Upgrading an old computer

T

Terpfen

Supreme [H]ardness
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Oct 29, 2004
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Hey all, I'm looking for a little advice.

Currently the only PC game I play is Team Fortress 2. I play it on an old Dell XPS: 2.8Ghz Pentium 4, 1GB RAM, AGP ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. I get about 25-35FPS playing @ 1280x1024.

I recently came into a little bit of money (hello, tax returns!) so I'd like to address performance on this old rig a little bit. I'm not looking to get a brand-new computer: I'd just like to improve performance in TF2. I'm definitely going to pick up an extra 1GB of RAM, but my biggest issue is with the video card. I have NOT followed PC gaming tech for the last 3-4 years; as such, I have no idea what's good and what isn't good. I'm looking for a nice AGP card in the $100-150 range that will handle whatever TF2 throws at it, particularly HDR lighting.

Does anyone have some advice to offer me in terms of video card upgrading? Is this even worth attempting, given the age of my processor?
 
Thing is, I can't justify a new computer because I play only one game. I use a laptop for general computing, and am getting a MacBook later in the year to upgrade from a 3 year old Inspiron 6000.

That X1950 is way out of my price range, too.
 
I was actually looking at that before posting this thread.

My concern is whether or not something like that Sapphire plus an extra 1GB of RAM would be worth the ~$250 I'm putting into upgrades. Would I see a solid upgrade in performance over my current setup? Would the Pentium 4 be a significant bottleneck?
 
Terpfen said:
My concern is whether or not something like that Sapphire plus an extra 1GB of RAM would be worth the ~$250 I'm putting into upgrades. Would I see a solid upgrade in performance over my current setup? Would the Pentium 4 be a significant bottleneck?
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Note the computer in my sig, it's my gaming computer. Same Dell XPS model as yours, I bet, except mine is 3.0GHz instead of 2.8GHz. I'm very glad I upgraded to the Sapphire HD 3850 512MB AGP (I had already upgraded to 2G RAM a couple years ago when Everquest 2 came out). You will notice a BIG difference with the new card and another 1G RAM. Unless you have enough money to purchase a new computer, I say get the video card and RAM.
 
AndonSage said:
Note the computer in my sig, it's my gaming computer. Same Dell XPS model as yours, I bet, except mine is 3.0GHz instead of 2.8GHz. I'm very glad I upgraded to the Sapphire HD 3850 512MB AGP (I had already upgraded to 2G RAM a couple years ago when Everquest 2 came out). You will notice a BIG difference with the new card and another 1G RAM. Unless you have enough money to purchase a new computer, I say get the video card and RAM.
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This is exactly the type of response I was looking for. Thank you. I'll buy the upgrades within the week, and will bump this thread with performance reports in case someone else has a similar question.

And yeah, I'm using the very first Dell XPS model ever made, the kind with the blue case and the silver front shield.
 
Terpfen said:
This is exactly the type of response I was looking for. Thank you. I'll buy the upgrades within the week, and will bump this thread with performance reports in case someone else has a similar question.
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Actually, we have a thread in the Video Card / ATI Flavor forum here called The HD 3850 AGP User Experience. You might want to check it out, and post there. It also has information regarding drivers... quick note, the 8.2 drivers on the CD that come with the Sapphire card work just fine. The 8.3 catalyst drivers have a bit of a problem, so read the thread if you want to upgrade to them.

Terpfen said:
And yeah, I'm using the very first Dell XPS model ever made, the kind with the blue case and the silver front shield.
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Ayup, that's the one :)
 
why not just not bother...

install parrarels or at least bootcamp on the macbook and use that...

my mate has the older 15" macbook pro, with a ati card (i forget which) and that runs COD4 at 1280x1024 fine, as well as other things such as CS:S... really much better to put the money towards a better macbook in my opinion, and considering your position...
 
Hold up, how do you feel about buying used components? It'll save you a ton of cash and you only want to TF2 so I don't see why you'd want to buy a $190 card just for that. DDR ram will also be pretty expensive if you buy it new. As for agp recommendations: Nvidia 7800 or 7950, ati x1950 pro or GT. These should all run TF2 very well with HDR.
 
soundguy said:
why not just not bother...

install parrarels or at least bootcamp on the macbook and use that...
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I'm getting the basic model MacBook with the integrated graphics. I won't be gaming at all on it, except PERHAPS some form of SNES/PSX emulation.

Furthermore, regarding the cost of the MacBook, I've already set aside the necessary money for that. It's just a matter of waiting for Apple to release a revision. Spending $250 on a PC upgrade really doesn't detract from my ability to buy a MacBook. (Spending $500+ on a new PC, though, would.)

skadebo said:
Hold up, how do you feel about buying used components? It'll save you a ton of cash and you only want to TF2 so I don't see why you'd want to buy a $190 card just for that. DDR ram will also be pretty expensive if you buy it new. As for agp recommendations: Nvidia 7800 or 7950, ati x1950 pro or GT. These should all run TF2 very well with HDR.
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Well, TF2 right now, but HL2 Ep 3 when that comes out, maybe some Supreme Commander if I ever buy it. Furthermore, I've already bought the components from Newegg, so it's a done deal. Thank you for the recommendations, but I ordered the 3850 and 2GB of RAM yesterday morning.

And I consider $190 a steal considering what video cards were going for a few months ago...
 
Bumping this thread with an experience update and a question.

I've been running my 2GB of RAM and 3850 for a couple of weeks now, and I'm pretty satisfied with its performance. It's a big upgrade from 1GB/9800, and Team Fortress 2 truly is a gorgeous game with settings turned up.

Maybe I'm getting the upgrade bug, though, but I'm starting to think I did the wrong thing. I'm wondering if I shouldn't have just gone through with a full-on upgrade to a Vista 64-bit system. The upgrade I just spent $280 on is little more than a stopgap, and I suspect in a year my system will be seriously CPU-limited. (Plain old DDR isn't exactly friendly to modern games either.)

I wonder if Newegg will accept a return and forward the $280 as credit towards a new purchase.
 
They will probably charge you a restocking fee. Your $280 upgrade was spot-on for what you needed to do. You are right, a year from now you will be running into similar problems with new games. So, sometime next year would be a good time for a brand spanking new machine :)

The fact that you're running games in 1280x1024 gives your machine some extra juice as well.
 
GigaByte GeForce 9600 GT GV-NX96T512HP,GDDR3, PCI Express x16, 512MB

Based on the new G94 chip this passive cooled card is quiet in your rig and the price must be reasonable.
 
Good point...mmm...

Well there are still allotof GPUs around with AGP that's the good side.

Maybe have a look at the 8800GS (GTS 0r GT) if the budget allows or otherwise the 8600 series.

Maybe the ATI HD 3870, HD 3850 or the X1650 XT depending on the budget?
 
Youri Carma said:
Good point...mmm...

Well there are still allotof GPUs around with AGP that's the good side.

Maybe have a look at the 8800GTS (GT) if the budget allows or otherwise the 8600 series.
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There are no Geforce 8 series AGP cards. The one he ended up getting is the best he can get for his system.
 
Instead of getting a Mac lappy, and instead of upgrading your current desktop... Snag a Dell/Toshiba/Whatever laptop that has a decent GPU/CPU/Ram and play games on that. Hell, it may even be cheaper than the Mac you are looking at, and even cheaper still since you aren't upgrading your PC.

Mobile gaming is FUN FUN FUN!
 
naid said:
They will probably charge you a restocking fee. Your $280 upgrade was spot-on for what you needed to do. You are right, a year from now you will be running into similar problems with new games. So, sometime next year would be a good time for a brand spanking new machine :)

The fact that you're running games in 1280x1024 gives your machine some extra juice as well.
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I won't even have access to this machine next year, so I won't really be bothering with it again until 2010. When you put it that way, it makes me think I can wait until then and then build an entirely new computer with the technology available then.
 
Shambler said:
Instead of getting a Mac lappy, and instead of upgrading your current desktop... Snag a Dell/Toshiba/Whatever laptop that has a decent GPU/CPU/Ram and play games on that. Hell, it may even be cheaper than the Mac you are looking at, and even cheaper still since you aren't upgrading your PC.

Mobile gaming is FUN FUN FUN!
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The upgrade already occurred, and I bought my current laptop with an eye towards gaming. No thanks. The most taxing form of mobile gaming I'll ever do again is PSOne emulation.
 
Terpfen said:
When you put it that way, it makes me think I can wait until then and then build an entirely new computer with the technology available then.
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Which is the point in getting the extra RAM and HD 3850 AGP video card in the first place :) By the time you need a new computer, you'll have all that time to save up, and can get a bleeding edge Nehalem architecture computer.
 
AndonSage said:
Which is the point in getting the extra RAM and HD 3850 AGP video card in the first place :) By the time you need a new computer, you'll have all that time to save up, and can get a bleeding edge Nehalem architecture computer.
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I certainly hope so. I've never had a top-of-the-line rig: I've always sort of halfassed things due to a lack of funding. I'm hoping this changes.

A Vista Home Premium 64-bit system with luxuries like twin VelociRaptor drives and some Crossfire cars would be nice...
 
Wow the 3850 AGP is much cheaper than I remember is being. Wasn't it used to be $230?
 
AndonSage said:
Depending on where you bought it, it could be. I got mine at ewiz.com for $211, IIRC.
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No, newegg a couple months ago had that thing for $220-230... It almost made people want to get a socket 775 board and a PCIe card.
 
nice that isn't going to go down in price either....once AGP dies completely that is going to be the absolute best card you can get and will probably jump in value.

I want one to fold with.
 
Still $180 at Newegg. Go ahead and grab one if you can. I'm very satisfied with it, especially the small features--like monitor color profiles. (My monitor is shit, but hey.)
 
stevedave said:
nice that isn't going to go down in price either....once AGP dies completely that is going to be the absolute best card you can get and will probably jump in value.

I want one to fold with.
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I seem to remember that folding won't work with AGP cards. I could be wrong though.
 
Terpfen said:
I certainly hope so. I've never had a top-of-the-line rig: I've always sort of halfassed things due to a lack of funding. I'm hoping this changes.

A Vista Home Premium 64-bit system with luxuries like twin VelociRaptor drives and some Crossfire cars would be nice...
Click to expand...
I think you shouldn't be pittyfull about the P4P800 it runs very smooth on that one amazing core.
Most proggies won't even utilise more!
I run a two core but rather prefer a faster single one to be honest.
Only if the software geeks match up the hardware I can be happy with more than one core.
 
Youri Carma said:
I think you shouldn't be pittyfull about the P4P800 it runs very smooth on that one amazing core.
Most proggies won't even utilise more!
I run a two core but rather prefer a faster single one to be honest.
Only if the software geeks match up the hardware I can be happy with more than one core.
Click to expand...

That makes me feel a little better about sticking with this rig for a while longer.

It looks like 2010 will be my big upgrade year.
 
It's too bad you already upgraded, $280 is kind of steep to keep and older system running. I was contemplating doing the same thing but just ended up getting all new components except for a used video card. e2160, ds3l, 1900xtx, and 2 gigs adata ddr2-800 for $315, so not much more than you paid. Don't have TF2 though so can't tell you how it performs, but I have cs source and I average around 150-180 fps everything maxed 1024 X 768.
 
Well, it doesn't matter if it's old as far as it performs reasonably well for the tastes, I know that my Platform is over 4 years old, my CPU is 3 years old technology, but still performing great, and since I hit a bottleneck with my CPU with this videocard, this will be my last upgrade, in Crysis and other benchmarks my score almost doubled, but in other games like Assassin Creed, the FPS barely increased, I just hope to be able to find a CPU with the same thermal envelope and low heat dissipation like this little CPU when I upgrade, still having nightmares with the TDP and Heat dissipation of my P4 EE @ 3.4GHz loll (109W)
 
evolucion8 said:
Well, it doesn't matter if it's old as far as it performs reasonably well for the tastes, I know that my Platform is over 4 years old, my CPU is 3 years old technology, but still performing great, and since I hit a bottleneck with my CPU with this videocard, this will be my last upgrade, in Crysis and other benchmarks my score almost doubled, but in other games like Assassin Creed, the FPS barely increased, I just hope to be able to find a CPU with the same thermal envelope and low heat dissipation like this little CPU when I upgrade, still having nightmares with the TDP and Heat dissipation of my P4 EE @ 3.4GHz loll (109W)
Click to expand...

Well, most of the Core 2's have a TDP of 65 watts.
 
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