New Mobo

[ilw]

u'll pay a premium for a motherboard that has the latest chipset and your chip won't use much of the chipsets potential

[bigdawgfoxx]

ok ill just get the celeron at 2.4 and the DFI mobo and not worry bout it i guess

[Livy]

if u get partition magic you will be able to slipt your drive into 2 partitions, and put all your data on the second and you can format the 1st drive. and everything will stil be there. watch hough as win9x boot disks dont recoqnise ntfs partions if u have xp

[bigdawgfoxx]

I dont want two partitions really...can i partition it as 2 drives then reinstall windows on one of them...then make it one partition again with all my stuff? or will i have to keep it in 2 partitions..? are there any other advantages to 2 partitions?

[lynx]

Keep stuff that doesn't change much on 1 partition, use the other for data that changes a lot.

Makes defragmenting a lot easier, you are also less likely to fill your system partition (which is a BAD thing to do).

[Livy]

the good thing baout the 2 partitions is that if u ever hae to reinstall again then u will still have everything, or if windows fucks up, you can still get to your data, ive got it like that on my laptop. and my other pc i have 2 drive, ones just a 4gig which is for windows and system, and 80gig for data etc.

[bigdawgfoxx]

Ok so would i JUST keep windows on one partition? or like program files also??

[ilw]

The way i set up mine is to put program files on the same as windows, because if u wipe windows u'll have to reinstall those programs anyway so they might as well be deleted with windows.
Its works well as long as u keep all the installers for all the programs u download on the other drive (the non system one).

[_John_Lennon_]

Also a word of advice from personal experience.

I dont know if you built the computer you are currently using yourself, but if you did indeed by it OEM, like from DELL, HP, Compaq etc, I would take note of my expereince.

Anyway, i had an HP, with a 1.3 Celeron, socket 370 I believe, and I wanted to upgrade to something faster. Well, the fastest chip for the socket 370 motherboard was a celeron 1.7, and that wasnt worth the upgrade for me. So, I bought a new motherboard and 2.2 Celeron (it was only 109 at the time, while as the 2.2 Pentium was 260 dollars, what a deal huh!! ) Anyway, I swapped out mobo's, popped in the new chip, and it booted, but it wouldnt boot to windows!! After several calls to tech support one of the techs informed me that if you do indeed change too much with your computer, *installing more ram is okay, adding a ethernet card is fine, even a new video card as well* But if you do things like swapping out mobo's, for new processors, there is a very good chance that you will have changed too much, and you wont be able to boot from that OS install with your new setup.

But you probably wont run into that problem if you built your current computer, as I did mind and it worked out fine when i reinstalled.


-----------------------------

Now, onto the upgrade your making, a few things, seeing as how i was just recently shopping around, purcahsed a new mobo, processor, case, err, some LED's new HD, and a new CD Burner, anyway.

1. The power of the 2.4 celerons (or all celerons for that matter). - Now, first of all, I believe i can be a voice of experience here, seeing as how i am using a 2.2 celly right now anyway. The Celerons, are the economical line, they put up the big numbers, while sacfaricing elsewhere. My 2.2 celly (and I think your 2.4 that you are looking at, Both have a 128K L2 cache. As opposed to the P4's, Which have a 512K if im not mistaken. Now, how do these celerons compare to other chips? Well, i have run some benchmarks against my friend's comps, using PC mark, and 3DMark 2001, with other people with similar specs, except for processor. In several tests, I have found that my 2.2 Celeron is hughly out performed by a 2.2 p4 As expected of course, but I also found that I was out performed by processor's as low in clock speeds as that of a AMD 1700XP+

Now, with that said, im not bashing the 1700XP+ I love it, and its a great value. The celerons however, are good, for well, Pretty much text searching.... lol. Serious, I tested my setup with the 2.2 Celeron against my file/print server that is using a 1700XP+, and the server beat the scores on my celeron on nearly all the tests, except that up Text searching.... (in PcMark 2002).

Next, I ran some price grabber searches and you can get a Celeron 2.4 Ghz chip for about 92 dollars, a P4 2.4 GHz for about 160, and a Althon 2400XP+ For 86 Dollars, and the 2400XP has a 256K L2 Cache. Now, if you dont already know about Athlon, the 2400 is a rating, that they have tested it and its speed is comparable to intel processors at 2400Mhz.

With that said, Here are the scenarios I see you going with, and what I would suggest.

1. You get the Celeron 2.4 Ghz. 92 Bucks. IF YOU DO, The only way to make this investment worthwhile is to overclock it. If you dont know about overclocking, I can go into that more.

* 2. Buy A 2400XP for 86 Bucks, and an AMD motherboard, of course. The 2400XP will BLOW AWAY, the Celeron 2.4 Ghz chip, for less than the Celeron, unless you heavily overclock the celeron, to around the 3Ghz+ area, where that much speed makes up for the smaller Cache.

3. (My Suggestion) (and what I did) Buy a 2500XP+ . the 2500 and above chips from AMD are on the Barton core. A different, newer, and better core. Now, the main difference with the 2500 Bucks (91 bucks, with fan and heatsink, as all of these are.) is that with this new core, the chips can acheive better performace, at lower clock speeds. The 2400XP+ on the old core comes in at 2Ghz, while the 2500 comes in at 1.83 I believe. Now, once you get the 2500, and a good overclocking motherboard, u can overclock the 2500 to speeds of up to 2.2Ghz. (Some people have went up to 2.5Ghz, but you would probably need better cooling, and a really good board) At 2.2Ghz, it is rated and will even register as an AMD 3200XP+ which means it would be comparable to the Interl P4 3.2Ghz, on many tests. (dont debate with me on this guys, I know about the variants)


Well yeah, so, if you want, just tell us your price limit, and we can help u, I cant stand to see people get ripped off on celerons anymore, and im dumping this one off on someone soon.

EDIT: I know some of these things have been stated already, and one more thing to address.

You claim that you have a motherboard and a 2.4 Cleron for about 90 bucks, well, I am pretty sure that the motherboard that is in that package, DOES NOT HAVE OVERCLOCKING CAPABILITIES.

I made the exact same mistake, I bought a cheap Shuttle mobo, and the 2.2Cleron, wanting to overclock it, and when i tried to, turns out ALL the sets, (Multipler, power setts, and FSB, were all locked in my Bios.)

Which means, you get what you pay for, and to get overclocking capabilites, and good ones, u gotta shell out the few bucks for a higher up motherboard.





Also, could u give us link to the motherboard? I would like to check it out.

[bigdawgfoxx]

Link To Mobo Hey theres the link...thanx for all the help...i WAS wanting to over clock it to around 2.8 or 3 ish.....but if that mobo doesnt support it then forget that..i dont really want an AMD though...im just into intel...and AMD is like last resort for me..even if it does outperform my price range is probally about 120ish Link to AMD mobo.. im thinking this would be the best AMD deal...but i dont like amd that much lol...and i need the SDRAM slots..