Desktops forum: Upgradeability of T6212

I honsestly don't know anything about this card, However this one falls in your price range and has the T.V tuner built in.

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102463

Tom,

In response to your questions regarding the T6212;

1. Upgrade the video card right away - doing so will free up the 128 MB of memory that is otherwise shared with the integrated ATI x200. (I bought an ABIT 256 MHz PCI-xpress from NewEgg for $116 and I'm VERY pleased). By the way, it's on sale for $112 + $3 shipping. http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814123141

2. Once you free up the memory by upgrading the video card, the 512 MB memory is acceptable, but I opted to upgrade by adding two 1GB sticks of Rosewill memory from ChiefValue for $86.99 each. (I saw your link to the Corsair memory which is a good price for solid memory, but why not go for the 1GB sticks? This mobo supports up to 4 GB's of memory and the Rosewill does fine.) Just a note: make sure to buy memory in pairs for this mobo. I added a 1GB stick and it only registered as 1.25 GB, but when I added the other 1GB stick, it registered as 2.5GB.) Also, NewEgg has the Rosewill on sale for $79.99 + $4.99 for shipping. http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820223020

3. This mobo actually has 3 PCI slots AND a PCI express, so you're pretty set for just about any upgrades you might want.

One final note, that ABIT video card is excellent, but it does take some tweaking. Use the DVI adapter that comes with it for a MUCH clearer picture. My Dad commented on the picture quality and he NEVER notices things like that. Also, I set the refresh rate too high for my monitor and it looked bad but once I made the adjustment, it looks GREAT! Make sure to play with it and you'll have an excellent system!

You won't notice THAT much of a difference between two 1GB sticks & two 512's. You'll have 1.5 GB total vs 2.5 GB and once you get over 2 GB, there's really not much improvement.

That card you picked out is SWEET! I'd forgotten you wanted a TV Tuner. Be mindful of what one reviewer said of this card, though. He said, "...it gets me that I lose a PCI slot fitting it to the MSI Neo4 Platinum because of the extruding GPU fan. One would think that MSI would have thought of this."

ChiefValue has the 256MB version of this card for $13 less! It's currently out of stock, though.
http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?submit=property&item=14-127-145

and it works great!
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814103164

I would get a single 1 GB of RAM instead of the (2 X 512MB) but that is just my particular bias lol.

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145505

It may be dual channel memory, but i believe you don't have to just use that, 1x512 or 1x1GB should work in the none dual channel memory slot. Only in AMD PROCESSORS, DO you worry about this, but at hp.com, you can customize an amd athlon 64 and it says (1x512) so can't you just use 1 memory module? Btw, airliners.net is another one of my favorite sites. As a career, i think i'll be a software developer, start my own company. When i become rich, i'll also start my own airline and have a huge collection of planes. Another one of my aspirations is to be a chef, i think ill do that when i retire though. My dreams, but who knows if it'll come true? My favorite hobby right now is flightsims, i don't like to go to honolulu international airport and take pics though so i didn't join airliners.net.
Roger

When I added one 512MB stick, my system slowed down to a crawl. Then I changed to two 256MB sticks, and it works perfectly. It also mentions this in the eMachines documentation.

BTW, I'm an avid Flight Sim'er and the best add on to date is FS Live Traffic. Downloads traffic from AirNav's Flight Tracker and changes the default AI traffic with the actual AC and Airlines. The ATC uses the flight data and actual call signs, now MS FS9 is as real as it gets! http://www.airnavsystems.com/

Hi, since the t6212 comes with a pair of 256mb sticks would adding a pair of 512mb sticks work with the 256 mb sticks to create 1.56GB without issues?

Tom

Hi All,

I just wanted to ask a couple of simple questions. I created a new thread discussion for this but should have searched for this thread to begin with, sorry.

I want to add 2-512MB DDR333/PC2700 (2 sticks). I have one already so I would only have to buy 1 more. I have checked the Motherboard website and it does support the slower (20% or so?) DDR333/PC2700 RAM.

Now there shouldn't be an issue with the original 2-256MB DDR400/PC3200 lowering frequency to match the 2-512MB DDR333/PC2700 right? I mean it works that way in my machine now so I assume it's universal unless I am missing something. That would give me 1.5Gb and should be good to go.

You don't think there would be much performance loss from DDR400 to DDR333, do you? I will have x700 Pro installed also. I mostly do MMORPG's and burning software btw.

In case you didn't know BestBuy has a signiture brand name, as I understand it called "Insignia" and they currently have a 19" CRT Flat Screen Monitor for $129.99 then $30 rebate for $99.99 plus tax, will be adding this btw :P


Thanks for reading and responding!

SeaninWa

The HP rig is socket 754 and the T6212 is socket 939.
Single sticks of memory work fine on 754 but not 939. Matching pairs only.
P.S. This is a budget PC so most people will want to stay budget. Keep the 2 X 256Meg and add the same again for a total of 1 gig. Plenty for most folks.

Hi Tom,

To answer your question about PCI slots. The T6212 motherboard, MS-7093 (RS480M2-IL), has one PCI-Express x16, and 3 regular PCI Bus slots. Best Buy shows the same and indicates there is are 2 PCI and 1 PCI-E vacant.
Those posting here that have the T6212 could verify.

Since you asked for a decent PCI express video card for somewhere around $150 give or take, I would suggest a better than decent card like the PCI-Express Nvidia GeForce 6600GT, which is more powerful than the Radeon X600. Newegg has come down on some prices and the eVGA PCI-E 6600GT is now $159 after $20 mail-in rebate.

The 1GB of Corsair RAM (2-512)on sale for $81 at Newegg seem excellent. Your could save a few $'s with just buying another 512MB to add to the current 512MB. BTW, IMO 512MB is adequated for current gaming. It is possible to maybe squeeze a little more performance with certain games using 1GB, but with 2GB for gaming, from what I understand, is just throwing away money at the present time, as without special instruments an ordinary person cannot tell any difference from 1GB.

I would go with what emachine suggest, as I think their engineers are more in tune with their computer than most of us. A matched pair of additional 512's would save $'s.

Myself, I would go for the 827GM price difference.
The 3500 processor is used by some high end gamers in computers costing $1500-$2500.

when i checked with kingston, they asked NOT to use
the Hyper memory but use only the value RAM.

fyi