My machine sucks - need advice :)

A

asyncd

n00b
Joined
Jul 10, 2004
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Good Morning,

I read this forum regularly and have received alot of helpful insight. I was wondering if I can get some advice from some people out there regarding my dilema.

I have an ancient machine relative to today's standards:

AMD Athlon 2600+ XP (Barton)
MSI K7N2 Delta-L
2GB PC2700 RAM (Dual-Channel)
nVidia 6600GT (AGP 8X - 128mb) Graphics card
A couple IDE hard drives running @ 7200RPM
450W PSU - Have a higher W one laying around if necessary.

I assembled this machine about 2-3 years ago and the only thing that has been upgraded was the video card from a FX 5600.


I am an avid gamer. I've played EQ, EQ2, WoW, Eve Online, and have been recently dabbling in LOTRO. The problem is, I am getting pretty frustrated with the graphics settings I have to set these games at. Alot of my friends have upgraded machines and their systems run these games sweet. It looks really nice.

The problem for me is that I don't have the cash to do a full blown upgrade. The most I can spare at this time would be an upgrade to something like a 7800 GS. I've also read that the ATI X1950Pro might be the card to go with.


My question is: Should I just save my money or will this card really help out on the performance of these games? I don't foresee myself being able to do a full blown upgrade any time soon -- if getting this card will help out with these games and allow them to look better and run smoother I would probably invest -- if not, i'll just hold onto the cash.

Any thoughts? Thanks for reading.

-asyncd
 
Ideally the best route would be to do a full upgrade (mobo, cpu, video, etc). However, since you stated that is not going to be a viable option to you anytime soon then I would recommend X1950PRO. Its a good card and run the games you mentioned really well. I would also recommend you upgrade your CPU as well. I assume you are using socket 754 or 939, you should be able to easily get a better CPU for a small amount of cash as well.

Once you max out the CPU on your mobo, that will probably be the end of improvements for your system. If a newer game comes out that peaks your interest and your system struggles, the next step would have to be a full upgrade.
 
Wait and a do a full upgrade, you won't be satisfied with a small upgrade on the video card front, first of all your motherboard is AGP and that limits what sort of graphics cards are available, and secondly you have a fairly old CPU and this will quickly become a bottleneck in a lot of games if you just upgrade your video card meaning that potentially you'll end up with the same kind of frame rates even with a better video card.

A full upgrade will allow you to move to PCI-E which opens up DX10 video cards, it allows you a new processor architecture such as Core 2 Duo, and much faster RAM.

If you want more AA and AF and other graphics settings up in your games then go for a quick video card upgrade, but it wont give you smoother performance, most modern games will be held back by your CPU at this point.
 
I was in the same boat. Stuck with an old AGP board and had basically maxed out what I could do with it.
And I was with a AMD 2100, 1gb ram and a geforce 6600oc
After looking around for a new videocard to try and get it to run just a little bit faster. It would cost more then I hoped and would still be far to slow to run recent games.
I bit the bullet, scraped and saved till I could get a new PCIe mobo, a low end C2D and hit up a 8800gts.
 
You don't want to spend $ on AGP. If you can save a bit more and do an entire PCIE upgrade.

AM2 is such a cheap option right now.
 
I'd go with a whole new machine honestly. Don't re-use a thing. You may need to save money for awhile to do it but you will get better results. A friend of mine just got finished putting together a new system and he makes 9$ an hour and lives on his own. It took four or five months for him to save all the cash needed, but he's got an ok system now.
 
I don't think your graphics card would be completely bottlenecked by a x1950 Pro. It would give you a significant upgrade in performance over the 6600GT. I'd get a x1950 Pro over a 7800GS, but the GS might come in somewhat cheaper.

Personally, with the games you're playing, I think you'd be ok with 2GB of memory and a new video card. Obviously not ideal, but with your budget, I think it's ok. Do you OC the CPU at all? If you're running at 2.2Ghz or so, you're roughly equivalent to a 3000+ A64. That should be good enough to drive a 7800GS or x1950 pro. I wouldn't do either, and I'd get a new setup, but I understand the budget needs.
 
montypythizzle said:
ATi Radeon X800GTO 256bit 256MB Sapphire R430 core Runs BF2 ALL high 1280X1024 at acceptable frame rates ~75 OBO +ship

In my FS thread.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1195286
Click to expand...

Do not get an X### series card. They are great cards, certainly, but do not support PS3.0, which can literally bar you from playing certain games at all. I only imagine this will get worse.

X1### cards are fine.
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't think your graphics card would be completely bottlenecked by a x1950 Pro. It would give you a significant upgrade in performance over the 6600GT. I'd get a x1950 Pro over a 7800GS, but the GS might come in somewhat cheaper.

Personally, with the games you're playing, I think you'd be ok with 2GB of memory and a new video card. Obviously not ideal, but with your budget, I think it's ok. Do you OC the CPU at all? If you're running at 2.2Ghz or so, you're roughly equivalent to a 3000+ A64. That should be good enough to drive a 7800GS or x1950 pro. I wouldn't do either, and I'd get a new setup, but I understand the budget needs.
Click to expand...

QFT.

It will be bottlenecked but it will still be a massive upgrade. Once you have the video card you can look at your processor, ram etc. or even get one of the 775 or AM2 hybrid boards so you can keep your AGP card and keep upgrading to nicer stuff.
 
He has an AGP board... It's not worth putting so much $ into an AGP based system IMO.

Wait, suffer, lol and save $.
 
if i were in your shoes i would

sell your CPU, GPU and RAM and get a AMD 939 system.

you can even keep your RAM if you dont have the $$

you can get a 3200+ for $30 and a board for like $45 here shipped.

then get a 7800gt PCIe which is around $80

total that is $160- what you can get for selling you hardware.

the 939 allows you later to buy a Dualcore X2 CPU and upgrade it,

I know its a dead socket but you can keep your RAM and it is cheap.

and there are lots of use 939 hardware on the FS forum


option 2

get a XP 3200+ or 3000+ either ebay or fs forum, sell your CPU

get 2gb of RAM DDR400 (ram is cheap) sell your slower RAM

then get a 6800gt agp or a 1650pro agp (both play WOW fine at medium to high settings)

i would not spend the $$ on a high end agp card b/c your cpu and RAM are slow and the bottleneck of your sys. a 1950 agp or a 7800gs will be faster than your cpu so no real benifit...


3200+ XP socket A chips can be found (they are hard)
 
Adidas4275 said:
if i were in your shoes i would

sell your CPU, GPU and RAM and get a AMD 939 system.

you can even keep your RAM if you dont have the $$

you can get a 3200+ for $30 and a board for like $45 here shipped.

then get a 7800gt PCIe which is around $80

total that is $160- what you can get for selling you hardware.

the 939 allows you later to buy a Dualcore X2 CPU and upgrade it,

I know its a dead socket but you can keep your RAM and it is cheap.

and there are lots of use 939 hardware on the FS forum


option 2

get a XP 3200+ or 3000+ either ebay or fs forum, sell your CPU

get 2gb of RAM DDR400 (ram is cheap) sell your slower RAM

then get a 6800gt agp or a 1650pro agp (both play WOW fine at medium to high settings)

i would not spend the $$ on a high end agp card b/c your cpu and RAM are slow and the bottleneck of your sys. a 1950 agp or a 7800gs will be faster than your cpu so no real benifit...


3200+ XP socket A chips can be found (they are hard)
Click to expand...



Right now, its the time to upgrade to a current system. Ram is at the lowest that I have EVER seen it. I got 4 gigs of XMS2 667 for $130 from zipzoomfly (2 weeks ago, you couldn't get 1g for that price.. basically its buy 1 get 3 free). Not upgrading your ram now while prices are low is just plain stupid.

Spend a little more and get a budget build AMD or a cheap C2d

e4300 ~ $113.50
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80865

AMD X2 4400 @ 116.90 shipped.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80727-8


Motherboard w/ Pci-express ~ $80 $100 (and thats highballing it, you can go way cheaper). You can even get a 680i for $160 on newegg.
2gb DDR2 ~70 (and thats the good shit. I got 4gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 for $130).
7800gt ~80
 
reguardless if it is cheap or not the OP said he did not have enough $$ to do a full upgrade..

my plan cost about the same as a 1950 agp card alone.. that is the only reason i suggested 939 and keeping his ram...
 
lloose said:
Right now, its the time to upgrade to a current system. Ram is at the lowest that I have EVER seen it. I got 4 gigs of XMS2 667 for $130 from zipzoomfly (2 weeks ago, you couldn't get 1g for that price.. basically its buy 1 get 3 free). Not upgrading your ram now while prices are low is just plain stupid.

i agree with lloose. if you can, get your memory within the next week. its incredibly cheap at the momment, i could ahve saved almost 400 bucks if i bought my ram now than in january.

i see you also dont have the money to do a full upgrade, so instead of doing a full upgrade do it in pieces.

get teh ram now, save some moneh, get a CPU and MOBO, save a little more, get a good video card.

there are plenty of Mobo's with onboard video that are cheap, and you can always just upgrade later and disable it in the bios.

hell, then if you suddenly find yerself with 3 screens... you can make it look reallll nice =p

but meh, dont take my word as law, do as you see fit.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
get teh ram now, save some moneh, get a CPU and MOBO, save a little more, get a good video card.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I did.
I have 4 gigs of XMS2 and no rig to put them in yet :p

I am waiting on my rebate code for retail edge. If that doesn't happen this month, then I will bite the bullet and get a 680i SE and an e6600.
 
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