The $500 Upgrade

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PokySharpy

n00b
Joined
Dec 26, 2004
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The pains of being an adult gamer with a mortgage...

It's well past time to upgrade my warhorse, an Athlon XP 2400+ / 768MB / Radeon 9800 Pro. I have between $500-600 to spend. I am seriously considering purchasing the hardware recommended in the Holiday Guide for a $500 AMD system. To refresh your memory:

Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 939
Asus A8N-E
GeForce 6600 GT 128MB
1GB Corsair DDR PC3200



I play mostly World of Warcraft, which my current system can handle fine. However, I would like to play Quake 4, F.E.A.R., Call of Duty 2, and other games that make my computer beg for its life. I don't want to turn it down to 640x480 shitty image quality to eke out 30fps and make the game playable.

So, would the $500 upgrade be worthwhile to handle my gaming desires? Would I have an adequate experience with the current and next wave of games? I don't need 1280x1024 with everything cranked to 8x, but I would like to run 1280x1024 or 1024x768, maybe 2xAF, at a decent framerate.

Seems to me just a few years ago $500 used to buy you a lot more power relative to the top-of-the-line, and looking at what it gets me now is kind of disheartening. I mean, all this brand new hardware looks to me like a LOW END gaming system! It's depressing! But it's all I can afford... =(

Will I be happy with this setup? Or should I just give up trying to keep up on the PC and switch to the Xbox360? I seek your expertise, wise ones.
 
hm 9800pro to a 6600gt wouldnt be too much of an improvement to be honest, heres wut i would do:

7800gt 284
mobo asrock 939 70
ram g skill value 1gb 70
proc venice 3000 140

comes out around $560 the hardest part would be finding a venice for a reasonable price since they range from $120-200 in newegg the venice 3000 goes for more than the 3200 lol

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103537&ATT=19-103-537&CMP=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535

:confused:
 
xdkimx said:
hm 9800pro to a 6600gt wouldnt be too much of an improvement to be honest
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was thinking, and that's what's making me depressed. It's almost like I'm screwed unless I have $1000 to spend, which I don't.
 
Keep your 3 sticks of PC2100. Just get another 256 stick of PC2700 or higher. I don't think the performance hit you'd get from running the lower mem speed would be that bad. Your money would likely be better spent elsewhere with this budget.

Now, considering that your PSU isn't likely up to snuff, the money saved on ram should go into that.

XCLIO XClio 450BL ATX 450W $48
- recommended on the PSU forum sticky, should do well for your setup
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16817189003

The asus is a good mobo, but you'll save ~$30 by going with this:
Chaintech VNF4 $68
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813152053

I haven't used this board, so I can't vouch for it. But from what i've read it seems like a good cheap overclocker. You should research it. Just make sure it has a 100MHz ram divider, you'll need it.

You'll probably want the CPU with the highest possible multiplier for this setup, so a 3200 or higher would be good.
A64 3200 $162
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535

And a 6800GS would be a good fit for you. A 7800GT would be tits, but it'd eat more than half your budget.
A random 6800GS at newegg $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814125218

Total comes up to $478. That gives another $22 for the last stick of 256MB ram, which can be found easily enough on newegg.

EDIT: Damn, just realized the budget goes up to $600 not 500, well this affords a ram upgrade on my setup, 2x512MB of whatever, and the asus board could be used as well. Though a 7800GT becomes an option keeping everything else the same as above, and you'd probably get more performance by throwing that in instead of the 6800GS.
 
Nice suggestions, guys. And I actually have a decent Antec PSU that came with my existing Sonata case (which I will continue to use).

Time to dig around some more. Maybe I can find some change in the couch to scrape together enough for a meaningful upgrade...

If anyone has any more suggestions, please keep them coming. You guys are great. =)
 
PokySharpy said:
Nice suggestions, guys. And I actually have a decent Antec PSU that came with my existing Sonata case (which I will continue to use).

Time to dig around some more. Maybe I can find some change in the couch to scrape together enough for a meaningful upgrade...

If anyone has any more suggestions, please keep them coming. You guys are great. =)
Click to expand...

The main reason we recommend a PSU upgrade is because there was a recent change to the ATX spec, and the main ATX connector is now 24 pins instead of 20.
 
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