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I have $500 to spend on an Upgrade Where should it go?

A

Arcanedeath

Platinum Member
My current rig is as follows
DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR (3/10 bios)
AMD 64 3200+ 939 Winchester (@ 2.40ghz & 1.48V)
PDP 3200LLK 2x 1GB PC3200, 2-3-3-8 @ 2.7V / 200mhz
Rosewill X800 XL 256MB, w/ Zalman VF700Alcu
Western Digital WD2500JBRTL-250gig PATA
Western Digital WD3200JD x2 320gig ea SATA
Asus DVD-E616P2
NEC ND-3520A
Seasonic S12 600 Watt PSU
TT Silver Tsuanami Dream case
21" Trinitron Tube Compaq P110 CRT
19" Proview 16ms LCD
WinXP Pro Sp1a

I have 500 total to blow on an Upgrade on 2 giftcards before they expire in 2 months (my aunt gave them to me 🙂 ) so if you were me what would you spend it on? I was thinking Video card or a dual core CPU but not sure.
 
lol 🙂 I considered the x1900Xt but the most I've blown on a video card is the 280 I spent on my X800 and I'm kinda leary of going that much for the card when I may just be cpu limited w/ only a 2.4ghz Winny, I can get more out of my Winchester but I need a better HSF to do so. Edit plus the drivers for the X1900 don't seem ready for prime time yet
 
Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
lol 🙂 I considered the x1900Xt but the most I've blown on a video card is the 280 I spent on my X800 and I'm kinda leary of going that much for the card when I may just be cpu limited w/ only a 2.4ghz Winny, I can get more out of my Winchester but I need a better HSF to do so. Edit plus the drivers for the X1900 don't seem ready for prime time yet
Click to expand...

Eh, upgrade video card now, upgrade cPU in 6 months when socket AM2 comes out, and then buy a 939 when prices crash. Now is a poor time to buy a new CPU.

 
Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
My current rig is as follows
DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR (3/10 bios)
AMD 64 3200+ 939 Winchester (@ 2.40ghz & 1.48V)
PDP 3200LLK 2x 1GB PC3200, 2-3-3-8 @ 2.7V / 200mhz
Rosewill X800 XL 256MB, w/ Zalman VF700Alcu
Western Digital WD2500JBRTL-250gig PATA
Western Digital WD3200JD x2 320gig ea SATA
Asus DVD-E616P2
NEC ND-3520A
Seasonic S12 600 Watt PSU
TT Silver Tsuanami Dream case
21" Trinitron Tube Compaq P110 CRT
19" Proview 16ms LCD
WinXP Pro Sp1a

I have 500 total to blow on an Upgrade on 2 giftcards before they expire in 2 months (my aunt gave them to me 🙂 ) so if you were me what would you spend it on? I was thinking Video card or a dual core CPU but not sure.
Click to expand...

Can you get both?
Sell your x800xl and 3200 on ebay or something and use that money plus your 500 to buy a dual core cpu and a 7800GT.Maybe sell one of your monitors too.
 
If you're not hitting the swap file excessively, you are straight with 1GB RAM still.

Video card definitely. I don't know how the X1900XT is or if its worth the cash, but even (from what I've read) a 7800GT would be a good upgrade if your're looking for performance in games. With that $$ tho, may as well get a GTX or faster.

Dual core is only worth it right now if you are finding yourself doing several CPU intensive taks at once. I don't ever for example, encode something while gaminhg, even if I could, but DC may be better in the future, plus as said the prices will be much better than they are now.


So you didn't mention your current HSF, but if its not any good, I'd get the stock AMD dual core fan ($15 shipped on ebay, reportedly as good as a XP-90) for cooler temps and possibly higher overclock (1.48 V on a Winny seems very modest, I'm running 1.525 on my damn 90nm Opty!) and a video card. A 2.4ghz winny isn't slow at all. I just upgraded with $700 and I only have a 2.8ghz Opty (equiv to a 2.9ghz or so Winny, big deal).

And I guess if you have cash to spend after that stuff, RAM wouldn't hurt. It is helpful for some games like BF2 and FEAR.

Otherwise, your rig looks great.
 
Hrm I didn't really consider selling my X800XL or my CPU, I'm using the stock Retail HSF atm and fyi I have 2gb 🙂 a 7800GT just doesn't seem like a big enough jump from my X800XL it is overclocked altho not much @ 410 / 510 (1020) I guess getting a new HSF may be in order but that still leaves the bulk of the funds for something else, I was considering dumping both my Displays and get a Samsung 244T but that may be to big a hassel lol 🙂 and I doubt my current video card could handle that high a res anyways really the only 2 games I'm having issues with right now are Fear and Serious Sam 2 the rest of my games play fine, I'm just not sure if its worth upgrading for just those 2 games
 
Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
Hrm I didn't really consider selling my X800XL or my CPU, I'm using the stock Retail HSF atm and fyi I have 2gb 🙂 a 7800GT just doesn't seem like a big enough jump from my X800XL it is overclocked altho not much @ 410 / 510 (1020) I guess getting a new HSF may be in order but that still leaves the bulk of the funds for something else, I was considering dumping both my Displays and get a Samsung 244T but that may be to big a hassel lol 🙂 and I doubt my current video card could handle that high a res anyways really the only 2 games I'm having issues with right now are Fear and Serious Sam 2 the rest of my games play fine, I'm just not sure if its worth upgrading for just those 2 games
Click to expand...

Yeah you can do that too if you want...get a nice lcd monitor...i'd still get a 7800GT or GTX.What games do you play?
 
You might find one of the new 150gb raptors useful. That will take care of about $290 fo the $500.

Your computer already is pretty top notch, have you thought about building a comptuer for someone else, buying the parts with GC and have them pay you back in cash? Think about the benefit you will get by waiting to upgrade the CPU/Video card.
 
get a new processor, trash the CRT and get another LCD, both of these should do good for around 500 bucks plus shipping.

sell the CPU for 100 bucks, and the CRT for 50 bucks. That's a $150 rebate!!!

the video card is fine.
 
I mainly Surf the net and watch DVDs on my PC thats aprox 50-60% of my time on the PC the other 40-50% is spent gaming, lately I've been playing Warcraft 3 alot lol but that doesn't really take a good PC the demanding games I've been playing recently are Bf2 (which runs fine @ 1600x1200 w/ med/high settins 2xAA 8xAF) Fear which I just picked up recently and runs so choppy at my normal screen res its making me consider upgrading and Serious Sam 2 which just runs like a dog on ATI hardware I tend to borrow my brothers PC to play that game he has a Skt 754 A64 3200+ @ 2.2ghz w/ an agp 6800GT and 2gb of memory that plays SS far better than my system wich is just sad considering. due to the fact its only a few games I'm having issues with I was holding off upgrading but I need to find something to invest these gift cards in that would actualy be useful, I'm actualy really happy w/ my CRT and LCD combo LCD for text / surfing and CRT for gaming if I could find a good deal on a 20"+ 1600x1200 or higher LCD I might just jump on that though.

edit: thats why I need suggestions ! lol I can't decide what I should spend this on I really just wanted to wait for prices to drop I can always wait to play Fear when video cards that run it well drop in price.
 
Unless you are a serious gamer, I do not think you will notice much with any upgrades. You would be better off just selling the gift cards. And I for one would not mind buying them. PM me if you want to.
 
Welp I just sold my LCD lol I can potentialy add around the 245 I just got for it to the giftcards and put that to something, altho I may just use that for my car payment lol
 
7800GT still wouldnt hurt you...and you can always resell it.It'll diffenently give you performance boasts.Get a better LCD monitor sell the old card+old LCD. you should have a 100-200 dollars left.Buy a video ipod or something😀
 
What I'm wondering is a slightly overclocked X800XL -> to 7800GT really worth it at this point in the game, If I'm gonna upgrade the video card I would really want it to be a step up the 7800GT just isn't that big a step up from an Overclocked X800XL sure its faster but its not like twice the speed like when I went from my ti 4400 -> 9800Pro to my current X800XL those were big jumps I noticed I just don't think 4 more pipes and slightly higher clock speeds on the 7800GT are worth ~300 I haven't check what X800XL's are going for used anymore but I could prolly cost it down some but it doesn't seem like a big enough upgrade, maybe a GTX or X1900XT would be but not a 7800GT
 
You have a pretty decent system already - too bad the gift cards expire so soon. You really aren't going to get great value for money for any upgrade at this time. With the extra money from selling your LCD, you could just about get the Dell 24" LCD, at least that upgrade will last a while. Maybe wait 6 more weeks and see what's out by then.
 
Yeah I picked a bad time for the cards to expire lol 🙂 I'm giving serious thought to Selling my CRT and investing in a Samsung 244T but its a bit above my budget, seeing as I keep displays for so long though it might be worth it and dells 24" LCDs just don't seem as nice lol
 
I have a couple of custom apps that sp2 breaks I have all the security patches included in sp2 but not the actual sp as it causes issues on my system, unless I upgrade to dual core I don't really need a newer bios I've tried the various 6-23 versions and some of the betas and it hasn't really made a difference or made things worse.
 
I didn't list my sound system but generaly I'm happy w/ it I had to run the analough connections to my HT reciver but I have an Onkyo TX-SR501 HT reciver + 5.1 speaker setup (4x BIC addato 52si 1x DV32CLR and 1x Altec Lansing 200watt 12" powered sub) so even w/ the onboard Karjan audio module on the DFI I'm generally happy w/ my sound it was better w/ the digital out on my old Nforce 2 soundstorm based system but even w/ the 5.1 analoug setup it still sounds good.
 
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