Ok, so I need to upgrade my computer as it is about 3 years old. My current proccesor is an AMD Sempron 3400+ on a Socket 939. My graphics card is an ATI Radeon XPRESS 200. My monitor is a 19" and has a native resolution of 1280x1024 at 60Hz.
I need to decide what to upgrade on my computer and I want it to be a bang for your buck upgrade. I can spend a good amount of money but I don't want to throw a figure around as to keep the "bang buckiness" the main focus 🙂 What I mean for bang for your buck, I don't want like "the best bang for your buck item" but it only gets you like 5 fps, I guess a um... performance bang for your buck? I am willing to sacrifice 5 frames for a significant savings in money. I want to be able to max or play at high settings on most games, I'm really tired of all of this low quality eye black-licorice. (opposite of candy 😛)
For graphics cards, I have been noticing the Geforce 8800GT, the Geforce GTX 260, and the HD 4800 series, (and maybe the new 4770 one). I just think that these cards are pretty good, I know next to nothing about Nvidia's 9xxx line, so feel free to bring those in.
Will my processor bottleneck these cards? And if so, which ones and by how much in terms of frames per second (as good a guess as you can get) or you can use another measurement method if you like. From my information, cpu's aren't THAT important for gaming, all I'm doing is gaming, no video decoding or photoshop for me =) So I think that I can just get a graphics card and be happy with it, but feel free to correct my ignorance.
Also are these cards to powerful for my monitors resolution, as in paying a big sum of money to go from an already super high frame count to an absurdly high one? I don't need the most frames I can get, just enough or alot to get a good gameplay feel.
I want to be able to max or close to max most games, but I don't want to spend money needlessly on a more powerful card if I don't need it.
If I don't need these cards then which ones do you guys reccomend that I should get?
Also, if my processor does bottleneck these cards by a SIGNIFICANT amount, if its only by like 5 frames then I will keep my current processor thank you very much =), which processor should I upgrade to?
I am thinking that I would like to go to duals or maybe tri's, but certainly not quads, all I do on my computer is gaming, I don't do any video editing or photoshop or anything like that, so I'm guessing that duals are the way to go? I was thinking about the E8400, but is that overkill? Is there another processor that is cheaper and will get the bottleneck out of the way?
I am pretty sure that I need to upgrade my PSU (which is at 250W right now) and my motherboard because I have the Socket 939 (old)
Please help me, I have like 150 tabs open on information on research I am doing on the subject, I am drowning in information, please send a PFD my way and please help me =(
I need to decide what to upgrade on my computer and I want it to be a bang for your buck upgrade. I can spend a good amount of money but I don't want to throw a figure around as to keep the "bang buckiness" the main focus 🙂 What I mean for bang for your buck, I don't want like "the best bang for your buck item" but it only gets you like 5 fps, I guess a um... performance bang for your buck? I am willing to sacrifice 5 frames for a significant savings in money. I want to be able to max or play at high settings on most games, I'm really tired of all of this low quality eye black-licorice. (opposite of candy 😛)
For graphics cards, I have been noticing the Geforce 8800GT, the Geforce GTX 260, and the HD 4800 series, (and maybe the new 4770 one). I just think that these cards are pretty good, I know next to nothing about Nvidia's 9xxx line, so feel free to bring those in.
Will my processor bottleneck these cards? And if so, which ones and by how much in terms of frames per second (as good a guess as you can get) or you can use another measurement method if you like. From my information, cpu's aren't THAT important for gaming, all I'm doing is gaming, no video decoding or photoshop for me =) So I think that I can just get a graphics card and be happy with it, but feel free to correct my ignorance.
Also are these cards to powerful for my monitors resolution, as in paying a big sum of money to go from an already super high frame count to an absurdly high one? I don't need the most frames I can get, just enough or alot to get a good gameplay feel.
I want to be able to max or close to max most games, but I don't want to spend money needlessly on a more powerful card if I don't need it.
If I don't need these cards then which ones do you guys reccomend that I should get?
Also, if my processor does bottleneck these cards by a SIGNIFICANT amount, if its only by like 5 frames then I will keep my current processor thank you very much =), which processor should I upgrade to?
I am thinking that I would like to go to duals or maybe tri's, but certainly not quads, all I do on my computer is gaming, I don't do any video editing or photoshop or anything like that, so I'm guessing that duals are the way to go? I was thinking about the E8400, but is that overkill? Is there another processor that is cheaper and will get the bottleneck out of the way?
I am pretty sure that I need to upgrade my PSU (which is at 250W right now) and my motherboard because I have the Socket 939 (old)
Please help me, I have like 150 tabs open on information on research I am doing on the subject, I am drowning in information, please send a PFD my way and please help me =(
