Another "Rate my Build"

[kungfu1]

Hi There,

Im looking to make some upgrades soon. I was looking for some input from you all here.

Here is my current rig:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Winchester)
Socket 939
1GB Corsair PC3200 DDR Dual Channel (4 dimms total)
Abit AN8 Ultra Series(NF-CK804) Mobo
NVIDIA nForce4 rev. A3
ATI Raedeon X1900 GT 512mb PCIx graphics card

Id like to go core 2 duo, but the price drop on the AMD's is fantastic. Here's what I was looking at for upgrades:

ASUS M2N-E ATX AM2 Nforce 570 Ultra PCI-E16 PCI-E4 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA RAID Sound GBLAN ($125)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Dual Core Processor Socket AM2 Brisbane 1.9GHZ 2X512KB 65NM 65W Retail ($95)
Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC5400 DDR2-667 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel ($169)

(Free 512mb memory key with purchase)

$390 before tax from NCIX (Im in canada)


The big question: Would this upgrade be worth my money? Is going with AM2 worth it? I dont want to go from one dead arcatecture (939) to another (AM2).

Here's what i use my PC for: World of Warcraft, Misc games, Movies (24 inch LCD). I recently got into Supreme Commander and that game is pretty hardware intensive... Id like to play the latest games out there.

Second question: Is my current setup bottlenecking my GPU?

Any opinions are welcome. I wouldnt be adverse to overclocking my existing system, and maybe looking at getting 2gb of ram for it, thought id have to go with 2x1gb as my slots are full. 2gb of normal ddr pc3200 is alot of money and seems like a waste to me.

Thanks!

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: kungfu1
"Rate my Build"

Thanks!

Nice try, but...
3.75 out of 10.

 

[kungfu1]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: kungfu1
"Rate my Build"

Thanks!

Nice try, but...
3.75 out of 10.

I was seeking constructive input. This may not be a heavy upgrade, just something to get me current without having to spend alot of money.

 

[kungfu1]

any input here? I should have been more clear. I realise this isnt much of an "upgrade" aside from the 2gb. I was just considering getting myself more up to date. For games like WoW, 2gb makes a big difference, but im not so keen on spending $220 bucks for 2gb of PC3200 ram when its obsolete in any new system i build.

thanks.

 

[oynaz]

That is a lot of money for a very small performance boost. Why not try selling your old 4 RAM sticks, and use the money to buy 2x1 gig sticks?

 

[Boyo]

I just don't think it's worth the money. You'll perform faster on a C2D system and it won't be that much more expensive. And definitely go with the 2x1GB of RAM.

 

[Icepick]

The upgrade you have selected won't give you much of a performance boost for the money. Games are single threaded so the dual core CPU won't add any benefit. Switching from a single core A64 @ 2.0GHz to a dual core A64 X2 at 1.9GHz will NOT give you better performance. You're better off saving money and switching platforms to core2duo or waiting to see what AMD comes out with in a few months.

 

[Elias824]

Id at least go for am2 its not really much more expensive it actually may even be cheaper. a gig of ram is enough for basic gaming but 2 would be nice for supreme commander. id probably get a dual core too the x2 3600+ is only a few dollars more and having a dual core make a HUGE difference in supreme commander. you may want to wait till next month when the ati dx10 cards come out to get a new video card. the 3600+ will oc pretty well to if you maybe want to go a little faster. As far as graphics go your always bottlenecked by the GPU for gaming no matter how fast it is. I think its still worth going dual core as you start to see more mutli-threaded games come out it will make a big diffrence. going from a 2.6ghz singe core athlon to a 1.8 ghz core 2 made a massive difference in supreme commander for me

 

[kungfu1]

Thanks all. Some reccomended I go up to 2gb of ram, which I would love to do. But heres the problem. I dont really like buying "cheap" ram, as I do overclock slightly, my corsair has been good to me. The second problem is 2gb of pc3200 would cost me somewhere around $230 CDN from a place like NCIX. And thats just DDR1.. itd be useless if i were to build a core 2 duo or AM2 system in the future. So its $230 for 2gb of ram or $390 for an entirely new dual core processor, mobo, and ram that i CAN use in a system down the road.

Thanks for the input.

 

[jgar]

buy cheap ram, put money towards processor. If you can overclock with the cheap ram then great, if you can't you're still faster than you would be stock.

 

[Elias824]

Ram is easy to upgrade a cpu and motherboard is not, cheap ream is really not that bad even ocing the ram really dosent make much of a diffrence for new c2d or am2 systems. Cheap ram really dosent limit your oc that much unless you plan on hitting 3ghz or something high like that

 

[stevty2889]

Supreme Commander deffinatly runs better with a dual core and 2 gig of ram, it's usualy more cpu/ram limited than graphics card limited unless you had a really old video card. It's still better to have 2 gig of slower ram, than 1 gig of faster ram, a lot of games will use more than a gig of ram these days.

 

[Elias824]

Just sell your car and buy a really nice computer! Seems like the debate is what is better more ram or a faster cpu?