CGTalk - New AMD Chip Question/General Hardware Post

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Northchild

01-18-2003, 07:33 PM

Hi all,

I'm currently running an XP 2100 on an Asus A7M266 with 1GB of PC2100 DDR and an Nvidia 4600ti. I'm not having any speed problems with software now, but like to stay current as I become more deeply involved with this darned graphic stuff. Is it possible for me to just upgrade the AMD XP CPU at this point to a better Athlon XP (2700-333)? I have no idea of what's compatible with what.

Also, at what point have people here found that "enough is enough?" I'm a student looking to (attempt to) work professionally with this stuff for a small or large company in two to two and a half years. I'm wondering if I've come to the point where all the hardware and software purchases in the world aren't going to help me anymore as long as I stay reasonably current, or even if there is such a point. I can't afford more than a couple of computers to render on, and I have no idea how to use a SGI station, or a Macantosh, or even if I could afford either of these. I'm a decent end-user of PCs and that's always been good enough... but I'm concerned that I'm not seeing a larger picture. I mean - is it possible to just waltz into a large company and say "here's my nifty demo reel, here's where I got my B.A. from and what I did, I know max and Maya for the PC and have a decent workstation at home, can I have a job"?

Any views from above greatly appreciated. :)

Northchild

01-20-2003, 10:15 PM

Anyone? :drool:

MadMax

01-20-2003, 10:40 PM

You could certainly upgrade it with a new CPU, I do bleive that Asus has released bios updates that support faster processors like the newest TBred processors.

Also, you could upgrade your motherboard to an nForce2 setup and increase available memory bandwidth through it's dual channel memory architecture.

Those old AMD 760 chipsets are getting a bit long in the tooth.

elvis

01-20-2003, 11:27 PM

the A7M266 won't support a 333FSB AMD athlon XP (which the 2700 is, as the original post mentioned).

at this point in time if i were you i'd be inclined to stick with your current setup for a few months. prices will come down quite a bit in Q2 as new hardware gets released late Q1 (within the next month or so, especially).

plus the newer barton based athlons will be out shortly, which will increase the L2 cache on the athlons making them more powerful again. your choice once more is to wait until they arrive and grab the biggest and the best, or take advantage of nvidia dropping their current athlon XP chips into their "value" market and the associated price drops.

at any rate, a substancial change in CPU will mean you will need to upgrade your motherboard and RAM to match.

Northchild

01-21-2003, 06:23 AM

Thank you for the heads-up, I figured that it wouldn't be something like upgrading just one component. I'll wait a few months until I look into a new motherboard/RAM/CPU setup.

singularity2006

01-21-2003, 07:31 AM

I've seen guys working w/ lesser trash than I've worked with that have gotten really high end graphic design jobs ... they just need more patience. I think in your case, if you are good @ what u do, just have patience and work w/ what u got and if u got the talent, u'll do fine no matter what. But if u got talent but lack patience, I think u can upgrade...they're not TOO expensive these days... the only killer is video card... but CPU and memory and board, not as bad. My Athlon XP2100+ on my Soyo Dragon KT400 Ultra Platinum Edition cost me $99. I luv finding typos in advertisements. :beer:

but yeah, otherwise, $200. Memory was a killer though... but prices are dropping on that like a pendulum again. But yeah, I wouldn't fret too much unless your hardware prevented u from doing something really big and nice like a full blown animation ... i realized that the hard way when my animations could not even render in parts because my system would just mem dump from the overload.

GregHess

01-21-2003, 01:49 PM

Ram surplus of 7% this year. (Dropping prices throughout the year).

Surplus of "LARGE" LCD parts this year. (Prices dropping on 18 inch+ LCD's)

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