Help me identify the bottleneck

[bjb123]

Last few days I've been playing the Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising demo and I think it's great but I also know that I'm not the only one experiencing moderate to severe video lag. I'm also looking forward to playing Halflife 2, Doom 3, The Sims 2 (hopefully all at good framerates etc) and I'm thinking it may be time to put a little more cash into my gaming rig.

Right now I have:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ @ 1.83 GHz on a DFI AD77 Infinity (VIA KT400) motherboard
Nvidia Geforce FX 5200
512 MB of RAM

I used to be a somewhat serious gamer, but I have totally fallen behind on keeping up with technology updates and while I'm sure the FX 5200 is slowing me down, I have to wonder if my processor is becoming outdated or if I need to go to 1gb of RAM. I have about $500-$750 to play with and any suggestions you might have would be great.

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

without going to specifics, the video card, memory and possibly motherboard need to be upped. a 9800pro, 1gb of namebrand memory (crucial etc) and a nforce2 chipset based motherboard would help ...but i dont know if it is worth getting all that since there are many new pc hardware changes due soon (pci express, btx etc etc)

 

[viivo]

Save some more cash and wait. Upgrading now to an Nforce 2 platform wouldn't be worth it.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

A64 3000+ $223@Newegg
Chaintech VNF3 250 $69@mwave
1gb 2x512mb Buffalo 3200DDR Samsung chips $178
Sapphire 9800pro 256mb *can be made into XT IIRC* $223@newegg

Sell your current components to help finance the upgrade, and you will have a very capable gaming system for a reasonable investment amount.

If you feel like overclocking change the ram to 2 sticks of A-DATA 4000, get the OEM 3000+, and a Venus 12 for cooling.

 

[DarkKnight]

lol, the bottleneck is pretty obvious Just upgrade the video card, a radeon 9800 will dramatically improve things for u. the FX5200 is ur bottleneck, u don't need a whole new system. If you wanna improve things a little more, also upgrade your ram to 1 gig.

 

[dennisjai215]

the bottle neck is all 3 items you listed =o

 

[bjb123]

"the bottle neck is all 3 items you listed =o"

While quite funny, does little to help me!

I'm starting to think that instead of upgrading system wide, I'll make one big upgrade (for now) probably to the video card so...

Whch is the card for me (in the $500 range plz).

 

[mitchafi]

I think if you upgraded to one of the next-gen cards (6800 Ultra (GT?) or X800XT PE) you would not be able to see its full potential due to lack of memory. Personally, I think upgrading to a gig of ram and getting a 9800Pro 256MB version is a much better choice and more economical as well.

 

[dennisjai215]

well i suggest another stick of ram and a good new vid card.. the barton 2500 is the best you have listed out of 3.. so you can easily oc ur barton a bit to keep up with the newer video cards definately keep the cpu, add a stick of 512.. and change video cards

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: DarkKnight
lol, the bottleneck is pretty obvious Just upgrade the video card, a radeon 9800 will dramatically improve things for u. the FX5200 is ur bottleneck, u don't need a whole new system. If you wanna improve things a little more, also upgrade your ram to 1 gig.

:thumbsup: says it all

 

[bjb123]

Ok...

Is the difference between the 128 and 256 mb Radeon 9800's really that big? (worth the price difference I guess).

And should I keep the 512 RAM I have now and buy another 512 (keep in mind I have no idea what brand it is) or should I just get rid of my current 512 and buy brand new 1gb?

Also, is my AD77 mobo compatible with a radeon 9800?

Thanks in advance.

 

[dudeman007]

Originally posted by: bjb123
Ok...

Is the difference between the 128 and 256 mb Radeon 9800's really that big? (worth the price difference I guess).

And should I keep the 512 RAM I have now and buy another 512 (keep in mind I have no idea what brand it is) or should I just get rid of my current 512 and buy brand new 1gb?

Also, is my AD77 mobo compatible with a radeon 9800?

Thanks in advance.

First off, everyone's telling you to get a 9800 pro. Don't. I have one and is great, but if you want to upgrade to play some of the next upcoming games, save your money for maybe an x800 pro. The 9800 pro is awsome but is starting so show that it is obsolete. But if you cant afford it, the 9800 pro is a great card. I could get the 128. People don't usual notice and difference and the price is different that's for sure. Get a gig of ram and get a new a64 processor/mobo. Yeah its gonna be expensive, but thats life.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

he said 500 bux, so apparently he is rich
wait a little while rich mon, and get a PCI-E 9x5 socket 775 board or an nVidia CK8 Socket 939 board (i think that is the name of the new chipset, not sure, i heard it on anandtech somewhere) and an nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI-E, they'll be out before the games you're concerned about, if you just need better performance now, a PowerColor 9800SE 256-bit memory interface (thats the most important part, DO NOT buy the 128 bit board) can be obtained for under 150, and can easily be softmodded to a 9800 Pro

 

[gordanfreeman]

sure if you want to spend the money go all out for all the brand new tech. may as well build a whole new computer tho if you want to do that.

my suggestion: keep the cpu its fine and w/ a tad of overclocking it should last you at LEAST another year if not more. the ram could be a problem but you would likely be OK for next gen games by just throwing another 512 stick in.

the FX 5200 on the other hand, is an obvious problem. my geforce 4 ti4200 its technically better than the fx5200 minus the DX9 support. i suggest getting a nice radeon 9800 card. no need to get brand new spanking tech unless you want to upgrade the rest of the system in my eyes. w/ the new XT's and 6800's being so cpu dependant these new cards would be somewhat wasted on your 2500. unless you desire to game w/ all gfx options enabled at max res and still get 50+ fps you dont need all that spanking new stuff. you said yourself you are not the most extreme serious gamer anymore so disabling one or two features or only running at 1024*768 instead of 1600*1200 shouldnt be a big issue.

summary:
for a simple upgrade get a radeon 9800 card and maybe another 512 stick of ram
otherwise you could do a complete revamp of your system with all new mobo/cpu/ram/vid card; if you go this route i would wait awhile for pci-e and other stuff to become more mainstream.

 

[justin1466]

5200 sucks, get a 9800 pro and another 512mb of ram (especially if your planning on playing doom 3, half life 2, stalker and not watching a slideshow)

Processor should be good enough

 

[50]

I second the 9800 pro and RAM. It would be really dumb to spend 500 dollars on a video card which wouldn't come near to full performance with your setup. Get some name brand RAM that can be compatible with your next mobo/processor.