OT: Hand-me-down computer advice needed

I've been somewhat out of touch with current computer spec's over the past 2 years or so, and need a bit of advice on scavenging the best parts of a couple of PC's to build the best gaming rig I can within the limits of the hardware I have.... I've currently got a Falcon NW Mach V PC from year 2000. It's an Intel PIII 933 w/384 meg of 133 RAM, with an Asus 133Mhz FSB motherboard with a GeForce2 GTS 64 Meg video card My Father-in-law just upgraded to a new PC and gave us his old one, which is superior to my current gaming rig. It's a Athlon MSI K76266 Pro 2-A motherboard with a 266 Mhz FSBus that supports up to 3 GB of DDR SDRAM. It's currently got a single stick of 256 Meg of PC2100 RAM and has a PNY GeForce 4 MX 420 video card w/64 Meg of RAM So right off the bat it's got a motherboard that's twice as fast and a better video card, plus faster RAM than my Falcon NW rig. My question is... Would it be worthwhile leaving my current system in place, but swapping out the video cards between the two systems, or would I be better off with the faster bus and processors, and try to move my current hard drive, CD and CDRW drives plus sound card, etc to the new system? My sound card is a SoundBlaster L:ive X-Gamer, and the new system has some sort of SoundBlaster compatible onboard sound, which I suspect is pretty weak. It would be very simple to swap the video cards but much, more difficult to move hard drives, cd / cdrw drives and whatnot around between the two systems, if it's going to make a significant difference in performance I'm willing to do so, but would rather just swap out the video card if it doesn't. What do you suggest? Thanks! Jay J

I forgot to mention the processor is an AMD Athlon 2000+ that runs at around 1.6-1.8Ghz... "Jay J" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:Pfdzb.287047$ao4.1001517@attbi_s51... > I've been somewhat out of touch with current computer spec's over the past2

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> years or so, and need a bit of advice on scavenging the best parts of a > couple of PC's to build the best gaming rig I can within the limits of the > hardware I have.... > > I've currently got a Falcon NW Mach V PC from year 2000. > It's an Intel PIII 933 w/384 meg of 133 RAM, with an Asus 133Mhz FSB > motherboard with a GeForce2 GTS 64 Meg video card > > My Father-in-law just upgraded to a new PC and gave us his old one, which

is

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> superior to my current gaming rig. > It's a Athlon MSI K76266 Pro 2-A motherboard with a 266 Mhz FSBus that > supports up to 3 GB of DDR SDRAM. > > It's currently got a single stick of 256 Meg of PC2100 RAM and has a PNY > GeForce 4 MX 420 video card w/64 Meg of RAM > > So right off the bat it's got a motherboard that's twice as fast and a > better video card, plus faster RAM than my Falcon NW rig. > > My question is... Would it be worthwhile leaving my current system in

place,

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> but swapping out the video cards between the two systems, or would I be > better off with the faster bus and processors, and try to move my current > hard drive, CD and CDRW drives plus sound card, etc to the new system? > > My sound card is a SoundBlaster L:ive X-Gamer, and the new system has some > sort of SoundBlaster compatible onboard sound, which I suspect is pretty > weak. > > It would be very simple to swap the video cards but much, more difficult

to

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> move hard drives, cd / cdrw drives and whatnot around between the two > systems, if it's going to make a significant difference in performance I'm > willing to do so, but would rather just swap out the video card if it > doesn't. > > What do you suggest? > > Thanks! > Jay J > > > >

I would always go with putting together the fastest system with the components available. You do not say which OS you are using, if it is Win9x then moving the hard disk will work. If XP then you might need to reinstall due to the hardware changes You may find that the GTS card is a match for the MX. It may even outperform it. The MX cards are seriously cut down. Personally I would put your good gear into the faster machine and reinstall everything. You could reduce this a bit by installing your HD as a slave to the HD that is already in the machine. A lot of games will work fine like this. You would want to use the "newer" HD for the OS as it is likely to be bigger and faster (possibly copy over data from the old HD). HTH Andrew W.