should i upgrade?

D

Dome

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 16, 2002
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so the ati site is offering cheap x800 agp drives and i'm running a radeon 9800 pro

the rest of my system is barton 2500, 512 ram, abit nf7 blah blah blah.

if i upgrade the card, will i notice much improvement or should i just wait for new comp/upgrade ram?
 
That question depends on several things, such as:

1. What games do you play?
2. Do your current games not run as well as you would like?
3. How much of a gain would you like - or - what games might you want in the near future?

Also, 512MB of RAM is not enough - 1GB is really the minimum these days. As for the system itself, that's up to you. If you were already thinking of a new build, then you should hold on the 9800 and save your money for the new system.

But, yes - the x800 will provide a nice gain (depending on the resolution you run at), but like I said, your RAM is also a limiting factor.

Time to start thinking about a new system :)

--G
 
sounds like you're about due for a full system upgrade. and perfect timing since core 2 duo is right there =).
 
It would really depend on you.... 2500+ barton can be overclocked a little more and you can hold out till a little while or you can change your motherboard and get a new PCI express system... I don't think you need must faster CPU to run 60fps in games... It's usally graphic card limited...

The guys are right.... You need at least 1 gig of ram to run games smoothly...
 
9800pro isn't a bad card, it is actually still very good, just won't render dx9 well. Depending on what you play, it might not matter. If you can afford x800xl or XT at least, then I would go for it.
 
I'm in the exact same boat as you are with a nearly identical system and I'm not buying another AGP video card. I thought about it but it doesn't make sense to me. My power supply probably isn't up to spec for the new cards. I'm not dumping money into a gig of DDR1 RAM when most (if not all) of the new boards will be DDR2 so in the end, I think it's best if I exit the AGP phase and do an overhaul. I plan to sell my current barton, NF7-S, and memory while it's still at least worth something. It may cost me a bit more now, but in the long run, I feel it's justified.
 
I was under the same dilemma recently. I was thinking about going 939, but something told me there wasn't much more life there ( Apparently, I was right ). So I bought the fastest video card for AGP, the 7800 GS. I am pleased with the performance I get right now with ANY game. I only have 17" monitors that run 1280 x 1024 so I didn't need an SLI rig as that would be extreme overkill. Anyways, if you want to wait a little while longer (as I would suggest) to build a new box, buy either an x800 series or better yet, go for the Gainward Bliss 7800 GS+ those are 24 pipeline cards that are actually 7900 gt chips! Kinda expensive though.Basically, it boils down to: get another stick of RAM and a new V-card or build a new rig.

edit: Oh yeah, I went from a EVGA 5900 SE (comparable to 9800 pro) to the 7800 GS and I saw a HUGE improvement.
 
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