Finishing a 5 year old rig, Need Advice:

[caprice]

Alright the story is when I was a freshman in high school I was really into gaming (RTCW and CS) and would go to lanwar and all that jazz, great times. I started building my new rig which consisted of:

DFI LanParty 875P
ATI Radeon 9600XT
Mushkin DDR400 RAM (1GB only)
and a Western Digital harddrive

Now the dilemma that surfaced is that when I was trying to boot the computer after installing the OS it would not, and for some reason I thought the BIOS chip was bad on the motherboard. In trying to remove the chip from the board, it crumbled to pieces and I was very, very pissed. So pissed in fact I stopped computing because I put so much money into a rig that wouldn't work, saved it, and bought a laptop. I stuck the rig into the closet and it literally has sat there for the past 5 years.

I'm now 22 with a decent job living on my own. I went to my parents house the other day and got the rig out of the closet and have decided to finish building it. All the technology in it is 5 years old now, and I plan on building the rig around the LanParty 875P board because I never actually got to use it. I emailed DFI Support inquiring about a BIOS chip replacement and I'm still waiting on a reply (the way to get information from them is SOOO confusing).

With this backstory my plans with the rig aren't quite for gaming (but they are ) but for also making music. I want to build the rig to be suitable for Ubuntu, because I would hate having to buy a Windows key (I know, I know, I'm just honest like that though).

So the advice I need is:

What is the fastest CPU I can get for it?
(It takes 478pin Pentium 4 chips, wherever those can be found, I remember they got up to 3GHZ yea?)

What is the best DDR400 RAM I can find now?
(4 slots 4x1GB only I believe)

What is the best AGP8x card I can find now?
(I always fancied the 9800XT when it was out but that was years ago)

What is the biggest/fastest SATA drive(s) I can put in it?
(the board can run RAID for me with 2 SATA slots, this is SATA of 2005 so whatever the first gen of SATA was, I always used IDE)

Should I get a bigger PSU?
(I'm using an Antec 350W that is barely used but with the plans I have 500W may be requisite)

I'm not too worried about the other equipment right now, I just need to get a BIOS chip on the motherboard and get the above stuff in the case. Oh, It's all being crammed into an Antec Lanboy case, I love that thing haha.

The Ultimate goal: Have Ubuntu on it running some old games (RTCW, Enemey Territory, CS), some music making software, and just to browse the internet.

Thanks for any input, this is will a fun vintage project I'm sure so I'm excited to have it finished, maybe by summers end.



cheers!

 

[sniperviper21]

What is the fastest CPU I can get for it?
(It takes 478pin Pentium 4 chips, wherever those can be found, I remember they got up to 3GHZ yea?)
i believe Pentium 4 chips and there variants are as high as you can got with that socket, THOUGH these days, the Ghz race dosnt exist. Actually gigahertz dosnt even deiced what processor is better

What is the best DDR400 RAM I can find now?
(4 slots 4x1GB only I believe)
DDR ram is so slow and out dated i'll bet that 1GB is plenty for a system like this

What is the best AGP8x card I can find now?
(I always fancied the 9800XT when it was out but that was years ago)AGP interface is really ancient right now, and if you did have a 9800 card, it would be severly bottle necked by the AGP bus

What is the biggest/fastest SATA drive(s) I can put in it?
(the board can run RAID for me with 2 SATA slots, this is SATA of 2005 so whatever the first gen of SATA was, I always used IDE) if you really wanted the fastest, you could just get a solid state drive, but those are super expensive still. and the western digital blacks or the seagate barracuda .12s are fast as well

Should I get a bigger PSU?
(I'm using an Antec 350W that is barely used but with the plans I have 500W may be requisite)
dont worry about the PSU yet, just determine what one you will need by which graphics card you will use. i DOUBT a P4 will use over 200W

but for what you mentioned the type of games you want to play on this rig, like CS, im sure a 7600GTS of some sort would fit you fine. but i wouldn't recommend trying any new games from 2006+ and if you do, just make a new build.

and finally, got a budget?

 

[caprice]

thanks for the reply and info!

my budget I'm sure I'm going to max out everything like I would 5 years ago, only today with it all being so old I can get it all off ebay for some decent prices. I'm shooting for $500 right now but it may go over. For a SATA harddrive, probably 2, 500GB drives @ 7200RPM would satisfy me. I've already found some old good video cards on ebay, but I've read that ATI cards aren't very compatible with Linux. I can't say if that's changed or not.

 

[dude_56013]

my budget I'm sure I'm going to max out everything like I would 5 years ago, only today with it all being so old I can get it all off ebay for some decent prices

Your thinking is backwards. Older components are now pretty expensive for the performance they offer.

vvvvvv

I'm shooting for $500 right now but it may go over. For a SATA harddrive, probably 2, 500GB drives @ 7200RPM would satisfy me. I've already found some old good video cards on ebay, but I've read that ATI cards aren't very compatible with Linux. I can't say if that's changed or not.

Build a new computer. Don't even ask questions. Honestly. If your budget is $500, build a new one. Hell, sell your old crap on eBay or to someone who doesn't know what the heck a good computer is. Make a little off that. Use it on the new build.

Really. It's honest-to-God the best way to go. If you put $500 into this ancient thing, you WILL throw your money away.