Bah, what a bad time to upgrade

[VegasD]

So, I'm getting 12 frames per second playing Battlefield Vietnam with the following rig:

TI4600
768MB RAM
Audigy 2
40gig HD
1.9 P4

I'd love to upgrade, but from the sound of things the following are "just around the corner" which could mean months:

PCI Express
NV40 new cards
DDRII ? (new memory)
Pentium 5?

Does anyone have an educated guess as to when this stuff will be out? I'd really hate to build an entire new PC, and then have to turn around and do it all again in 6 months thanks to new motherboard requirements and such. I also hate to play a game that runs like poo poo when I have the $$ to fix it. /sigh

 

[nick1985]

the right time to build is always now.

 

[VegasD]

the right time to build is always now.

I don't really see how. I mean, I realize that the top of the line stuff that is out now will be priced fairly well....but what happens in 6 months when I want a new video card? No dice since my MOBO won't have PCIExpress. Pentium 5 chip? Need new MOBO...new memory.

What if I want DDRII? Waste of $$ b/c the current MOBO won't support it.

It seems like if I build now I'm basically building a throw away machine. Am I wrong?

 

[stat1c]

thats just life when it comes to hardware there will always be a new chipset/processor/technology just around the corner. I just ordered a bunch of new stuff and I'm sure it will be obsolete in a year, but I'm sure gonna enjoy it while it's not.

 

[dexvx]

I suggest optimizing the software on your current system. No way thats pulling in 12 fps.

 

[VegasD]

I suggest optimizing the software on your current system. No way thats pulling in 12 fps.

It seems awfully low, but I'm not sure what type of optimizing I can really do. I'm running the most recent NVIDIA drivers with as few things in the background as possible.

 

[AIWGuru]

Something's wrong. That should be doing way better.

 

[apoppin]

First of all, something may be "wrong" with your system? Check it out thoroughly. You muight consider also Overclocking to get more "free" performance (and turn down the "settings" in BFV).

Finally it is a WONDERFUL time to UPgrade (it's so cheap and has NEVER been cheaper in HW history).

i just went from a system similar to yours (Tualatin Celeron @1.6ghz/Radeon 8500/PC-133) to a 2.80P4 @ ~3.4ghz/PC-3500 without breaking the bank - it's a CHEAP time to upgrade) AND got exellent perf gains.

I am waiting for the Radeon 97/9800 to drop sub$150 (shortly) to complete the upgrade . . .

IF you wanna WAIT, simply O/C your CPU and upgrade the videocard . . . that'll "hold" you for awhile.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: VegasD

the right time to build is always now.

I don't really see how. I mean, I realize that the top of the line stuff that is out now will be priced fairly well....but what happens in 6 months when I want a new video card? No dice since my MOBO won't have PCIExpress. Pentium 5 chip? Need new MOBO...new memory.

What if I want DDRII? Waste of $$ b/c the current MOBO won't support it.

It seems like if I build now I'm basically building a throw away machine. Am I wrong?

Well, at least on the video card, yes. The next-gen cards from ATI and NVIDIA will be in both AGP and PCI-E flavors. Past that probably just PCI-E, unless it fails miserably (which looks very unlikely at this point). But then we're talking more than 6 months down the road.

Pentium 5? Come on. They *just* put out the P4E. They'll be ramping those for a while before a P5 hits the streets. AND Intel seems to be going back and revamping the Northwood cores, which means they intend to keep selling them for a while; it makes no sense to redesign the interconnects on a processor that you're going to stop selling. The P4 line has quite a bit of life left in it yet. The socket 754 AMD64s may be more of a dead end, though, with Socket 939 coming out (relatively) soon.

DDR2, at least for the time being, looks like it will be WAY more expensive than standard DDR, for what is likely to be a fairly small performance boost right away -- DDR2-400 is supposed to perform nearly identically to DDR400. A year from now I expect the situation will be somewhat different (at least it better be if they want to sell any DDR2-based systems).

If you build a machine *now* (except maybe a Socket754 A64), you should not have upgrade problems for at least a year (and even the socket754 machine would go to a 3400+, and maybe even a 3600+ processor with DDR400). If you're looking to build a machine for 3-4 years, then you might have a reason to wait -- but you'll want to wait at least 6 months, maybe more than 12 months, for the bugs in the new motherboards/chipsets/DDR2/PCI-E video cards to get worked out. The last thing you want is to buy a piece of 'cutting edge' hardware that's actually a buggy piece of junk, or that gets replaced by something far better in just a few months.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: dexvx
I suggest optimizing the software on your current system. No way thats pulling in 12 fps.

Agreed, make certain AA/AF are off, vert synch off, and I wouldn't try above 10x7 res till you narrow things down. I'd check for any game patches, make certain you have the latest version of your board's chipset drivers, and run 3DMock2k1 to be certain the card's performance isn't degrading. Is this card overclocked? if so, has it been long term? That P4 1.9ghz is weak but it shouldn't be that bad.

 

[MSIuser]

That system should do so much better! I can run on my Ti4400, 512 DDR, 1600+ XP, 800x600 at medium settings without a problem. If you want i can discuss it with you over msn or something?

 

[LouPoir]

There's always something around the corner - LOL

 

[Regs]

DDR2 is going to be expensive for the next.... 6-12 months at least. So don't even worry about that. Not until Intel or even AMD makes a CPU that would feed DDr2's bandwidth.

PCI Express IMO won't offer much until next year when technology catches up with it. As of right now, AGP 4x/8x is fine. But I imagine there will be sound cards, video cards (other than the NV40 or RV420), networking technologies etc etc.. in the upcoming years that would make it more profitable.

P5's... Faster clocked Prescott's, yeah. Expensive they will be, however performance gains from 3.2C northwoods are still unknown.

I would upgrade to a Intel 865 mobo with a 3.2c and keep your 4600. Then in 2 months you can get the NV40. I would imagine anything short of a northwood cpu would lag in Battlefield which is very taxing on hardware. That is the most reasonable route to go in my opinion. Everything else is to far away where it wouldnt matter. By the time the new stuff comes around and becomes affordable at a reasonable price, you're going to want to upgrade again anyway.

 

[Teclis2323]

I'm going to jump onto the bandwagon here...

Your rig should be rocking harder than it is. Check out to see if you can upgrade your performance...

Your rig is still a damned nice rig. In fact, it's almost exactly the same as mine! I do perfectly fine with mine.

Jacob

 

[Sideswipe001]

I'd still suggest waiting. When the new tech hits in a month or so, the prices will drop on current "top end" hardware.

Yes, there are good times to wait. It's generally never worth waiting long for, but there are good times, even in the computer hardware cycle, to wait.

 

[high]

grab a 2500+ mobile, abit nf7-s, 2x512 pc3200 OCZ (or whatever), 120GB Seagate Sata, Raptor (not needed but nice), 9800 Pro...... Killer upgrade that won't break the bank and will be nice and fast for a while...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Best time to upgrade is always tomorrow?

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Quite a few recent reviews on Anandtech have been saying to wait a couple of months before making any major purchases, Anand himself seems to keep hinting at big things around the corner so I'd be inclined to wait...

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Woodchuck2000
Quite a few recent reviews on Anandtech have been saying to wait a couple of months before making any major purchases, Anand himself seems to keep hinting at big things around the corner so I'd be inclined to wait...

Anand just doesn't want to be caught making false pretenses on what you should or should not do. This is a PC Hardware News and Review site, if they knew, they would of told us. It's their business to give us the information and not to keep it from us.

 

[MRamius]

It's their business to give us the information and not to keep it from us.

It's a shame there are these little things called NDAs then.

 

[VegasD]

Thanks for all of the feedback so far. Perhaps my rig should be doing much better, but for some reason it isn't and I do not really know where to begin to look. Unreal T '04 oddly enough runs like a dream (though it does load a bit slow).

So I've taken a look around and am thinking of possibly building this:

3.2C P4
WD 160gig HD
1 Gig Dual Channel Memory
Either FX5900 or ATI (cringe) 9800 Pro
Audigy 2 (I have to build from scratch as this pc would go to my wife)
Asus P4C800E MB
400W PS
DVD Drive
Windows XP
Case
Floppy Drive

@ newegg this comes to approx $1600 bucks (if I buy 2 hard drives)
@ my local PC shop I assume that would be close to 1900 or so with the bumped up price

Is the performance gain worth all of this trouble and $$?

 

[Darkhawk28]

I'll be upgrading from a t-bird 1.4, 896MB pc133 RAM, geforce 3 64mb, kt7a (kt133a) mb in the next couple days and although I know that new vid cards are coming, I'll still upgrade the rest of my system first and then dump a 9800 Pro in it when the price drops on those (about $150).

With this stuff, you can wait until you turn to dust because there's always a new gadget coming out.

I like the idea of the Mobile Athlon XP 2500+, 2x512MB PC3200 RAM and Abit NF7-S... that'd be a sweet foundation to start with.

 

[Atlantean]

12 fps with that system? What resolution are you running it at and what eye candy do you have running? Cause that system should not be getting only 12 fps... maybe lower the resolution, turn off aa/af, change the settings for graphics to low or medium, then try playing it again... and pentium 5 is not just around the corner...

 

[VegasD]

12 fps with that system? What resolution are you running it at and what eye candy do you have running? Cause that system should not be getting only 12 fps... maybe lower the resolution, turn off aa/af, change the settings for graphics to low or medium, then try playing it again... and pentium 5 is not just around the corner...

Running @ 1280x1024, settings to HIGH (not HIGHEST). I don't wanna turn off the eye candy, that's why I play these games.

Well I'm glad to hear the P5 is not right around the corner like I thought, it makes me feel better about upgrading.

 

[rainypickles]

all i want is mobo that supports PCI-E and DDR II. anyone know when that is gonna come out? maybe summer? then it'll mature by december?

i have a similar rig (XP1700+/512mb/40gb/TI4400) and vietnam does not run at 12fps. i think i was at 1024 at medium settings. i'll try high when i get home. it really should run better than that. turn off antivirus maybe?