Good time to get an upgrade?

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
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A little background story... I've been running with a 1.5 year old system for a while. (Geforce 6800, AMD64 3200, 1 gb of pc3200, mobo with AGP and no pci-e slots, etc) I've been out of the hardware side of things for a while and haven't been following up too much, so I'm trying to catch up. This machine should be built for gaming but I don't care about getting 130 FPS over 129 FPS.

I would like to get a overhaul on my system but I'm not sure where to start. I'll be replacing almost all of my current parts... Ideally I want to be using this thing starting January or Feb unless there's some new things coming out then that I'm not aware of. (which is the point of this post ;))

The biggest things I'm looking for are:

1) a video card with compatability with DX10: I'm thinking about the new G80s but not sure about the price nor the power consumption.
2) Conroe. not sure if I should get a 6400 or a 6600. I've also heard something about the quad cores but not too sure when those would roll around, and I don't want to wait till Q4 of 2008.
3) Memory: Not sure about what I should get here, I don't really know too much about memory. I read some posts here about how some types of memory frequencies work better with the FSB frequency of the cpu, but I'm not really sure what that's about here. :p
4) Mobo: Not sure about this one either. I won't be overclocking too much though.

Any tips or advices would be greatly appreciated.

 

Shortass

Senior member
May 13, 2004
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What's your assumed price limit?

1) We'll see, though if on a budget I'd still purchase one of today's high end cards then as their price will be wonderful.

2) If you plan to overclock at all then I would definitely go with the 6400 (again on a budget). The performance overclocked between the two isn't significant or worth the price difference IMO.

3) Pretty much any brand of DDR2 667+ ram would be fine, and 2 gigs is quickly become a must-have for new gaming rigs. Incredibly overpriced right now so I'd steer clear from 800 or anything with ultra-low latencies, as OCing often negates any extra money spent.

4) Oh, just read you won't be overclocking much. There goes most of my point, but I'll not edit it for my laziness just grew 100 fold. Oh well.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
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Thx for the response!

The biggest thing about purchasing today's high end cards when the G80s come out is my concern with DX10 compatability down the road. I don't plan to upgrade again for probably another year or 2 when I get this card so I want it to be compatable with DX10 games when they get released.

I do plan to overclock a bit so I'll definately look into the 6400.

Any more feedback would be appreciated.
 

AnotherGuy

Senior member
Dec 9, 2003
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I dont see y not saving 40 bucks and get the e6300 instead of e6400... put that money on a vidcard.... since both cpus oc the same if not the 6300 overclocks more... pls correct me if im wrong here...
For some reason i started to like the Asus boards for about $165 i think those 5b models (965 sockets) r perfect for oc and good reviews from AT... the Gigabyte DS3 im not 2 crazy about... thoe a lot of plp have em... memmory way to many choices but the A-Data was it? the 1 that AT recomeneded on their latest memory review ddr2 667...
For vidcard tough time to make a decision.... I think id wait since g80 is right around the corner mid november supposed to come out...
Good luck