Full System Upgrade - Or CPU/Memory to tide over...?

[Bloodsent]

First, my current setup, which was built in Feb of 2002.

P4 1.6A @ 2.1
Asus P4B266
2x256MB PC2100
Radeon 9800Pro 128MB

I am trying to decide on an upgrade path for the new games that will be coming out in the next few months. (Doom 3, HL2, STALKER, etc). Now, I have been contemplating the move to the A64, but things are still very up in the air right now. I would have to say that it seems that there is no clear-cut path to go with, since we are in a transition right now with high prices and new technologies.

Do I just move forward with a full system upgrade (From the case all the way to the DVDRW), or do I consider spending maybe $350 bucks to get a P4 2.8B and 1GB of RAM which my motherboard could support?

I would hope that I can at least play Doom 3 and HL 2 at decent frame rates at 1024 if I upgrade the RAM and CPU on my current setup.

I just don't want to drop $1500 on a full system with the high prices of the S939 CPUs, and PCI-Express and DDR2 on the way.

Any thoughts on this would be most helpful.

Thanks!

 

[Phoenix86]

I'd go with CPU and RAM to tide you over. It'll give the A64s time to mature, PCI-E isn't anything to care about now, 8xAGP isn't even being pushed.

 

[Xeese]

Get the RAM now, it will be good even if you do a CPU/Mobo replacement. Wait for the games to hit the shelves, then get the CPU upgrade or CPU/Mobo upgrade. Pricies will have dropped some more by then.

 

[Bloodsent]

Thanks for the responses so far. Any other thoughts on the topic?

And by any off chance, does anyone know what the highest CPU I could go on this board would be? I have an email into Asus support, but not sure if they will answer me. My assumption is that the board should be able to handle the P4 3.06 chip, running at 23x133, since the board can support a multiplier of 24, but don't know how high the FSB can go.

Thanks again for the advice, it is much appreciated.

 

[Darth Flatus]

Just search the Asus site, they have a chart for all the mobo's max cpu.

I just upgraded from 512mb -> 768mb ram and from 1.8ghz to 2.6ghz cpu (still crap 400fsb) and I'm pretty happy with the boost in performance. It won't help me with Doom 3 but Painkiller runs great.

Thanks for the responses so far. Any other thoughts on the topic?

And by any off chance, does anyone know what the highest CPU I could go on this board would be? I have an email into Asus support, but not sure if they will answer me. My assumption is that the board should be able to handle the P4 3.06 chip, running at 23x133, since the board can support a multiplier of 24, but don't know how high the FSB can go.

Thanks again for the advice, it is much appreciated.

 

[Xeese]

check the Bios updates for your mobo. There should be one that shows "added support for processors up to ...."

 

[E4g1e]

Thanks for the responses so far. Any other thoughts on the topic?

And by any off chance, does anyone know what the highest CPU I could go on this board would be? I have an email into Asus support, but not sure if they will answer me. My assumption is that the board should be able to handle the P4 3.06 chip, running at 23x133, since the board can support a multiplier of 24, but don't know how high the FSB can go.

Thanks again for the advice, it is much appreciated.

Yep, that post below yours is correct. Your P4B266 will officially support only the 400MHz FSB processors. And as far as I know, the 2.6GHz P4 (plain) was the last P4 made for a 400MHz (100MHz actual clockspeed) FSB. Celerons (but not the Celeron D's) up to 2.8GHz use that same FSB speed.