Upgrading Current Machine for Mining

[nosacky]

Hi all, thanks for reading this!
Currently, I have
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (Single Core)
ABIT KN8 SLI Motherboard (PCI Express 1.0 x16)
2GB RAM
BFG 8800 GTS 640MB
600W PSU (can't remember brand but it wasn't a cheap one)

I get around 20 Mhash/s right now which is not power efficient, but since my computer is on all the time anyways it doesn't matter.

I am thinking about sticking a AMD 5830 or 5850 in this machine.
My question is whether the CPU or PCI express bandwidth will be bottlenecks for this system.

My second question is whether to get the 5830 for $110 on newegg or 5850 is $150 on Amazon. Both are at stock clock speeds.
The charts tell me that the 5830 will get me 210Mhash/s and the 5850 will get me 260Mhash/s at stock clock speeds. Which card is more overclockable?

I appreciate the help. Thanks!

[1715044145]

1715044145

[Mononofu]

I don't think PCIe or your CPU is going to be a bottleneck - I'm mining on an Intel Atom with 2x 1.6 Ghz (way slower than your system) and I still get 425 MHash/s on my Asus Matrix 5870 Platinum. Interestingly enough, my 400W PSU is enough to power it xD

[nosacky]

I hate to dig this dead thread up again. I just want to make sure that nobody makes the same mistake I did.

As it turns out the new Radeon 5 series (I assume 6 series as well) cards are known to have problems with nForce4 northbridges. When I put the 5 series card in my nForce4 motherboard, it does not POST. I emailed abit for support only to find out that they do not exist as of 2008 so I am out of luck. Anybody want a Radeon 5830?
If you are planning on putting a new Radeon card in your nForce4 machine lying around, make sure that your motherboard manufacturer has put out a BIOS update for compatibility before buying your new Radeon card. I hope that helps someone!

[w128]

I hate to dig this dead thread up again. I just want to make sure that nobody makes the same mistake I did.

As it turns out the new Radeon 5 series (I assume 6 series as well) cards are known to have problems with nForce4 northbridges. When I put the 5 series card in my nForce4 motherboard, it does not POST. I emailed abit for support only to find out that they do not exist as of 2008 so I am out of luck. Anybody want a Radeon 5830?
If you are planning on putting a new Radeon card in your nForce4 machine lying around, make sure that your motherboard manufacturer has put out a BIOS update for compatibility before buying your new Radeon card. I hope that helps someone!

Interesting.

I have an A8N-SLI from 2006 that has never seen a BIOS update which works just fine with a 5770.