front side bus

is 333mhz too slow

[brdwlsh]

hi-

i'm on the verge of buying a computer. it sounds like a good deal at the right price:

1 gig ram
1.8mhz processor
ATI All in wonder 9700 pro 128MB
333 front side bus
great software
great monitor
more stuff

this PC will be used mainly for testing sites on a windows platform and gaming.

i have no doubt that the PC will perform as expected for testing websites. my concern is about the front side bus being too slow for current games. the computers i see offered by most merchants offer computers with a FSB no less than 400mhz. i'm pretty sure the 1.8mhz processor is fast enough--seems like a lot to a mac user!

anyway, i'm no hardware specialist, is 333mhz FSB too slow for what i need?

if so, is this pretty easy to upgrade? i've added RAM and sound cards and such, is it the same kind of process?

do i change the motherboard, i don't know...

thanks

[mincklerstraat]

I'd consider that way too slow if you're into games that are fairly recent - I'm no gamer, but I put together my PC about a year ago and got a board that was a middle-range priced board at that time, with an 800Mhz FSB. If there's one thing you don't want to skimp on, it's the motherboard, since it determines so much in how your system is set up. If you replace it, not only do you have to completely take apart your PC - you'll also find that many of the components it has won't be up to par with your newer board, so you'll have to buy these new as well.

In fact, I'd be really suprised if it's actually 300Mhz, and not 600, probably 300 is the type of RAM that you can use.

If it's just testing for windows, this system should be just fine - but then you don't need the gig of memory (it's probably old - slow anyways, not what you'd want with a new PC), or the graphics card, or the great monitor. But then again, you can use a real lunker of a second-hand Pentium II that will fill this requirement with flying colors. I'd try to find something really bargain-basement or lying around unused with friends or family for the windows testing and wait on the gaming machine.

I'm not really a hardware expert, just did a lot of research when I bought the components for this machine, so I'd wait and see if anyone else with more hardware / gaming experience contributes to this thread. I've never really enjoyed any games that needed more than 64K memory, I think my brain's FSB normally runs at about 20 cycles per minute, and its operating cache is about 2K ;)