Do I need to upgrade for today's highend games?

[termac50]

Here's my system I last upgraded a year or 2 ago:

Asus A8V deluxe mobo
2 gb Mushkin ram
X800xl radeon vid card, agp, not pci-e
Audigy2zs sound
WD Raptor 74gb drive
Dell 2007fpw monitor

I've been too busy playing World of Warcraft to notice any other games. Now that the addiction is fading, it's time for me to go buy some more games. Battlefield 2 and AoE 3 come to mind. I've been playing WoW @ 1680x1050 with this setup.

Can I get away w/ this setup still or am I in need of a mobo and video card upgrade, or more?

Thx.

 

[43st]

That'll be fine for BF2 if you hold textures and shadows back a setting or two, not sure about AoE3. 1680x1050 is too high a resolution to run with an x800 though, you may find that more limiting than anything at this point.

 

[ForumMaster]

43st is right. that rig is still ok for most game today. just get a better vid card unless you want to build a new rig. you can upgrade to a 7800GS (i believe the highest available AGP upgrade) and be fine. or sell the parts and buy a new C2D rig.

 

[termac50]

Ok thx guys

 

[Sithtiger]

Yeah, I'd recommend a full upgrade...that is a new CPU (BTW, what CPU do you have now), mobo, RAM and video card. If your RAM is PC3200, you don't have to upgrade that. Now you could upgrade just you're vid card and that would definitely give you a noticeable increase in performance in graphics and games, but a CPU upgrade with that would help the video card out even more. Really though if you keep your CPU the same, but only upgrade the video card, you could be losing quite a bit of performance depending on what CPU you have.

Put it this way, if you can afford it, do a full upgrade. Oh, I almost forgot... you'll have to upgrade your mobo, vid card and CPU if you want a top of the line vid card from at least 2005 since they're only PCI-E, unless you get an Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS or 7900 GS which is AGP.

I always recommend that you buy the fastest parts you can afford so you're system will last that much longer before you have to upgrade next. Now after saying all of that, you could run BF2 or BF2142 (BF2142 is built on the same engine as BF2 is) at 1280x1024 with medium settings and it looks very nice! Like 43st said, you won't be able to run it at 1680x1050 with that setup.

If you're short on money, the cheapest way to go is to upgrade your video card to a GeForce 7800 or 7900 GS and you won't be wasting money because you're CPU isn't powerful enough....that is provided you have a CPU that is at least a Athlon XP 2500+ or a P4 2.8GHz+.

This is the system I would build if I had the money. Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or E6700, 2GB of Corsair 667MHz DDR2 RAM, Intel based mobo chipset along with a GeForce 8800 GTX or GTX, or a ATi R600....not sure what they'll call it yet. If you build a system like that, you'll be able to run all games at a resolution of 1920x1200 with full AF and AA and it would run smooth as butter. Of course you're looking at around $1,500 for a system like that, but believe me, it would be a good investment and I can promise you, you'd see a massive difference between what you have now and that system!!!

 

[Markbnj]

I agree with the other posters. I just did an upgrade from a 6800GT on AGP to a 7600GT PCIe, and the boost was pretty awesome. I was able to run games like BF2 at moderately high settings, but it is much smoother now.

 

[Sithtiger]

Another thing that the both BF2 and BF2142 benefit from is memory! I believe it uses a little over 1GB of RAM, so if you have 2GB of RAM it will definitely help it. What 2GB of RAM does for it (at least it did for me and should work this way with everyone) is keep the game from stuttering when you first go into a game, especially the first time you go into a game. I remember with my current system I used to have 1 GB of RAM and even with my 7800 GTX 512 and 4400+, the game STILL stuttered for the first 2 or 3 minutes. After this past, it ran fine. Adding another gig, it immediately stopped the problem. You'd think 512MB of RAM would fix any stuttering problem like that, but apparently it benefits more from system memory rather than video and texture memory.

Originally posted by: Markbnj
I agree with the other posters. I just did an upgrade from a 6800GT on AGP to a 7600GT PCIe, and the boost was pretty awesome. I was able to run games like BF2 at moderately high settings, but it is much smoother now.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: termac50
Here's my system I last upgraded a year or 2 ago:

Asus A8V deluxe mobo
2 gb Mushkin ram
X800xl radeon vid card, agp, not pci-e
Audigy2zs sound
WD Raptor 74gb drive
Dell 2007fpw monitor

I've been too busy playing World of Warcraft to notice any other games. Now that the addiction is fading, it's time for me to go buy some more games. Battlefield 2 and AoE 3 come to mind. I've been playing WoW @ 1680x1050 with this setup.

Can I get away w/ this setup still or am I in need of a mobo and video card upgrade, or more?

Thx.

I don't believe you need to upgrade just yet, considering that I play BF2 on my 9800pro at 1280X1024 with 2XAA with decent framerates, I'm sure your card should be able to play BF2 at your monitor's native resolution. But for AOE, I'm not so sure, and for oblivion, well you'll have to tweak it considerably, but playing at native resolution with your video card shouldn't be very difficult.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
43st is right. that rig is still ok for most game today. just get a better vid card unless you want to build a new rig. you can upgrade to a 7800GS (i believe the highest available AGP upgrade) and be fine. or sell the parts and buy a new C2D rig.

Either the OP can upgrade to the gainward 7800GS+ or wait a little bit for the X1950Pro which is coming for AGP.

 

[Twsmit]

You have two options as I see it.

#1. Do nothing, your computer is currently a mix of near high end and midrange parts. nothing is really "out of date" although you obviously don't have the top of the line.


#2. Upgrade the Mobo and Video card. You are tied to DDR and socket 939 and I wouldn't move off that platform yet.... the cost of new ram, cpu, mobo and video is too much compared to the minimal performance you will gain over your current rig. Honestly you just need a new video card, but AGP is a dead end, get something that is PCIe so that in a year or two you can keep your card and upgrade to a new platform.

I would pick up a x1900 or 79xx class card, or wait until February and get a DX10 card. As for a mobo, stick with a socket 939 Nforce4 and you will be golden. Solid boards run 75-$100 and maybe even less since they have been discontinued.

$75 for mobo, $250+ for video card and you will be good for a year or two before you need a full system upgrade.



EDIT: The third option is an AGP video card, thats also something to think about, however don't spend too much money since it's a dead end and can't be used in a new rig. Probably want to spend $200 or less IMO.