Hello All,<br> <br> My Computer has the following hardware setup:<br> <br> <br> My system is 2 years old<br> <br> Motherboard: Abit BE6S1 W/ Intel 440BX Chipset Supporting Ultra ATA 66mhz Drives.<br> <br> Processor: Pentium 3 Katmai 450 Mhz<br> <br> SDRAM: (2) ea 168 pin 128MB 16x64 PC100 DIMMS, with one socket available for more.<br> <br> Hard Drive 1: IBM 18 Gig ATA 66Mhz 7200 rpm<br> <br> Hard Drive 2: Western Digital 80 Gig ATA 100Mhz Caviar 7200 rpm <br> <br> Video: Matrox Millennium w/32mb onboard ram<br> <br> Sound: Creative SoundBlaster Live<br> <br> CD/RW: Acer 4432-A 4x4x32<br> <br> DVD: Toshiba 6x<br> <br> Operating Sys: Windows 98 SE <br> <br> <br> I have ordered a Promise Ultra ATA/100 controller card to help increase the transfer speed from the new Western Digital Drive and will be installing it within a week.<br> <br> Should I be looking at installing a different video card? Mobo? Or both?<br> <br> I thought my Matrox millenium was ok, but have heard discouraging words in other forums here. I had an ATI rage w/ 32mb before and it was a nightmare, so where should I look next?<br> <br> My MoBo can only handle 550mhz P3 (at least thats what it's documentation says) what can I do to get up to date with a p1.* or even a P4 1.**?<br> <br> Thanks for any input! <IMG SRC="smileys/wave.gif">
It depends on what you want to do with your computer and how much money you want to spend.<br> If you are into the latest games, you may want to upgrade your video card to something like one of the newer Geforces for some increased performance.<br> <br> For a bigger performance improvement would be to also get a new motherboard that supports a 1GHz+ processor. Then, of course, get a 1GHz+ processor. If you go the AMD Athlon route, they are less expensive than the Intels and have fine performance. You may then consider DDR RAM.<br> <br>
Matrox Graphics cards are <IMG SRC="smileys/puke.gif"> , anything that matrox makes is <IMG SRC="smileys/puke.gif"> , Matrox are <IMG SRC="smileys/puke.gif"> . Sorry but i really hate that company, anyone heard of the RT2000, it took Matrox 8 versions <IMG SRC="smileys/knock.gif"> of their software and about a year and a half to make a product that doesn't need a patch to work. Now if that isn't bad, i don't know what is. Buy any other blasted brand of graphics card other than Matrox, also their software for their newer cards has problems with a lot of software (PC Anywhere, Direct Connect, and a few ring tone composers that I know of), these flaws cannot be duplicated with any other brand of product. <IMG SRC="smileys/knock.gif">