upgrade suggestions

J

jay1227

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 20, 2005
Messages
305
Im looking to upgrade a few components in my current system. IM usually trailing behind in the newest technology but Im trying to catch up this time.

Ill be keeping a few components I already have such as Antec Case, SilenX 450w PSU, HDs, AMD A64 3000+ Venice,etc.

Im not sure about the memory because it has loose timings but im not sure if it will make a difference to get some tighter timing ram. I currently have 2x512mb of PNY Optima DDR400 (3-4-4-8) but am looking to get some PQI Turbo 2x512mb DDR 400 (2.5-3-3-7). Would that help? I play games and may overclock mildly but nothing crazy.

As for the rest of the upgrade:

Biostar TForce6100-939 Motherboard $75 (newegg)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813138264

PNY GeForce 7800 GT $279 (tigerdirect)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...P56-7808&CMP=EMC-TIGEREMAIL&SRCCODE=WEM1013AM

Any suggestions on the components i chose?
 
First thing I would do is get better Ram. AMD procs love low latency ram and will run much faster when paired with some nice 2-2-2 or something close to it.

For the MB, I would go ABIT, DFI, or Gigabyte. I'm not familiar with Biostar so I personally wouldn't trust it, especially if you want to do any OCing at all.

And for the vid card, get the best you can afford.
 
don't bother getting low latency ram for an a64.. it doesnt' really matter.. it only make a big difference with socket A...

go for 2x1gb, no sense in upgrading 2x512 for a 3% performance increase.. just double your ram instead..
 
First thing I would do is get better Ram. AMD procs love low latency ram and will run much faster when paired with some nice 2-2-2 or something close to it.
Click to expand...

not totally false but not that great of a performance increase, see the memory forum or one of the many posts in this section about OCing the A64 by (cf)Eclipse.

Personally I would stick with the ram you got, no point in sinking money into more ram when m2+DDR2 is just around the corner.

with the money you save there you can get a better brand of vid card (evga, bfg) with lifetime warranty... i know you won't have it forever but it helps resale and it's nice to buy from a company with good rma policies.

as far as boards i've heard good things about the new dfi sli super whatever deluxe. it's got sli options for the future and has space between the slots to fit larger coolers for the cards.

just my $.02
 
I honestly dont need bells and whistles. I like the Biostar for its price, it got great reviews, alot of SFF people rave about it, and its PCI-E which I want to move to.

Im not going SLI, im not that into gaming and i doubt i will be anytime soon. I want to avoid spending a bunch of cash on something that i wont notice the difference in.

Im playing HL2/CSS, BF2, CoD2(soon), Dungeon Siege 2, NBA Live

So agan, my biggest question is regarding the quality of the TForce series, and if it is work the $75 to get faster/tighter timing RAM, or upgrade to $180 1gbX2 with OK timings... again is it worth it?
 
I think the 2x1GB will last longer in terms of "futureproofness". Even with slightly worse timings, you'll only lose a few FPS in your games ;).

In mATX, I haven't seen a better board than the TForce one. The Asus doesn't seem to overclock very well :(.

If you're going ATX, I'd look at the Chaintech VNF4/Ultra.
 
The motherboard is fine. If you're not serious about gaming, then it's not worth the upgrade of RAM. I have 512 MB and it runs Quake 4, Call of Duty 2 just fine. I would reckon that BF2 would need more.

-J.
 
Yeah that's a nice card. 460/1.1 is nice...just watch out though. It gets very hot at those temps, but you can't beat it for $299.
 
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