So what better time than now, with the new Xeon Pentium II chip here, and Merced way off in the distance, to look at your options!
Upgrading Older Machines
Last week I got the September 1998 issue of Computer Shopper, which features an excellent article about upgrading your CPU and motherboard.
A brain change could be a very cost-effective upgrade depending on how well you've kept your other peripherals upgraded. To point, the Computer Shopper article changed out a P90 motherboard for a Pentium II motherboard/CPU for just a few hundred dollars (although you'd have to add another $100 to $150 for a new 128MB RAM DIMM).
| the motherboard requires DIMM modules instead of the P90's older SIMM modules, but you don't have to get PC100 SDRAM memory |
So as little as $400 will get you the right architecture (a 100MHz system bus; half-CPU speed L2 cache interface; a Pentium II-class CPU; faster RAM; AGP port; and USB ports).
You might also want to look at the higher-end motherboard upgrades. See a review of 20 440BX motherboards from Tom's Hardware Guide.
To point, the Asus P2B (Tom's top pick for a 440BX motherboard) can be purchased on sale for $150 and the P2B-LS model (with Ultra2/Wide SCSI and LAN on the Motherboard!) will run you about $300.
As for the Pentium chips themselves, you can get:
-
a 350MHz PII for $350
a 400MHz PII for $600; or
a 450 MHz PII for $700.
So you're looking at between $500 and $1,000 for a high-end PII motherboard upgrade, not including the $150 for 128MB RAM. (For shopping, check out Aventec or Tech Store for complete motherboard kits from various manufacturers.)
Other Upgrade Costs
On the other hand, there are plenty of new technologies (peripherals) you might want to take advantage of with the new motherboard, which are coming standard with new workstations, and which you might figure in to any upgrade price:
- AGP graphics cards - with a 100-MHz system bus, and as a requirement for NT 5.0 (specifically Direct X 6.0 and Chrome Effects), an AGP card is in your future.
