[Iron Monkey]

I've been poking around/considering replacing my extremely reliable but getting old Dell XPS Gen 3 for about a year now. Mainly business, wife plays WoW on it (so yeah, I'll have to add a halfway decent vid card).

Of major concern is the almost consistent, across all brands, sub-$100 motherboards/systemboards with a horrific failure/DOA rate, usually within the first year. I've old AMD/Intel systems that are over 7 years old that I've built that still chug along just fine (keep around for older games).

Anyone had any experience with a sub-$100 motherboard/systemboard in the last year?

[WIDOWMAKER99]

last cheap board i used was for a hyper threaded system (not dual core)
my nephew bought it .. he just picked up a P4 3.8 ghz cpu for it for around 80 bucks
here is the board he used

http://hypermicro.co...L-RETAIL&key=it

it's only $28 been running for over a year (tho not with a 3.8 in it ..he currently has a 2.8 ghz cpu in it i think its a 521 )


specs as to cpu and bios version you would need to run a 3.8 ghz cpu

http://www.intel.com...b/CS-026948.htm


here is the board i'm running with a p4 650 3.4 /2 meg cache cpu

http://www.foxconnch...ID=en-us0000086

again we did have one fail out of the 3 i bought ,thats why my nephew has that intel board .. but hell i'd rather have his intel board .. it 'll take a 3.8ghz cpu!

[WIDOWMAKER99]

my bro have ya considered bumping that cpu up

i can find you a 3.4 or even a 3.6 ghz cpu for that dell ya got
pretty cheap too

try starmicro ..if your system can handle a 560 i bet a p4 650 would drop right in (tho buy a better cpu cooler)

http://www.starmicro...ail.aspx?ID=599

only $40 for the cpu !you can even call and specify stepping or SL #

i been running that same cpu since last spring .. the 2 meg cache helps and yea i can play just about anything on this old rig

[WIDOWMAKER99]

and if your gonna do it i totally recommend this for a cooler

first off case ..\\

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811133074

then a good cooler

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835154001

best damned cpu cooler i have ever seen !

[Iron Monkey]

Thanks Wid!

I'm running a similar board in the XPS, with the 3.4Ghz Hyperthreading CPU. I was looking for a bit of extra kick (Dual Core or Phenom 1), as wife plays WoW on it in the evenings. The current system can handle it, except it Lagaran (Dalarn)...WoWcrafters know what a lag-monster that location can be. Plus I'd like to get Windows 7 on it...after running it for the last two months, it's really hard to step back to XP, I hate to say.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

again if ya wanna run a dual /quad core cpu

buy an intel board that's matched to the cpu

memory yes go ddr 2 its cheaper (why? .. slower ram timings ) and you cant find corsair XMS ddr 400 anymore for less than 80 bucks for a gig ..why?

thus less efficient ...find me ddr 2 or 3 that runs at 2.0 .3.3 6 (that's why It's more expensive to stick to ddr mem )

and yes you can find boards on neweeg to meet your situation

i have not seen any improvement on cpu performance on going to dual or quad core ..but i run XP

and even ran windows 7 on a 2.8 ghz north-wood- sony (asus ) motherboard that was still useing AGP 8 X with 1.5 gig of p-c 2700 ddr ram ..and it ran nice .. but not for games

ya wanna play new games? buy an X box ..

bottom line find an Intel board and cpu that matches up

like i said my 3.4 works

i hate to see what my nephews 3.8 will be like .. and the cpu was only $80

hell i spent what ? $900 for a extreme edition CPU 3 years ago because it ran at 3.4 GHZ ?

still have it ...any one wanna buy it ?

(and yes its a prescott 3.4/ 1 meg cache cpu socket 478)

and notice most of the new cpu's dont even run at that high of a clock speed ?

but ya can now find a 3.8 ghz cpu for under $100? (socket 775)

threads.... cores ..whatever .....it's all marketing

unless your watching a dvd why you play a game and compile a map and have face book and my space open in your browser why at the same time you have office open to track an exel web sheet that your boss needs tomorrow and then anyhow ..HOW THE FUCK WILL YOU DO THAT AS YOU HAVE THUS OPENED YES A PORN SITE ..OR YOUR KID DID (SINCE YOU WALKED AWAY FOR A SEC)
and at the same time have your window opened to here to see what i said and your e mail is open ..all 6 different accounts

how often do you have that scenario happen ?

if that happened you do need the new I7 cpu ?

and need a $5000 system upgrade ..doubt you will ever need it

upgrade that vid card bro i'm rocking a nvidia 9800 gt ..never been happier

[Iron Monkey]

Heh...you've not played WoW Wid....it's gotten more demanding on CPU/GPU cycles with every update

A year ago the machine I'm right now was dazzling...never dropped below 60fps. Now? I'm lucky if I get 60fps anywhere.

Any other game? Oh sure...ye olde XPS still rocks except on the more modern stuff (CoD:WaW comes to mind).

I can tell you there is a definitive difference between a P4-3.4/2Gb Corsair XMS DDR2-5300/32Gb SATA-1 and a modern Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz Dual Core/2Gb DDR3-800/80Gb SATA-3.

The XPS is running a PCIe-16 X800XT

The Optiplex 760 (the other machine) is a micro-ATX, using onboard Intel X4500.

Night and day, both machines, same location. Side-by-side, same location....the X4500 is a bit choppy (it is onboard vid), but the texure and 3D rendering drastically different.

XPS fps: 16
OptiPlex 760: 45

Standing still, in Dalaran.

I used to believe the same Wid, but seeing them side-by-side, it's drastically different.

It's the game, mainly. The original install came on 4CDs, 1 DVD. Now? The total installation is over 14Gb, pared-down by removing update files (full, 'vanilla' install, with updates still in place, is around 25Gb).

Bloatware.

I almost forgot...both machines are running XP 32-bit, SP3, same installation CD, same update source.

A $5k machine? Oh hell no! I barely want to spend $300 for everything! I'm trying to find a sub-$50 mobo that can do the trick...AM2+ CPU (probably an Athlon II), DDR2 memory (DDR3 is around the same price, depending on the spec). The problem I continually read in the sub-$50 'market' is DOA/dies within 6 months. Something's changed in the market...I used to buy cheap $30 ECS mobos for people who needed home computers...some are still running today!

[WIDOWMAKER99]

well i'll keep my eyes peeled for a mobo for ya ..did ya check the usual sites ?

geeks.com .. only usually has shitty biostar boards cheap ..but i've used them


try that hypermicro site tho as they did have some Intel boards pretty cheap ..not just the one i posted

(acually quite a few for under $100 and they had a pci X16 slot and newer chipset and ddr 2 support WHEN I LAST LOOKED )

but i always buy Intel boards if i can... or asus or foxconn (AND YES I KNOW INTEL BOARDS SUCK FOR OVERCLOCKING ..but not foxconn's ?)

note foxconn makes all the boards for asus Intel and also Dell so they are pretty reliable most of the time .. i did get a dead one out of 3 last year tho ..
but i may have cracked that board trying to install my nephews cheap ass $10 cpu cooler

damned kid would not listen when i said pay at least $50 and get a kick ass cpu cooler ..he now has to run it with a case side off and a fan blowing inside ..why you ask ?....well the dumb kid also stuck his finger in the running 230 mm top fan in his case and snapped off a blade ..another thing i have to replace this weekend ..already replaced his side fan .. why you ask ? ..well the dumb ass kid got his fingers in that one too!(you'd think a 26 year old would know better then a 6 year old !)

and for all i know he probably busted the 120 mm case fans as well LOL

as to cpu's and WOW .. i would not know ..your right i never got into wow crak ..err i mean war craft

christ it 14 gig now !

my nephew is hooked on it and i know he's still only useing a p4 2.8 and 2 gig of XMS ddr ram and a 512 meg AGP card (ati X1650 pro)
i will be upgradeing him this weekend to a 3.8 intel cpu (crosses fingers it goes well )
he did have to buy the same massive ass cooler i'm useing and i really doubt you'd ever fit one like mine in any dell

it's the tuniq tower 120 ...it's fucking huge ! and you have to totally rip out the motherboard to install the braceing for it ,which is gonna suck for me
installing mine was not bad tho as i put it on when i built this rig ..and it does work REALLY REALLY well ..ide temps in the low 30's gaming temps around 45C after about 2 hours and never go higher plus it's pretty damned quiet too

[WIDOWMAKER99]

also monk look into dropping that X800 card ..believe me i own a few of those they were great cards ..but they do lack shader model 4 support

i saw a doubleing of framerates in all my games when i switched up to a newer card

me i chose to go back to nvidia with an asus 9800gt as it was cheap at the time (good card if ya can find it ,huge ass cooler and 256 bit Gddr 3 mem )
but the new 5670's from ati i hear are nice as well and also well priced

never understood why ati sticks with 128 bit ram tho?

and yea i do think your bottle neck may be in fact that vid chip your using

check it here as to totall bandwidth

http://mysite.verizo...chardwarelinks/

tho no i do not think the intel onboard chip is listed i do think that that chipset supported a higher shader model then 2.0b

next question will be how did i use a Pci X16 version 2.0 card on a 1.0 motherboard

the answer i already posted ...

http://www.tomshardw...ets-pci-express,1761-13.html

[Iron Monkey]

Yep yep..'been digging for about 7 months or more. Yep, thanks to you, I've been paying attention to Foxconn...but they must've dropped something in their process, 'cos TONS of DOAs/dead board parts...and people receiving replacements that were DOA. Sounds like DFI to me...'tis why I asked.

Yep, I know the X800XT's a bottleneck, but not for that particular unit It was designed around X800XT...so it purrs, but not in WoW

PLUS...the XPS is also my business machine..mainly e-mail, but I'm working on C## development/database development...and would like to do some VMWare stuff too...so I'll need memory and some fairly decent CPU performance (dual-core at least).

That is the nice thing about WoW...it's the new rule by which to measure machinery by...none of the newer games (from what I've read) are really utilizing the bandwdith. Maybe we've advanced hardware beyond current software capability? Hmmm..

Thanks for the info tho'....I'll look into it.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

well just got done my nephews system .. he's running a 3.8 ghz cpu
with that intel 915 pgn board /win xp pro 2 gig of corsair XMS mem (in dual channel ..he can add an additional 2 gig..that prick )
we let the system run for 4 hours idle temps were around 38 C ..load hit 45 C with that tuniq tower 120 in a thermal take V9 black edition case
he ran around dalran or whatever on WOW and saw an amazing improvement (his words not mine )

but he does have the same vid card i bought last year an nvidia 9800 gt 512 meg 256 bit mem card (pci express 2.0 )..(asus)

his winblows Xp boots faster then mine

and believe me i loved and still love my X800 XL and X800 GTO in my old agp based systems ..but man to see it you have to believe it NVIDIA
bested those cards with the 9800 series ..and renamed em...?

[Iron Monkey]

Wow...maybe I do need to look into this.

The EVGA 9800 was the best of the PCIe-x 16....hmm..thanks Wid!

[WIDOWMAKER99]

not a problem man ..like i said even with that old intel $28 board with XMS ddr 1
and that 3.8ghz cpu for only $80 and a $49 cooler my nephews system kicks some serious ass

think the big bang tho is the CPU ..i mean it's got a 2 meg cache +1000 mghz faster .. his old 2.8 only had a 1 meg cache
still cant believe i found that socket 3.8 /775 cpu for $80

actually thinking of buying one myself now!(since my foxconn does support overclocking ..hell i already had my 3.4 up to 3.7+ during the burn in..dropped it down as i didn't wanna fry the mem running it at that high a speed )

and yea now ya tell me about the evga card .. oh well i like my ASUS 9800 GT ..got a glaciaterator cooler (or some shit like that) on it thats pretty good i guess

oh and newegg now has corsair XMS pc3200 back in stock in dual channel kits again!

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820145273

but it's still $80 for 2 gig

and it's not the 2.5 cas latencey stuff anymore

[WIDOWMAKER99]

oh and update just called my nephew he is hitting 48 C in games

idle is now around 44 c in a very hot room (room around 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit)

WOW he says is faster ,windows load time is faster ,browser load is almost instant

running WOW why running ventrilo as well as browser in backround as well as running AVAST system scan .. he never hit above 50 C

and this all without updateing windows or reinstalling it ..and going from a 2.8 to a 3.8 and that tuniq tower 120 cooler

his game temps used to hit 65C+

[Iron Monkey]

Ironically, I saw someone posting in the DDR3 memory that DDR2 memory is more expensive...but that's the way it always is.hence my looking forward. Usually for the same price (with all the parts) the new stuff can be the same or cheaper than the old stuff, and you get a major performance increase.