Help with another choice..

[vikingblade]

Another tough choice to make... with my last available $100 towards my new rig, im trying to decide whether i should go for a 7800GTX rather than a 7800GT or go for 2gigs of ram rather than 1gig. Which would affect my gaming performance the most.

 

[Skyhanger]

Look at your monitor size. At 1280 or less, the extra performance from the 7800GTX will not be as apparent. Thus your $ may be better spent on more system RAM.

Usually a GPU upgrade will improve performance more, unless you have not enough ram... what are your other specs?

 

[vikingblade]

Ive got a pretty decent..although crt monitor..big. viewsonic p225fb. i believe the rez goes pretty high...over 1600x1200, which is about where ill play i think. the rest of my planned system specs are...

athlon 64 3000 venice
epox 9npa ultra
seagate barracuda 7200.8 250gb
corsair value pc3200 1gig or 2 gigs
fortron 450 power supply
antec slk-3000 case
benQ 1640 dvd/rw
evga 7800gt co or 7800gtx

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'd probably improve the CPU for physics, AI, bots, etc. since you currently only have a 3000+ budgeted. But I run at stock, others here would say go for a massive overclock.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Definitely the 2GB of RAM. Games like F.E.A.R. and BF2 get a pretty big boost with 2GB.

 

[vikingblade]

Thanks for the input. the upgrade to the gtx is so much more appealing than just another gig of ram etc...hehe. but, i understand what yas saying. alot of the newer games are really gonna need 2gigs huh??

how bout this spin on things... if i go with the ram option, what is the difference in value/performance on say...

1gig (2 512's) of higher quality, faster DDR500 PC4000 vs 2 gigs of value ram DDR400 - PC3200

Any idea on the performance differences

 

[paulw86]

simply put, A64 isn't bandwidth hungry, so faster ram wont give you much performance boost. 2gb of value ram will be better.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

2GB of value RAM >>>>>>>>>> 1GB of overclocking RAM any day. The performance increase isn't much at all if you get "performance" RAM, whereas the difference is pretty notiecable with 2GB vs 1GB.

 

[l Xes l]

2gb

 

[The Green Bean]

Originally posted by: krnxpride83
2gb