A question for all the computer people.

A question for all the computer people.

I got a couple questions, before I start here's what I have

2.4 GHz P4 Processor
1gig of RAM
Nvidia GeForce4 TI4600

Due to financial problems a friend of my friend is selling his 1 month old Radeon 9800XT (the 256mb uber card) for 100 bucks. I've always been an NVidia fan and was wondering about the issues I may have switching to a Radeon card. Can anyone provide any feedback? Driver issues, etc.

Second question. He's also selling his 3.0 GHz P4 Processor with the Hyperthreading Tech. for real cheap. That would be an easy switch right? Should I be having any issues other than maybe heat (which shouldn't be an issue anyways since mine runs super cool)?

I know I don't need it now but I figure I would go ahead and by his 2 512mb sticks of memory too since he's selling it cheap as well. What do you think? I know I may not really need 2 gig of memory but it would be nice heh?

A simple clean wipe of uninstalling the drivers usually does the trick.

There are utilities that would make the driver switch painless and clean if you are a hardcore gamer, videocard wise. If you are even more hardcore, you could just reformat, (I do wheneven I buy new hardware, except for CPU) which obviously leaves no residue.

As for the CPU, pop out your old one and pop in the new. :twisted:

EDIT: As for the RAM, RAM has actually been going up crazy these past few weeks. It never is bad having more RAM, but if he is a "good" friend, I'd suggest telling him to sell where needed to maybe even gain. He might even be able to sell it for at least what he paid for.

yah more memory is nice since it'll make ure computer run faster specially if ure running multiple programs.

as for the CPU, check if your motherboard supports HT cuz the bus for it is 800 and i believe for regular 2.4 w/o HT, it's only 533. the ram would also be an 800 and it will be an underclocked HT. most likely it will work, but ure not gonna be able to use the full potential of HT. a good MB for P4 w/ HT and really stable is Intel's 865PERL. there might be a newer one out cuz i ahv'ent been updating myself recently. but out of all the MB tests, its the slowest but also the most stable

I think the hardware you got is ok. Just make sure that they are compatible with each other (right speed).

Re: A question for all the computer people.

I would buy it even if your not going to use it, for 100 bucks thats a good deal. Where i work (frys) they go for about 500 bucks.

Here's a couple of things to think about before buying all of your friend's stuff:

1) 333 MHz and 400 MHz DDR RAM is not compatible. IOT, mixing is not permitted.

2) You mentioned that you have a P4 2.4 and your friend has the 3.0 HT. I'm guessing that you either have a P4 with a 400 or 533 FSB and the 3.0(C) chip has a 800 FSB. I don't think chips with the 800 FSB will work on MB's designed for 400 or 533 FSB's. The MB definitely won't like the mix of DDR RAM in this case.

3) You might have to upgrade your BIOS to get the HT chip to work, assuming that you could even get the HT chip to work on your MB.

4) You will need a power supply that has at least 350 watts with one free power dongle (not a shared one) for the Radeon VC. If you have system that has a power supply that's less than 350 watts, you risk frying your CPU... that wouldn't be a good upgrade.

5) Finally, you would have to upgrade your cooling capacities inside your box, as the 3.0 HT chips run hot.

Re: A question for all the computer people.

would buy it even if your not going to use it, for 100 bucks thats a good deal. Where i work (frys) they go for about 500 bucks.[/quote]

500 bucks thats fucking EXPENSIVE man..

as far as ur ram yeah more ram = better and faster perfromance and yeah make sure u check urmother boad see if it can handle the HT and 800FBS if its 800FSB

Mixing RAM is fine, the RAM should be set at the lowest speed and timings of the slowest stick(s).

RAM runs on a different channel than the CPU bus. You do not need to have 3200 (400) RAM while running a 800MHz FSB. Of course your bottleneck is the RAM since you won't be matching the bandwidth.

The Es run hot and not the Cs. Prescott vs Northwood. The stock heatsink and fan should be fine.

Few things about Radeon 9800XT. I work in best buy and played with it for some time now. Great card more powerful then any Nvidea. And one thing that we noticed is in our test machine with P4 HT 3.0 the air (not the processor) in the case was about 90F after switching to Radeon it went up to 110F. This means that it can overheat your processor. I would recomend at least 3 fans with at least 32ccm or water cooling on the chip. For the money however you should buy it and play with it. Remember to monitor your system afetr install because that card by itself can go up to 150F which is quite a lot.

in that case juss mine as well get a new case AND have four fans in it and some cooling system should be perfect to prevent overheat

I have 4 fans on my case 2 going in on the side and 2 going out on top, and it runs considerably cool. If anything I can run it open case until my next paycheck 2 weeks from now

Not all newer RAM is backward compatible (as in backwards clocking)