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AMD Athlon 64 Bit 3400+ Review
Published on October 24, 2004 By mgosh In Personal Computing
After four years of owning my PII 800 Mhz Computer, with 512mb of ram and two 60 gb hard drives I decided to go out last week and purchase a new one. A few weeks ago my old computer had virus behavior where if you clicked upon clean up files it deleted everything. All documents, all mp3's, everything on my D: was gone. It would have done the same to the C: I was sure. I had a virus in the system about 8 months ago and I followed the directions to remove it, but I think the virus changed this program to make it do that, so I knew ok time to reinstalled XP, a clean installation later and the computer was running fine. Then a week later the C: went two months out of warrantee. So 100 bucks later say hello to my new 200 G.B. hard drive. Now that would have fixed all the problems and it did flawlessly but I was feeling. I just did all this work on it, why don't I see what's out there.

So this week they had a sale on a different model the 3200 XP+ and I was like that's a great price and looks like a good system, and no doubt it is. I was informed of the price difference between that model and the higher model of the 64 bit AMD 3400XP+ and that was the one I decided upon. For 300 bucks more you get a HP Media Center PC with a DVD Burner and a Geforce FX5200XT. I found out later the Geforce isn't the best one out there, but when I tried out the computer on my games it really flew through them. So I'm super happy that I got this.

The quality of the recordings are suburb and the system runs quietly. Its really amazing and very stable. The Media Center is XP 2005, which has service patch 2 built into it. The recordings are great, and I really like the features of it. I am so happy that I decided to upgrade the system, it’s definitely worth the extra few hundred bucks, because you go from a generation back to the latest.

It handles Windows like it was built for it, and it’s 64 bit so in the future when Windows releases a 64 bit version for the consumer it will be able to handle it without a problem. It’s a real easy decision comparing this to a Pentium 4 and knowing which system is the better decision for now and the future.

Oh yes the Media Center also has S-Video, Cable Out, Firewire and USB 2.0 built into it. It has a remote control for remote control of the media. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new PC.

Comments
on Nov 02, 2004
All documents, all mp3's, everything on my D: was gone. It would have done the same to the C: I was sure. I had a virus in the system about 8 months ago and I followed the directions to remove it, but I think the virus changed this program to make it do that, so I knew ok time to reinstalled XP, a clean installation later and the computer was running fine.


Hmm...I'd like to know what virus does that!

Anywho, congrats on the upgrade. I recently souped up my laptop with another 512 Megs of RAM so I'm quite content with my system right now.
on Nov 02, 2004
Wow, i'm suffering worse with my P3 500 and 384MB RAM than you did!

Then there's the money problem....
on Nov 03, 2004
DoctorNick It was a nasty Virus that was being spead all over the internet. About last Feburary I got it. My advice is keep that anti-virus program udated all the time. Even so it won't always protect you, in this case, I got it even with the virus protection, it wasn't till two days later that it was updated and by then I was infected.

Meow in the long run of use te few hundred extra will mean that my computer will last me that much longer. The last upgrade was 4 years ago and I used to average 3 years. Considering my last upgrade was merely a replacement of the motherboard/cpu/memory having a new box is really a good thing.
on Nov 09, 2004
So you're saying I shouldn't wait another year so it will be six years then after it was new?
I have upgraded memory video card and added a cd burner.
The only thing for me to look forward to in a new one is that there will be USB in front so I won't have to go in the back to hook up my camera right after pictbridge printing. I guess I will like having Windows XP too.
on Nov 09, 2004
You're lucky.
on Nov 10, 2004
Thank you! I was able to run most of the moderm games on my PIII 800 system so I did not feel the need to upgrade as much as I used to. The reason I did decided to upgrade had to do with the fact that I had to redo the PC anyways so it was just getting to me. Now I'm redoing the old system and getting it ready to give to someone who has a P333 Cyrix with 192 megs of ram. That computer system is unable to handle today's software and most of the last few year's offerings. Good upgrades on it the burner will come in handy to back up your files when you're ready to upgrade. I'd say upgrade when you feel the time is right. Windows XP is a good O.S. it's very stable and doesn't lock up like the older versions. Definetly is a plus having the plugs up in the front for your camera too. Also a new one might have a media reader which will let you plug the cards right into the computer so the computer can read it right away without needing a usb plug.
on Dec 16, 2004
I'd have it!!! Mine is no longer compatible because most games now are 600Mhz.
on Jan 05, 2005
I now have XP.
on Jan 07, 2005
Excellent you'll find XP to be much more stable, imagine not constantly crashing when running your computer.