Is this upgrade worth it?

J

JPOnion

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
120
Yup, another "please help me" thread. What can I say, though...there's so much information, and I haven't been paying attention to any of it for over a year, so I'm a bit overwhelmed. [H] has been helping me for years, though, so...

I'm starting to run into some games I can't play on full settings and have been considering upgrading. The Crysis demo was the last straw. But...I need some help justifying the cost from somebody who can truthfully tell me it'll really help out.

I currently have the following system:
Radeon X1900XT 256MB
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 (the first revision...didn't know they made others until a few hours ago)
C2D E6400
2Gigs of Patriot DDR2 667 RAM
I play at 1680 x 1050.

I'm considering getting the new 8800GT when it comes out (~$250). I'm also considering the C2Q Q6600 (~$280). I'm also wondering if that RAM is still ok, or if it would be worth it to go with 2 or 4 gigs of DDR2 800. I'd like to spend as little as possible, so I'd like to only get the ones that would noticeably improve performance, but I'd be willing to get all 3 upgrades if needed (and if the ram and cpu would work with the mobo).

I know the system I have right now is still ok. But...before I got this PC, I spent about 3 years doing the whole "Oooh, I need to upgrade...but there's something better coming out, so I'll wait" thing. I don't want to do that again :(

Thanks!
 
Upgrade the vidcard first. If that solves your issues, you're done, lol. If you wat better performance in Crysis, upgrade to a Q6600. If you still feel the system is lacking, get 4GB, but I seriously doubt you'll need 4GB of RAM.
 
What enginurd said.

I have a similar setup (Check sig) and Crysis also nearly killed my system. Though I could play the demo fine at 1280 x 1024, getting about about 25 to 30FPS, I really want to play it at 1440x900. So I'm also considering upgrading to the 8800GT as well.

And yes the Q6600 will work with the DS3 Rev 1.0 as long as you have the F8 bios and above. Also, OC your E6400 while you're at it. You may be limited by your RAM speed but a little OC couldn't hurt:

E6400:
Multi x FSB, RAM Speed = Clock Speed
8 x 266Mhz = 2.13Ghz, DDR2 533 << Stock speeds
8 × 333Mhz = 2.6Ghz, DDR2-667 << Easy OC
8 × 400Mhz = 3.2Ghz, DDR2-800 << Good OC if you get DDR2 800 RAM or if you have very overclockable RAM.

Though I should point out that the developers themselves recommend getting a quad-core over getting a faster dual-core:
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=639
 
Thanks for the advice, guys. I was just asking about all 3 of those since I wasn't sure if upgrading one would lead to another being a bottleneck, limiting the added performance of the upgrade.

I just put an order in for the 8800GT and a new harddrive. If the video card doesn't make me completely happy, I'll try to OC it as per Danny's suggestion (I hadn't thought of that). I think I'll be happy though, leaving me money to spend on other needed things. :D
 
JPOnion said:
Thanks for the advice, guys. I was just asking about all 3 of those since I wasn't sure if upgrading one would lead to another being a bottleneck, limiting the added performance of the upgrade.

I just put an order in for the 8800GT and a new harddrive. If the video card doesn't make me completely happy, I'll try to OC it as per Danny's suggestion (I hadn't thought of that). I think I'll be happy though, leaving me money to spend on other needed things. :D
Click to expand...

Good choice on the card
 
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