Considering an upgrade option

[Gusty987]

Looking for (inexpensive) upgrade options, I came across a Newegg combo deal:

Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane
Biostar TForce 550

...for $133!

I'm very tempted to pick this up and pair it with a mid-level vid card ($150 max). I'm just wondering if this will be a worthwhile upgrade from my current gaming system (see sig). Also, how does the future look for AM2, and would this setup be that much lot slower than C2D that everyone raving about??

I usually play Oblivion, MS Flight Sim, BattleField 2, other modern FPS's.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

(see sig).
Athlon 64 3000+ at 2170MHz
1GB Mushkin PC3500
ATI Radeon 9800 PRO

what motherboard..?

 

[ForumMaster]

duh. the C2D would beat this rig to death. but the cheapest C2D (4300) begins at $170 so it's gonna cost more.

 

[Gusty987]

Originally posted by: ScrapSilicon

(see sig).
Athlon 64 3000+ at 2170MHz
1GB Mushkin PC3500
ATI Radeon 9800 PRO

what motherboard..?

Asus K8V SE Deluxe s754 AGP

I've read you can OC the sh1t out of the 3600+ to get it close to e4300 performance?

 

[Gusty987]

bump

 

[Gusty987]

bump?

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: Gusty987

I've read you can OC the sh1t out of the 3600+ to get it close to e4300 performance?

It would take a big overclock (to X2 4200+ territory or so), and even then if the 4300 is overclocked then it wins hands down. Unless this is a stop-gap or absolute bare minimum budget solutions, why buy AGP/DDR/AM2 when PCI-E/DDR2/C2D isn't much more expensive, but is much, much better in terms of performance?

 

[Boyo]

Don't bother with the AM2 route. Save your money and go C2D. It's much faster.

 

[s44]

Barcelona will work on AM2, so the socket probably has more life in it than 775.

Brisbane (with a good cooler) should OC to around 3ghz, which isn't nearly as fast as a C2D at 3ghz, but less than half as expensive and not likely to be your main bottleneck in games.

The upgrade from your current rig would be very, very noticable, largely due to the video card.

 

[gramboh]

What you need to find out is how that Biostar mb is in terms of overclocking. Budget boards are often terrible at it.

 

[bob4432]

comparing my x2 3800 (939) benchmarks showed the c2d had a ~700MHz advantage at least for encoding. so a c2d @ 1.8GHz was = to my 3800 x2 @ 2.5GHz, which is pretty close to the max i am going to get on air, fwiw

but that combo is d@mn cheap along with the price of ddr2 you can have a decent rig for little $$$

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: Gusty987
Looking for (inexpensive) upgrade options, I came across a Newegg combo deal:

Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane
Biostar TForce 550

...for $133!

I'm very tempted to pick this up and pair it with a mid-level vid card ($150 max). I'm just wondering if this will be a worthwhile upgrade from my current gaming system (see sig). Also, how does the future look for AM2, and would this setup be that much lot slower than C2D that everyone raving about??

I usually play Oblivion, MS Flight Sim, BattleField 2, other modern FPS's.

Thanks for any advice.

Gusty, Heres the rig I came up with using the x2,3600. I would spend a little more on the video card if I were you. MAbe a used 7900gt?

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=2027115&enterthread=y

 

[s44]

Originally posted by: gramboh
What you need to find out is how that Biostar mb is in terms of overclocking.

Check the MB sticky thread. HTT well into the 300s.

 

[bob4432]

i think you should go a bit higher in the gpu dept. at least a x1950xt 256MB card. with my rig in sig i can play bf2 fine, coh but when i recently tested rb6vegas it ran pretty bad even @ 1024x768 with medium settings - even having bad tearing.

if you can, maybe try to get a 8800gts 320, i think it will pay for itself if you do a lot gaming.