So the kids’ new computer is up and running great. I ended up returning the Kingston 2×256 RAM for a single stick of 512MB Corsair ValueSelect. I won’t get the benefit of dual channel, but at least now I have the option of going to 2G and can still run dual channel in the future. I pulled one of the Corsair 512MB modules out of my other computer and dropped it in their computer and ran Prime95 for over 10 hours and got no warnings and no errors, so that’s good. I still can’t get the PS/2 port to work with the keyboard, not sure what’s up there, so I bought a new Logitech 250 USB keyboard in addition to the RAM which should be showing up just before the weekend.
So to summarize, I had a goal of upgrading an old Compaq desktop so that it would play my kids’ online games as well as some of their PC games. The 2.0GHz P4 and dedicated graphics card wasn’t enough for even toddler games (my oldest is 4, so we’re not talking about playing Doom III). So for just about $212 I was able to buy all new hardware and literally build a brand new computer and now it plays all their games with ease. To keep the cost low, I kept the monitor, mouse, speakers, and hard drive and OS from the existing system. That alone saves about $300-$400 depending on the size/type of monitor and the size of HDD. Not having to buy Windows again helps too.
Here’s a rundown of the system specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz Venice Core CPU w/Stock Heatsink/Fan
Biostor TForce6100-939 Micro ATX Motherboard w/NVidia GeForce 6100 Graphics
1x512MB DDR400 PC3200 Corsair ValueSelect RAM Cas Latency 2.5
Seagate 60GB 3.5″ HDD
Asus 52X CD ROM Drive
Generic DVD-ROM/CD-RW Drive
Antec NSK 4400 Black/Siver 0.8mm Case with 380W PSU
Compaq P920 19″ CRT Flat Screen Monitor
Logitech Deluxe 250 Keyboard
Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse
Polk Audio Speakers
Windows 2000 w/Service Pack 4
So that’s it, in a nutshell. It’s a pretty decent computer and mostly just gets used to play online games and play my daughters little kiddie games. I did run Futuremark03 and got a whopping score of 1020 on stock clock speeds. Not bad I suppose for having integrated graphics, but it doesn’t really need that much for what the computer gets used for. I could start messing around with overclocking it, but for now it’s running well and plays all the kids’ games without any problems. And that’s what’s important. In addition, this is a great base system for what could potentially turn into much more powerful computing machine. It supports Athlon 64 X2 and has a PCI-express slot so upgrading the graphics card to just about anything available would be easy. Drop in some more RAM and a 10k RPM HDD and this little PC would be able to run with the best of them.
