How to upgrade an older kick a$$ system?

[madman300]

Guys,

I have a PC that I built a litttle over a year and a half ago. Here are the specs

Dual Athlon 2600+
512 MB 266 ECC Ram
2 x 250 GB WD w/ 8mb cache
1x160GB *Boot Drive*
AIW 7500 Radeon
420 watt Enermax Powersupply
18inch Sony LCD
CD Burner/DVD Drive

Mostly I just use this computer for daily web browsing, hosting DVD Rips for the aparment computers and sometimes encoding movies, every now and then I will play some games on it.

Right now is there any upgrade worth while for this system? I was thinking about a new Vid card, but I do not want to do that untill after Half Life 2 and Doom 3 are out and well established (just to see what kind of juice I will really need).

How fast of a processor would I need to beat the performance of the Dual 2600+s? Any upgrades that you all would recommend? I still encode quite a few vid files to DIVX so I can use all the processor speed I can get.

Madison
mtmajor@uiuc.edu

 

[GasX]

You have a well balanced machine with a ton of HD space. The only thing I would change is the video card...

 

[madman300]

If I want to spend say $150 max on a new vid card, plus what I can get from selling this one. (I would say that is around $200 max) would that be enough for a card robust enough to handle these new games?

I spent over $300 on this card, and I will not do that again

madison

 

[LtPage1]

a dual a64 3000+ system would be badass. i cant speak for how well they perform with encoding, but theres nothing better than an athlon for gaming. you could probably make a decision based on doom3 and hl2 now. doom3 has been out for a few months, and cs:source is the exact same engine as hl2. youll want at least a 6600gt, and another 512 ram couldnt hurt.

 

[allanon1965]

i agree, upgrade the video to the best you can afford, that will do wonders, if any is left you could add more memory, but i think that is relativley expensive for ECC.....could be wrong, been wrong before and will surley be wrong again!

 

[madman300]

Originally posted by: LtPage1
a dual a64 3000+ system would be badass. i cant speak for how well they perform with encoding, but theres nothing better than an athlon for gaming


Can you do Dual Athlon FX? Dont you have to use operton for duals?

mad

 

[sniperruff]

just wait for a 9800pro to go on sale and grab it

 

[Hajime]

That thing rocks.

Just upgrade the vid card, and upgrade the ram. That's all it needs.

 

[madman300]

I have another machine in the apartment with a 9600 Xt W/256MB of Ram using an athlon 2800+ and 512mb.

I have played Doom 3 on this and found that it doesn't run as smoothly as I would like, would the 9800 be enough of an upgrade? The reason i do not use the 9600+ machine for gaming is because it is hooked up to my TV and I cannot play in resolutions over 640x480.


Also, what types of processors can you run in Dual mode. Athlon MP, Zeon, Opteron... any other current ones?

madison

 

[Pariah]

For under $200, you can upgrade your CPU's with dual Athlon XP mobiles with some simple modifications. 2.4 to 2.5 GHz is pretty common and would provide a pretty good encoding speed boost.

 

[madman300]

could you get those speeds when you FSB on this motherboard is limited by the type of ram it needs?

madison

 

[Hajime]

Madman: If the multiplier is adjustable, absolutely. However, if your motherboard doesn't allow you to adjust the mult, you are SOL. Also, Mobile XP's are a great possibility if you have decent cooling .

A 9800Pro should be plenty, as would a 5900. You may also want to look into a 6600GT if the AGP flavor comes out in the next month or so, or a 6800NU.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: madman300
could you get those speeds when you FSB on this motherboard is limited by the type of ram it needs?

madison

Yes, here is a pretty good guide of how to do it:

Going Mobile

 

[madman300]

bump for other suggestions

 

[RussianSensation]

For good HL2 and Doom 3 performance and Far Cry performance, I wouldnt get anything less than 6600GT (when it comes in AGP) or 6800 (which can be found for $250 at Outpost.com)

9800Pro is going to become really slow real soon. 6800 is much faster as long as you dont turn on 1280x1024 4AA/8AF or beyond.

 

[aka1nas]

What board are you using madman? I am running the MSI MPX board and you can get a little more performance out of it if the board and PCI cards will handle a slightly elevated FSB. I can get mine up to ~144 w/o any ill effects. You could also try using some mobile bartons depending on which board you have. They would offer you some more O/Cing potential (even though your BIOS OC options will suck you can always pinmod the cpu's or sockets and crank the multi up a bunch).

Your video card could def use an upgrade to something beefier. Something like a 9800 Pro that the earlier poster mentioned would complement your system well. Also, maybe adding another 512MB of RAM would help as I can actually use most of my 1GB of RAM on my MPX rig. I would actually go up to 2Gb, but I am not using ECC-RAM so I am limited to the first 2 DIMM slots only.

 

[coolred]

madman, while I understand the duals are helping you with encoding and whatnot, they are not doing much to improve your gaming. You asked what speed of processor you would need to beat the duals, a 2700+ would likely do it. And yeah I am pretty sure the athlon MP's, Xeon, and opterons as well as some of the older Pentiums and celerons are dual capable. Thus a dual A64 system is not available, must go opterons for this.


But I agree with pretty much everyone else. Your system is pretty decent with the exception of the video card. Definately upgrade it, and if you can get the mobile athlons to work and overclock, then go for those as well.

 

[cheesehead]

Get a new video card. 180$ will get you a 6600GT AGP (in a month, anyway).
If you truly crave power, A64 is the way to go. Semprons are cheap enough (110$) and a VNF3-250 (70$) is a nice enough motherboard. Throw on a stick of PC3200 at 70$ (or higher, if you want to overclock) and a 6600GT (180$). Sure, it'll run you 430$, but it would be a big speed boost for your system, and you could make most of it back by selling the AMP setup so someone can use it as a server.