250 to burn

[elsomo]

i have a SB51G
in it,

1.7 ghz pentium 4 400 mhz
2*512 2700 ddr kingston ram
160 gb hd
ati radeon 9000 pro II by gigabyte
Pioneer slot-in dvd-rom

so, i have this 250 dollars (USD) and i was wondering what should i get?

a new 533 mhz 2.4 pentium 4 or a new video card to play HL2 and DOOM 3.

for now this is a school/CS rig the 9000 runs it fine.

any suggestions? im thinking for a new video card, sell the old video card, sell the pentium 4 and use the money on the sold items for the new processor... but what should i buy first the video card or the processor?

 

[bradolson]

neither. get a dvd burner and some blanks for backing up that 160gb hard drive

Brad

 

[Regs]

I thought the SB51G was a Intel integrated GPU chipset ?

 

[Intelman07]

Personally I would updated the CPU but only to a C processor with 800mhz front side bus. I am not sure your motherboard supports it.

 

[Corporate Thug]

i'd get a 9800. the cpu is a bottle neck but when u have money to upgrade, the 9800 will still not be outdated.


doo3/hl2 will run better with a 1.7 ghz pentium 4 400 mhz and a 9800 rather than a 2.4 533 and a radeon 9000

 

[beatle]

You could sell the mb/cpu/video and pickup a barton 2500 + NF7 for ~$180 and a pretty decent video card (depending on how much you get for your old hardware.) I don't like having lopsided hardware. I bought a Ti4200 while I still had my tbird @ 1266. Games still ran dog slow until I upgraded my cpu/mb/ram. I could run higher resolutions without slowing down anymore, but things were already too slow.

 

[sandorski]

Tough call. Both the cpu and vidcard are likely to become an issue with HL2, vidcard would likely be more important though(especially with that 9000). Unless you can scrape together another $250ish in a couple months, go for vidcard(best Radeon9800 or GeForce 5900 you can(don't know US prices for either, but I suspect the 5900's are more than $250 and not worth more than 9800s)). All MO though.

 

[Sid59]

is that CPU oc'ed? if not, try and utilize that PC2700 and oc to 533 (133) or higher.

id toss that card out and get a better one.

 

[modedepe]

I agree with beatle on upgrading to a 2500+, nf7, and then getting the best video card you can with the remainder of your money (maybe a 9600 pro). I don't see much point in just upgrading one item, such as a video card, which would leave a large bottleneck and prevent you from getting the most out of your upgraded items.

 

[Regs]

The bottleneck for HL and D3 would be his video card at the most part now.

 

[amdskip]

Originally posted by: modedepe
I agree with beatle on upgrading to a 2500+, nf7, and then getting the best video card you can with the remainder of your money (maybe a 9600 pro). I don't see much point in just upgrading one item, such as a video card, which would leave a large bottleneck and prevent you from getting the most out of your upgraded items.

I'm all up for this idea too but he has a shuttle box so selling just the mobo, etc. isn't really possible. pic of what he is using

 

[isekii]

Originally posted by: amdskip

Originally posted by: modedepe
I agree with beatle on upgrading to a 2500+, nf7, and then getting the best video card you can with the remainder of your money (maybe a 9600 pro). I don't see much point in just upgrading one item, such as a video card, which would leave a large bottleneck and prevent you from getting the most out of your upgraded items.

I'm all up for this idea too but he has a shuttle box so selling just the mobo, etc. isn't really possible. pic of what he is using

if he wants to go AMD, he'll have to swap everything and swap it for a SN41g or a SN41G2 <~~ that's what I have running 😉 for my bro.