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How long do you keep your main parts til you upgrade?

R

Remy XO

Golden Member
I'm a avid gamer and wondering if other gamers out there still have my setup (sig). I'm wondering if its time to upgrage sincee the games coming out these days are not running so well on my computer now. I got my current computer almost 2 years ago. It wasnt top of the line also. Im thinkin about upgrading to AMD64 3000+ Venice, DFI LanParty, and a 7800GT
 
Yea a little upgrade won't hurt. The 9800 is getting really banged up lately with all these new games( F.E.A.R & Quake 4). I think your choice of upgrading is very economical. You can OC the 3000 to its max with a DFI and 7800 GT is one of the budget cards today.
 
I had a 2500+ barton and a 9800pro until my motherboard died. I would have kept it longer, but I took the death as a sign to upgrade.
 
Games are one of the biggest contributers to the computer industry pushing standards higher everyday. If you can buy it, it is obsolete. You could try OC'ing that CPU to get some more performance out of the current rig.
 
Originally posted by: tweekah
Games are one of the biggest contributers to the computer industry pushing standards higher everyday. If you can buy it, it is obsolete. You could try OC'ing that CPU to get some more performance out of the current rig.
Click to expand...

Tried, the CPU wont let me. I guess i need to do some soldering on the chip for it to OC
 
18 - 24 months... until I can't take it any longer. I'm not a gamer so I don't need the bleeding edge in video cards, just lots of HDDs! 🙂
 
I'm still workin on a GeForce 4 MX 420. Does UT2K4 at 800x600 all low settings at a whopping 17 fps. Yeah it sucks. Wish i could get another. But can't.
 
i have an athlon 1800+ OC'd to 2000mhz. I started with an Audigy Platinum EX, Radeon 8500, TDK 24x CDRW, and Stock CPU cooler. Since then, i have upgraded to Audigy 2ZS, Radeon 9800pro 256, Pioneer A08XL, Thermalright SLK-947U.

The next upgrade would be either the soundcard, or the entire system.
 
If your game demands it, then it would be good to upgrade. However, if you can run games just fine right now that you play, then don't upgrade until you can't run the games you want to play at the settings you want, or else you would be wasting your $$$$.
 
If my machine won't do what I need it to. So I will get several more years' use out of this machine. The upcoming gaming machine will be upgraded more.
 
I have almost exactly your system, overclocked but less RAM. I get ~45fps at 800*600(no AA) in FEAR and i don't like it. It must be the 9800pro's fault, but that was a great card while it lasted - 1024*768 4*AA in HL2. Might be time for an upgrade.
 
The real bummer is the lack of New faster AGP cards 🙂 I just upgraded my 9600proAIW to a X800XT AIW in my NF7-S/XP-M 2.4gig setup and it hauls now. And I've ALSO notice that other systems with superior processing power don't score much higher at all in most gaming benchmarks Using the same card @ 500/500 core/mem. I think processors are Still WAY ahead of graphic cards at this point.
 
I've been on a highly overclocked (2400MHz) XP 1700+ since August 2003, and I'm still not entirely sure that I'll be upgrading within the next few months - might wait until next spring/summer and do everything at once. When I originally built my system in 2003, I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro. Last July (2004), I replaced it with a 6800GT and that's been working great for me since. My computer can still handle new games for the most part, so unless I get some unexpected money soon or something, I may just hold off until next summer and upgrade everything right when I'll really need it (around the time UT2007 is released).
 
Originally posted by: Wall7486
Yea a little upgrade won't hurt. The 9800 is getting really banged up lately with all these new games( F.E.A.R & Quake 4). I think your choice of upgrading is very economical. You can OC the 3000 to its max with a DFI and 7800 GT is one of the budget cards today.
Click to expand...

I can agree on everything except the 7800GT as a "budget" card. At $349, there's nothing budget about it 🙂 I just picked up a 6800GT back in August, and at $220, it's a lot more "budget" friendly than the 7800GT, and the performance is great 🙂

Other than that, my setup's largely just like your potential system, Athlon64 3000+, but with an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe (which I hate, incidentally).

Jason
 
My upgrades usually always especially recently involved changing the whole bunch. Because by the time the cpu gets old, the video card+memory+m/b is also too outdated. I could use my older PC2100 ram but because of dual channel I wanted a matched pair.
 
I have almost the same system 2400+, 1.5 GB RAM. Except I went with a 6800GT from a 5900XT. I game a lot so I am hurting a bit but I don't think it's from the CPU too much. Either way I have a Dothan 1.6 Asus P4P800 and a CT-479 on the way so I'll find out soon. I'm still AGP, but I have a rig in planning just waiting on Vista to show up and prove stable before I make the move to SLI.

I plan on going to a complete platform revamp when Vista is proven stable, sometime in mid 06 I'm guessing. I'll go latest dualcore that makes sense, SLI with fastest cards at the time and prob 3GB of RAM.
 
hmm i've been on a yearly run since i started building my own,

can't even rember all the systems now.

amd duron 1.1 ghz
amd athlon 1700 xp video, hmm ti4200
amd barton i think 1700 xp mobile @ 2.4 ghz, video 9600xt
amd 64 socket 754 video 6800gt
current in process build
socket 939, 7800gt

all in less then 4 years
 
Check out the rig in my sig. It is two years old. Your setup WILL OC jsut fine. The NF7-S v2.0 is stable to about 212 Mhz FSB without mods or modded BIOS. If you can't get over 208 mHz FSB then check you RAM timings and voltages. You may want to upgrade to BH-5 and drop the other 512MB. If that isn't the ticket, then check you CPU voltages and temps.

208 mHz FSB should be fast enough for the next six to twelve months. By then, the NF4 Platforms will be cheaper.
 
Originally posted by: Remy XO
I'm a avid gamer and wondering if other gamers out there still have my setup (sig). I'm wondering if its time to upgrage sincee the games coming out these days are not running so well on my computer now. I got my current computer almost 2 years ago. It wasnt top of the line also. Im thinkin about upgrading to AMD64 3000+ Venice, DFI LanParty, and a 7800GT
Click to expand...

I don't see much wrong with your rig for gaming purposes - just the gfx card. I've clocked my mobile 2600+ up & down and proved it's no real bottleneck to my 6800GT. It's all about the gfx card.

You can satisfy yourself of the same thing. Set your resolution real low (8x6) and see how the FPS fly. (Setting the rez real low demonstrates CPU bottlenecking). Then up the rez to higher levels and watch the FPS go down. (that demonstrates GPU bottlenecking).

The problem for us with the AGP platforms is lack of upgradability. Sooner or later we'll have to switch to PCIe systems.

But for now, you'd get a real big boost with high-end AGP card (and the 256MB of vid ram really pays off). I know going to 6800GT from 9800p really helped me.

Fern
 
Originally posted by: Remy XO
Originally posted by: tweekah
Games are one of the biggest contributers to the computer industry pushing standards higher everyday. If you can buy it, it is obsolete. You could try OC'ing that CPU to get some more performance out of the current rig.
Click to expand...

Tried, the CPU wont let me. I guess i need to do some soldering on the chip for it to OC
Click to expand...

Nah, I'll bet you can OC it a bit. Even one of the crappier OCing Barton 2500+'s can be put up another 200mhz or so with just a little vcore increase. I'd bet money you can reach around FSB 190 without a problem.

Meh, doesn't really matter. The CPU's not the problem anyway.

BTW: Somebody above mentions the 7800GTYeah, they can be gotten for a pretty good price IMHO. Problem is they're PCIe cards. No AGP versions made at this time.

Fern

 
general rule of thumb: upgrade CPU everytime a new socket comes out, upgrade video every refresh

unless i find a good deal that i cant pass up in which case all the rules are thrown out of the window
 
1600+ -> 2400+ -> 3700+

Geforce3Ti200 -> 9800pro -> 7800 GTX

some KT266a -> nforce 2 -> nforce 4

I guess that fairly indicates how long i keep main parts until next upgrade. fwiw i dont mean to indicate 3 distinct systems there, it was peice-by-peice upgrades until the Ath64 system forced a big upgrade. I usually get stuff a bit behind the curve too, i think the current GTX is the only top end 'large' item i've bought when it was the fastest thing out, though even that was after initial price drops.
 
I'm still running a blazing fast 1 ghz tbird, but since my radeon 64mb bit the dust a couple weeks ago I'm looking at putting together a new system, which is proving to be difficult because after not looking at any hardware for almost 5 years I have no idea what to buy.
 
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