• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Upgrade options

P

Planenutok

n00b
Joined
Mar 4, 2006
Messages
34
I have some money coming my way and was thinking of upgrading my comp. I will have approx. $1000 to spend. I currently have 2 6600GTs SLI and was thinking of moving to a single 78or7900 series card. I am also considering Dual core proc. What would you upgrade if you had my system in sig and 1000 bucks??? all input greatly appreciated
 
hmmm... if I had your specs?

get the 7900GT = $280
buy a 24" widescreen = ~ $700

everything else is up to par, or invest the money.
15% interest on a decent mutual fund is $150 interest in a year.

or play some stocks. hehe.
 
get 7900gt - $280
opty 165 - $300
Sell the 3700 and even save more $$ but just my 2cents.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I play a lot of bf2, a little oblivion, and msfs2004 from time to time. I listen to quite a bit of music. How much would a sound card help my performance? Is the opty 165 a good stable proc. im thinking dual core is the way to go. What is a good brand of 7900gt. which ones should i avoid. Thanks. Brian
 
Logitech Z5500's <drool> I absolutely LOVE mine. Maybe a X2 4800+ ? But honestly your system isn't far off, I guess if the $ was burning a whole in my pocket and I had your setup I'd buy the Z5500's and a 7900GTX.
 
Planenutok said:
Thanks for all the suggestions. I play a lot of bf2, a little oblivion, and msfs2004 from time to time. I listen to quite a bit of music. How much would a sound card help my performance? Is the opty 165 a good stable proc. im thinking dual core is the way to go. What is a good brand of 7900gt. which ones should i avoid. Thanks. Brian
Click to expand...
If you're using onboard audio right now, I'm guessing going to a discrete sound card will net you about a 2-3% increase in frames, at most. But I was only asking to see if you wanted a sound system a little more accurate, in case you're a music lover.

If so, take a look at

this post and see if any of those options interest you. Honestly, it doesn't make sense that people spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on stuff that keeps depreciating - stuff like the monitor and speakers last for such a long time, it's a good idea to spend as much as you can on them, since you can move them over to your next rig. The monitor might later be upgraded, but a great sound system will never have to be.

As for the performance side of things, let's take a look at MS FS2004 first. At your favorite/desired settings, are the frame rates fast enough for an enjoyable experience? If not, you'll be looking into a CPU upgrade since flight simulators tend to be CPU-bound.

Your rig should be running BF2 just fine.

Regarding Oblivion - as of now, it runs best on ATI hardware. Why is that? The X1800XT delivers higher minimum and average frame rates than the 7900GT at 1280x1024 /w HDR enabled. The X1900XT beats out SLIed 7900GT cards. Reference. The 3700+ is fast enough that it certainly will not be the bottleneck in Oblivion, although with an X1900XT or faster, you might gain a few frames by OCing to 2.4GHz or 2.6GHz. I would probably go with the X1900XT over the X1800XT because the average outdoor FPS (re: reference) is ~30 vs the 23FPS of the X1800XT. The X1900XTX is not worth the price premium, because it's the same as the X1900XT, just clocked slightly higher.

However, before you start spending money on the video card, what monitor do you have? If it's a 17", I would definitely upgrade that to a 19" or larger first.
 
"everything else is up to par, or invest the money.
15% interest on a decent mutual fund is $150 interest in a year.

or play some stocks. hehe."

The stock market/mutual funds are far from guaranteed 15% return and don't forget to take away fees and the lost money that can occur from playing with stocks

Assuming that you're on a 939 platform, then get rid of the 6600GT's promptly as they were a waste of money and suck even in SLI. Buy a used 7800GT that you can probably find for under 200 now and get a faster 939 chip. That shouldn't even run you a net of $500.
 
Well, i would get like an X1800XT just because of all the 79xx problems that seem to be going around, better safe than sorry. Then i would move to EITHER an X2 3800+ or an Opteron 165 . I'd say if you want to over clock and clock a lot then get the Opty. 165 (stock is 1.8 but most clock to somewhere between 2.4-2.8 GHz on air cooling) but if you dont want to OC or maybe OC just a smaller amout, then id say go for the x2 3800+. Next id either go for speakers, sound card, or monitor, and probly monitor first for me, the Dell 2007 20.1 inch widescreen is on sale right now, $100 off, and thats nice. So thats just my 2cents.
Hope you get want you want! ;)
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I currently have a 24 in widescreen so i dont really need a new screen. I have been poking around the egg and pricing a few options. Im thinking of going with a new mobo the asus A8N5X $79, X1800XT $300, and a amd 3800 X2 $300 then selling my old mobo, cpu, and vid cards to my brother. he said that he would pay 200 for the setup so ill only end up paying 479 for the mobo, cpu, and new gpu unless i can squeeze some more money out of him. Is the mobo and vid card i listed a good setup together? Is there any other mobos that would work? Thanks in advance.. Brian
 
Planenutok said:
Thanks for all the suggestions. I currently have a 24 in widescreen so i dont really need a new screen. I have been poking around the egg and pricing a few options. Im thinking of going with a new mobo the asus A8N5X $79, X1800XT $300, and a amd 3800 X2 $300 then selling my old mobo, cpu, and vid cards to my brother. he said that he would pay 200 for the setup so ill only end up paying 479 for the mobo, cpu, and new gpu unless i can squeeze some more money out of him. Is the mobo and vid card i listed a good setup together? Is there any other mobos that would work? Thanks in advance.. Brian
Click to expand...
You could, but you don't really get any increase in performance in Oblivion than if you'd just gotten the X1800XT.
 
i would get:
2 1900xt for 800
Asus A8N32 maybe? for 195
minus the 200 or so from selling old crap
grand total of 800
and the next time u get around 300, go dual-core.
 
I have decided to hold off until the new amd and conroe come out. Save my money for now and build a better rig ready for vista next year. My current rig should hold up until then. Hopefully buy the time i build more apps and games will better utilize dual core and the prices fall a little. Thanks for the input I will be around the forums researching new products. Thanks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top