Being a rookie to the PC scene I know sweet F.A about most of it`s software, even less about Windows, so most of the time as far as software is concerned I am working in the dark as they say.
And after finally deciding quite a few weeks ago to go over to the PC in favor of my old trusty upgraded Amiga 1200 and upon seeing what the PC can do and it`s graphics, sound etc capabilities I am very glad that I did finally get converted. It wasn`t very painful, a plug in this orifice, a junction block up there, a jack plug up there, swap that wire over with that one & (ouch, that tingled a bit) but there you go, sorted….
Anyway, I started my new PC life with a pretty mediocre Celeron 677Mhz CPU and god know`s what make of motherboard, plus 128Mb SDRAM, but like I`ve always heard about the PC, when I was over on the miggy, that you need to upgrade a fair bit every so often to keep a fraction in line with the ever-growing PC expansion market, so obviously my next major task when money allowed it was a major upgrade.
So, which firm do I use? Buying Micro Mart and being presented with oodles of firms all supposedly offering better deals than anyone else I was in part turmoil who to deal with.
I knew that for such a major upgrade as I was planning for, I was looking at spending around £300, so like most of us I still wanted a pretty good fast and powerful system but as cheap as I could get hold of the parts for, so I decided to shop between two firms here in Rugby, that way I would automatically save 100% of postage & packing charges, so Stak Trading and Star Computer both in Rugby were who I was going to deal with.
So, on the web I go, Stak`s site was my first port of call, made a few notes of the hardware that I wanted, then over to Star`s site and a few notes of prices of the same items, and working it all out I was going to save about £40 by dealing with the two firms…
Ok, so working out what new hardware I wanted was pretty bloody easy, but what processor and motherboard do I go for? God, now that was the hardest part. When on the miggy A1200 you had a choice of about 4 different revisions of motherboard of which about 1 maybe two working perfect with most other hardware, do I go for an Intel Celeron Processor, or an AMD? Do I go mad and just from my now 677Mhz CPU and up to one well over 1Ghz? Well, obviously yes, or else it wouldn`t be worth upgrading to one just above, would it.
So instead of just in for the kill and upgrading I wanted a bit of info from other PC users about hardware, especially users who had got either Celeron or AMD processors in the systems, so after either emailing contacts or phoning them, for every 3 that said “AMD? huh, nah, wouldn`t touch em` with a barge pole, they run too bloody hot", 3 or 4 others said “Celeron? crap processors, too slow, AMD are the business", so shit I thought, which road do I take?…
Ball Hooks (think about it)….I thought, I`ll go the way I want, and if things go wrong either way then buy replacements and go the other way, an expensive way of finding out which processors are best, but trial and error is the only route.
So in the end I decided to go AMD and big, well, bigish, an AMD 1800XP running at just a tad over 1.5Ghz sounded good to me, coupled with a good quality motherboard which would allow me to upgrade with another powerful processor in the near future if need be, would give me good scope for the foreseeable future hopefully…
Now, these two firms in Rugby, Stak Trading and Star Computers were about 4 miles apart, and £ for £ Stak was slightly the cheaper, but I couldn`t get all of what I wanted from them because new & more powerful upgrades had already come in and pushed the lower ended ones to the back of the queue, but Star had all that I wanted, plus I also wanted to buy a spindle of 100 CDR`s and they were about £5 cheaper at Star, so it`s was them who I gave my business to.
So, with the help of a m8 taking me in his car to Star I went in, had a nice word with one of the blokes that I was doing a “CASH” sale, and would there be any chance of some discount? “We`ll see” he said, “It all depends on how much your willing to spend”, “about £300-£350” I replied, “great, I`ll sort you out sir”…
So the order of the day was an AMD Athlon 1800XP CPU, a Jetway V266B motherboard which Star had already fitted the CPU to and pre-configured the m.board.
A new Seagate 40Gb 7200RPM hard drive, but they had sold out of them, so the same size and speed but an IBM one, ok I suppose, but I was really after a Seagate, nice drives, I always use these in most of my past miggy`s.
So because the new m.board used either/both SDRAM and the new DDR RAM I opted for 256Mb of the faster DDR RAM, a new Creative SB Live 5.1 soundcard, an Intel 56k V90 fax/modem, and a mic/headphones combined plus the 100 CDR`s for £20, all in all that came to just over £340, but for cash they let me have it all for £315, which wasn`t a bad saving, over £25 really.
And with all the so-called stories about AMD Athlon`s running hot and eventually burning out the motherboard I have found out so far that my CPU is running bloody cool, hardly any heat at all, having said that, the fan is a big powerful one, maybe, as time goes on the m.board will get burnt out by the CPU, there again, it might not, only time will tell…
Whichever way it all goes, I`m more than chuffed with the systems performance, being involved with computers for some years I also saved a few quid by installing all the h.ware myself, plus I`ve also installed all of the software, however, this part of computing is not my strongest point, resulting in a few bugs here and there, part of it is the fault of Windows XP, part of it is my own lack of software skills, however, the basic system is working ok, it`s just like emailing which sometimes throws a wobbly.
Plus, for some reason, I`ve got problem with using the mic to chat with any of my contacts via messenger, although the messenger wizard say it`s all working ok, I have at present, only talked to Steve Evans a while ago, I wanted to chat to Ray Hawkins the other night, but to no avail, so I`ve got to hopefully as time goes by iron out these glitches, but apart from that, the whole system is brill….
So, in my case AMD Athlon is Pretty damn good I reckon….