[Niborea]

I've taked briefly with Fozzik and thought I'd post here to see what other's thoughts are. I will be upgrading my current rig instead of indulging in a new one for various reasons.

I have a Dell 8400 - P4 3.0, 2g DDR2 4200, ATI X800 XL, 80gig Western Digital SATA 150 HD - not top of the line but yet a pretty good rig as is. However my hard drive is full! and I mean completely, causing slow performance on everything.

I will be upgrading my HD but wonder if the new SATA 3.0 will work with my current mainboard since it supports the SATA 150. I had read that it will just default to the 150 speed, which is fine. The reason I am looking at the 3.0 is I can't find a 250gig in the SATA 150 on Newegg and I can't see spending the extra on a 400gig.

I also plan on upgrading my graphics card. I'm looking at the X1800 or X1900, although to do this would mean switching out my current power supply which is only a 350w to a 500w.

By switching my graphics card I can pass it down to my son to replace his pitiful X300 he is currently using.

Any suggestion os comments are welcome, will likely be ordering these pieces late this weekend after I get back from Chicago on Sat. Getting ready to order a new monitor now, my son accidently broke my 19" Dell Flat Panel, and this CRT is driving me nuts to look at

Thanks
-Nib

[Otarin]

Originally Posted by Niborea

I will be upgrading my HD but wonder if the new SATA 3.0 will work with my current mainboard since it supports the SATA 150. I had read that it will just default to the 150 speed, which is fine. The reason I am looking at the 3.0 is I can't find a 250gig in the SATA 150 on Newegg and I can't see spending the extra on a 400gig.

It should work fine -- the 3.0 drives are backwards compatible. In fact, a lot of 3.0 drives (especially OEM ones) default to SATA 150 out of the box. When I got my 250gig Hitachi drive, I had to run a utility to switch it to SATA 3.0 before using it.

A word of warning: if I was you, I'd measure your current power supply, the mounting holes, and the cables to make sure that the new one will fit. Sometimes system manufacturers use non-standard parts that can be a pain to replace. I had to replace a power supply in my old Dell and ended up having to drill new screw holes in the case because the old holes did not match the new power supply.

[Niborea]

A word of warning: if I was you, I'd measure your current power supply, the mounting holes, and the cables to make sure that the new one will fit. Sometimes system manufacturers use non-standard parts that can be a pain to replace. I had to replace a power supply in my old Dell and ended up having to drill new screw holes in the case because the old holes did not match the new power supply.

I've thought about that already - plan to measure and double check before ordering Thanks

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Niborea

I also plan on upgrading my graphics card. I'm looking at the X1800 or X1900, although to do this would mean switching out my current power supply which is only a 350w to a 500w.

From what I’ve heard of Dells you may need to swap PSUs anyways, as they often use the bare minimum in the system. Hopefully you won’t run into any trouble doing that. (I previously saw someone ask for help on the OVF and I recommended they check to see if they could do it and they discovered they could not actually even open the case.)

GPU counseling is tough these days, what with DX10 right around the corner. If you are dead set on an ATi you may want to look at the x1900 XT.

If you could wait … um… some amount… the nVidia DX10 GPUs should be out this month (I am amazed there has been no update on this status yet) and ATi will follow in November. You certainly wouldn’t need one right away, but if you play many different games I’d recommend considering it as several will be taking advantage of DX10 code pretty soon. (Some will release prior to Vista, others shortly after.)

By going with an Evga GPU, something like a 7900 GT, you would have a 3 month window to use their "step up" policy and trade up to a DX10 GPU once those release (should they make the window) and loose no $ in the process. (However, you would be paying launch window prices for the new GPU.) Something to consider if you were looking at DX10s but absolutely had to buy now. However, it looks like you are using ATi to chain GPUs through systems, so you'd probably want to stick with the same type for both.

Getting ready to order a new monitor now, my son accidently broke my 19" Dell Flat Panel, and this CRT is driving me nuts to look at

Ouchies!

[Fozzik]

Depending on how much you want to spend on the video card...there are just a TON of options right now. The market is very saturated at all price points because we are at the very end of the current generation of graphics technology.

Just today, both ATI and NVidia announced new mid-range cards. Nvidia announced the 7900GS, which will fall in the $200-$250 price segment and be a good performer (although the X1900GT may still be better in that price range), and ATI is launching the X1900XT with 256MB of RAM (next week or so) which will be the card to have in the ~$250 market for a least a little while.

With DirectX 10 GPUs coming, it should get much simpler in a few months...at least for a little while.