (where my prime membership gives 2nd day air for free).
Of course this is WELL BEYOND what you seem to be looking to spend, but consider that I spent this money over the course of about 4 months by keeping an eye on specials online (there's nothing worthwhile locally where I live) and had I really wanted to I could have made use of my existing case, the ancient tiny&slow harddrive and optical drive and been up & running sooner. In the long run it's still best to avoid using the old HD imo.
In any case, with some patience I built a machine that she can actually play modern games on (albeit with everything turned WAY down) and now when she's on a social networking site that feels like running 8 flash ads at once her machine doesn't even blink. The old p3 was having issues running 2 flash windows at once and would frequently require that she kill the FireFox process and just avoid whatever page she had visited on reload.
I did also recently add an ATI 4770, which JUST came out here in the US. It's ATI's first 40nm card, and is considered entry level and priced at $110-120 (I got this one for $109 with $10 instant rebate--$99 total). It's a strong enough card that she can now play Left4Dead with me with every setting cranked up to max & 4xAA, anisotropic filtering was oddly the only thing that gave a performance hit (so she's set to Trilinear). At 1680x1050 she's getting 60-70fps in a machine that has now cost roughly $400 total. I find that amazing for some reason, and even odder out of the 5 pc's I have here (2 of which are Xeon machines) it's the one I am most proud of. Oh, did I mention before adding the 4770 it pulled 70w from the outlet under normal use? 40w in 'sleep' and 10w in hibernation...the p3 pulled a constant 85w (with 2 20GB hd's) and could not sleep or hibernate.
Sorry this was long winded, but it's amazing how even entry level parts perform these days.
Re: What would you pay?
Thanks for the replies folks. Deep down I know that it's always perceived as best to try to stretch to the most you can afford to spend, but sharc & I (like most people here) have spent quite a lot of time & cash on computers over the years & it's always a dilemma as to whether to upgrade, build new etc etc & the main factor atm is that we're somewhat skint. We've got an Athlon XP system in the studio, that needs a PSU, gfx card, CPU fan & a CDRW, but it's in a rather crappy (el cheapo) tower case, so the total cost of getting it up & running well in a better case was going to be more than the cost of getting a decent P4 machine that's been refurbished. Well, we took the plunge on a refurb Dell Optiplex G260 tower version. I know it's not a rocket ship, but these models of Dell came in really good quality cases from what I gather & it's not the basic model either. The basic model originally came with 128mB & only a 20gig HD, but this has 256mB & 60gig, so all we'll need is a 512mB non-ECC PC3200 dimm which are cheap as chips. We got the machine for $40, so I think we've done quite well. At least it's going to be a lot faster than the P3 733. 
Cheers guys!
Cheers guys!
Re: What would you pay?
what more do you really need to check emails and wikipedia? 
Re: What would you pay?
I think it's gonna be able to handle more than that. Anyway laugh away, but I reckon it was $40 quite wisely spent & we'll upgrade to newer technology when we can afford to. 
Re: What would you pay?
as i said, more than sufficient for the job...
Re: What would you pay?
I'm positive of that much Gary. I think this old P3 733 system is over 10 years old & when sharc first built it, it was running a sequencer, Sonic Foundry SF & Adobe PS without any issues. That was on 98 mind you & it's not as nice running XP, so we'll maybe need to look at getting a streamlined OS running on this P4 system when it arrives. Might even keep the damn thing off the net & put it through it's paces running some CPU intensive software just to see what it's capable of. 
Re: What would you pay?
Well you can't beat $40 that's for sure.
But I'm still impressed with the power draw I'm getting with that new box I built for my wife. I've been on a mission the last 2+ years to cut the power usage in my studio and I think I've been able to do it by about 40%.
Of course spending more than I save up front doesn't necessary save on money or pollution, but overall I generate far less heat/use less AC (which bugs my ears since it's a window unit not central AC) and there's less fan/computer noise than I've had in here in years. Getting rid of all CRT's replaced the crt 'whine' with a subtle 'buzz' from the CFL tubes in the lcd's, so there's still room for improvement (bring on the 120hz led panels!)
But I'm still impressed with the power draw I'm getting with that new box I built for my wife. I've been on a mission the last 2+ years to cut the power usage in my studio and I think I've been able to do it by about 40%.
Of course spending more than I save up front doesn't necessary save on money or pollution, but overall I generate far less heat/use less AC (which bugs my ears since it's a window unit not central AC) and there's less fan/computer noise than I've had in here in years. Getting rid of all CRT's replaced the crt 'whine' with a subtle 'buzz' from the CFL tubes in the lcd's, so there's still room for improvement (bring on the 120hz led panels!)
Re: What would you pay?
if you need more RAM let me know i have a whole drawer full of RAM i rescued from various machines that got tossed at work and so on.
maybe a CPU upgrade as well depending on what your motherboard can take, i have them to..free of course
maybe a CPU upgrade as well depending on what your motherboard can take, i have them to..free of course
Re: What would you pay?
I couldn't refuse an offer like that Neutron.
Just checked the official tech spec the memory I need is 266 MHz non-ECC DDR. (2 x 512 MB or 2 x 1 GB)
A CPU upgrade would need a socket 478 P4 2.2–2.6 GHz processor & it might only be worth paying you to post from canada if you had one of those CPUs as well as some memory because I can probably get a couple of 512's pretty cheap anyway.
Just checked the official tech spec the memory I need is 266 MHz non-ECC DDR. (2 x 512 MB or 2 x 1 GB)
A CPU upgrade would need a socket 478 P4 2.2–2.6 GHz processor & it might only be worth paying you to post from canada if you had one of those CPUs as well as some memory because I can probably get a couple of 512's pretty cheap anyway.
Re: What would you pay?
well there are different flavors of p4 as well, I think i have one more of the famous "2.4 northwood" which was a popular overclocker.
anyways ill check RAM and CPUs tonight.
you can put higher speed DDR2 in there as well, in most cases. it will run fine, just not at the higher speed (especially in a dell, you cant overclock them at all)
anyways ill check RAM and CPUs tonight.
you can put higher speed DDR2 in there as well, in most cases. it will run fine, just not at the higher speed (especially in a dell, you cant overclock them at all)
Re: What would you pay?
Wipeout. 
I'm not clued up about P4 systems at all because apart from this old P3 we've always had AMD.
Here's a link to the official tech specs of the system we picked up in case it helps - GX260 specs
I'm not clued up about P4 systems at all because apart from this old P3 we've always had AMD.
Here's a link to the official tech specs of the system we picked up in case it helps - GX260 specs
Re: What would you pay?
unfortunately i doubt thats not going to work with the "c" northwood CPU, It looks like that machine will only work with the first 2 generation of p4
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Re: What would you pay?
http://www.hardforum.com/archive/index. ... 20255.html
apparently the best choice is a 3.4ghz Northwood, but if that is a "C" i don't know, i was all AMD those days
apparently the best choice is a 3.4ghz Northwood, but if that is a "C" i don't know, i was all AMD those days
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Re: What would you pay?
Thanks, I just read the thread you linked to. So, it looks like any socket 478 p4 @ 533 FSB up to the 3.06 will be ok. They were saying the 3.4 Northwood is 800 FSB so wouldn't work. I'm guessing then that Dell's specs simply reflect that a 2.6 was the biggest available @ 533 when they wrote the GX260 system specs.
Re: What would you pay?
it is possible that a dell bios update will fix that compatibility, problem is dell bios update never seem to have a changelog
you just install it when recommended
you just install it when recommended
Re: What would you pay?
Well, I'm working with dell computers for many years, PCs, rack servers, notebooks, you name it. It was always worth to upgrade the bios, never had any complaints, but also most of the time I didn't recognize any differences in behaviour at all, apart from new features...
Re: What would you pay?
Just wanted to give you some 'first impression' feedback on this Dell GX260 tower system that arrived last week.
Well, it arrived & my first thought was - 'nice!!'. Got it hooked up with all the necessities (keyboard, mouse & monitor), then switched it on & the next impression was - 'that booted up fast', then - 'shit, that thing's really quiet'. I can't emphasize how nice a machine this is for the cheap prices they're selling for on ebay. Tbh it definitely needs some more ram, but it really performs incredibly well considering it's mere 256Mb of ram currently installed. I'll keep this short & just say that I'd be lucky to get a couple of the components for what I paid for the full system, so it seems like a bargain. It's now the quietest computer in our studio & actually one of the quietest I've heard, ranking in that department alongside PCs specifically designed/built for pro audio use.
Well, it arrived & my first thought was - 'nice!!'. Got it hooked up with all the necessities (keyboard, mouse & monitor), then switched it on & the next impression was - 'that booted up fast', then - 'shit, that thing's really quiet'. I can't emphasize how nice a machine this is for the cheap prices they're selling for on ebay. Tbh it definitely needs some more ram, but it really performs incredibly well considering it's mere 256Mb of ram currently installed. I'll keep this short & just say that I'd be lucky to get a couple of the components for what I paid for the full system, so it seems like a bargain. It's now the quietest computer in our studio & actually one of the quietest I've heard, ranking in that department alongside PCs specifically designed/built for pro audio use.