upgrading my P3 660 to a 1G?

[Steve Kaz]

Would it even be worth it for MAME?  I found the new processor for like $50.

My MAME now freezes on games like NBA Jam.  It plays GT and some other newer games fine, but the sound lags/skips because of the processor so i have to turn the sound off.

Would you guys spend the $50 or would it not really make a big difference?  I'll probably upgrade to a new P4 in the next year or two, but this would be in the meantime...

My setup is:

ATI9600XT
756 of RAM
PIII 660Mhz

Thanks for any advice.

[tristan]

For $50 I wouldn't think it was worth it. You can get a Sempron 2200+ for $58, and you could pick up a decent nForce2 board for about the same price. Of course you'd need new memory too.


You would be better off saving up the money (~$150) and upgrading the whole thing. Then you sell the old parts off on eBay and get some of it back.

[SirPoonga]

Depends on  the CPU you are looking at and your mobo.
1Ghz is the fastest a PIII was ever made (anything Socket 7 for that matter).
Your mobo has to support it too.  My old PIII 500 machine could only suppot up to 833.

For the money look at the deals at tigerdirect.com or newegg.com.  I know people will complain about rebates there but I have not had any troubles.  You have to follow the rebates exactly.  Do that as soon as possible to.

[USSEnterprise]

Or you could look at ebay and see what you can find for pre-assembled PCs. If you were to upgrade to a 1.2 GHz P3, i would consider it worth it. Intel did make the P3 up to 1.2GHz.You could also try to find a means of over-clocking your current CPU, but that can cause problems

[Steve Kaz]

So it sounds like you guys don't think it's worth it.

My office gets a great deal on brand new Dells, so i can get a top of the line P4 for around $500.  I planned on doing that at some point, but thought that this could tide me over.

[USSEnterprise]

Or even an E-machines for for $300. They usually have arounda 2.8GHz processor, at leats 256 RAM, and usually 80 GB HDD space. they also usually come with monitor and printer

[krick]

1Ghz is the fastest a PIII was ever made (anything Socket 7 for that matter).

Just a minor correction... PIII is socket 370 (or slot 1).

Also, the socket 370 Celeron 1.4GHz (Tualatin core) is essentially the same as a PIII, it even has the same amount of cache, however, it is only available with a 100MHz front side bus.

[USSEnterprise]

yeah, socket 7 is long gone. I think mine uses a socket 478 for a P4 1.6

[Steve Kaz]

A friend just called me out of the blue and said that he has a computer with a 1.5G Celeron that i'd just have to throw RAM and a new hard drive in. 

I'm thinking that would make the most sense at this point.