What would you do?

B

baja150

n00b
Joined
Jan 10, 2005
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Hello to all. This is my fist post here.

Here's my situation. I'm an old school Doom 1 & 2 guy and just played Doom 3 on a machine at Best Buy and would like to upgrade to play it on my own system. I d/l the demo and on a 1-10 I think it plays at about a 3 on my current setup, but I haven't played it on anything really great either.

My current setup is a Soyo KT400 Platinum, AMD XP 3000+ (highest CPU for the MB), Corsair 512 DDR400 x 2, and Radeon 8500. I know for sure the vid card has got to go.

I'm thinking about doing 2 things:

1) Keep my current rig and just upgrade the video card to an AGP 6800GT or Ultra.

or

2) Upgrade to an Asus A8N-SLI. If I do this I'll have to stick with a single 6600GT and maybe even a 3000+ AMD 64 CPU to start with due to $$$. Then later on down the line (like Christmas) I can upgrade with another 6600GT and faster 939 CPU.

What would you do?
 
I'd upgrade to a 6600GT or 6800nu. Both would work great with what you've got and not be bottlenecked really. 6800GT or ultra would be overkill without a system upgrade. I would say your system could then play Doom 3 at about a 8 on a 1-10.
Good enough for all but the most picky of people. 1024x768 or 1024x1280 high quality and some aa/af.
 
Definately a 6600gt or 6800vanilla will be sufficient to play everything atm.....the rest of your system although not cutting edge is still only one generation back and with games being more gpu intensive than cpu....the vid upgrade will do you for a while without breaking the bank:)
 
Do what nvidia intended you to do, buy a SLI motherboard and run one 6600GT, and when games get a little slow... see what's available and then choose between another 6600GT or upgrade to an ultra :)
 
Getting a 6800nu or gt would definately help out your current situation, however:


ScHpAnKy said:
Do what nvidia intended you to do, buy a SLI motherboard and run one 6600GT, and when games get a little slow... see what's available and then choose between another 6600GT or upgrade to an ultra :)
Click to expand...


This sounds like the right option to me. Your gonna have to upgrade your whole rig sooner or later, now is not a bad time. The 939 platform and sli will give you tons of options and should keep you gamming for quite awhile.
 
i'd say get the new gfx card and stick with the rest of your Old Reliable. it's not the best or the fastest... but it's stable.

and welcome to [H] since nobody's said it yet.
 
Same advice here, your current system is good enough so just upgrade your video card for now. Wait for the newer hardware to come down in price before you do a full system upgrade.
 
Personally, I would stick with the setup you have and get a 6800GT. Your computer is still decent and you will get better performance than upgrading to a whole new platform with only a 6600. Save yourself the bucks and just upgrade your video card.
 
Thanks for the help guys and thanks for the welcome starhawk.

I think I'm going to stick with my "old reliable" system and just upgrade to a 6600GT or 6800Vanilla. If SLI had been out for 3-4 more months I may upgrade the whole system, but I don't feel comfortable upgrading to something so new and paying top dollar.

Maybe in about 9-12 months I'll upgrade to a SLI system. In the past I've always upgraded to the latest and greatest, but I find that it's kind of a waste unless your a huge gamer, which I am not.

Thanks again for the help guys.
 
I agree, stay with the current system, and spend $200 on a half decent vid card and have fun!!! :D

QJ
 
I'm with the majority opinion as well. It seems like a shame to completely ditch what is a perfectly respectable system. Get a 6600GT or 6800nu which will give you 7 and 8 out of 10 respectively in Doom3. Either card will keep you happy for a year or more, by which time you can get a whole new system if you're still enthusiastic.
 
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