I need a few suggestions... please?

[TrECeNTeRs]

New to theese forums so I hope you all dont mind me starting off with a good question. My friend recominded comming here and it seems very friendly and down to earth with no "know it alls" or people that look down on others trying to learn. So if you all dont care help me out heres my question....

Ok here is my current setup .. I love FPS games .. What should I upgrade next? Suggestions?

trying to stay under or around a $200 range.. you know how it is with us underpaid computer techs


AMD XP1600+ - Oc'd @ 1600mhz @ 51deg C
512DDR pc2100 - Oc'd at around pc2700
Asus nForce2 mobo 333fsb agp 8x dual-chan ddr - FSB @ 2x152mhz @33deg C w/ good integrated sound
gForce FX 5200 Ultra - Not OC'd yet
7200rpm 80gig HDD .. i believe...



Scared to OC video. Last card Radion 8900 I believe wanted to change sink/fan to OC .. Went to pry off the sink w/ screw driver cut into the board and broke 2 of the wires that lay on it and unless I can turn into "Tech Smurf w/ mini solder gun" I dont think my me or soldering gun will do the job.. any ideas on that let me know also LOL Its probably just trash.

anyways back on subject..



Heres a Pic of my setup in sandra..
http://protech.sytes.net/oc.jpg

No pic of my case but its decent I have 9 fans total inside the box...
So im guessing it will stay pretty cool...
One of those people that like to sleep to a constant noise.
Helps ground out all of the cars passing by.

anyways any opinions, suggestions, or help would be appreciated thanks.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Welcome to the forums! Your CPU is a decent speed, so if you can only upgrade one thing right now it should be the video card. As you probably already know if you've read any video-card comparison articles on the main Anandtech site or at other sites like tomshardware.com, the fx5200 is a really slow card.

The best cheap upgrade would be a gf4 ti4200, Radeon 9600 Pro, 9600 XT or nv fx5900 non-ultra, 9800 non-pro, 9800 pro in that order from low-to-high cost. For $200 you can get the 9600XT with Half-Life2 coupon or the nVidia 5900 non-ultra version (supposedly, according to a thread in the Hot Deals forum). For $250 a 9800 non-pro, for $300 a 9800 pro.

The nvidia fx5700 is a good card too, though the same-price 9600XT is a bit better and comes with Half-Life2 (someday ) so unless you really, really like nVidia why get it?

 

[TrECeNTeRs]

ok so they made the 9600xt better then the 9700

Thats where i was getting confused.

Still though how much better will 9600xt improve gameplay in a game like Battlefield1942 or its DC mod.

http://protech.sytes.net/fx.jpg<-- comparison

I guess nvidia trys to keep people from really compareing cards.

What do you look at mostly for compareing speed.. for maybe getting more "frames per secound"

I notice the 5700 memory bandwidth is close to being 1/3rd faster then the 5200 but thats probably not what i should look at.

thanks for the help man I really apreciate it...

 

[DaveSimmons]

Some of the best comparisons are at the main Anandtech site and at Toms, both use the cards with real games and record the frames-per-second. Readi the last few Anandtech articles to see what I mean.

FYI a 9700 Pro is still faster than a 9600XT, so buying a used 9700 pro from the FS/FT forums here could be an even better deal than a 9600XT (but consder the 9600XT gives you a warranty and Half-Life2).

Things like memory bandwidth, pipelines, fill rates help in comparing 2 nvidia cards like a 5600 and 5700, but are much less useful comparing ATI chipset vs. nvidia chipset. The nV fx 5xxx cards look faster on paper than they are in the real world because of nVidia not designing them properly for the DirectX 9 specification --they're fast, but in the wrong ways. And paper specs don't tell you how much the differences really matter to game FPS.

 

[TrECeNTeRs]

great help thanks alot Dave

I will probably get a 5600XT somewhere for some reason always been a gforce fan..

After that I have no idea what to plan for upgrading.

I believe I have 2x256mb of Generic pc3200 comming my way should be better then the 2x256mb pc2100 even if it don't let me OC it i'm guessing.

I try to read some of the reviews they are in so much detail though reminds me of looking at linux for the first time. hehe


anyway have a good night and thanks again

 

[amdskip]

I'd actually upgrade to a XP 2500 and then sell the old processor/video card and get a faster card.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I will probably get a 5600XT somewhere for some reason always been a gforce fan..

If you can spend $200 you really should get a fx 5700 instead, like the $203 BFG Technologies Asylum GeForce FX5700 Ultra at newegg.com (go there for review links and pics)

HardOCP review

Look at Max Payne 2 for example, the 5600 gets a minimum 13 FPS while the 5700 gets 21 ! Average FPS jumps from 41 to 51.9. Halo, GTA Vice City also get big jumps.

 

[TrECeNTeRs]

oK I will probably get the 5700 and go for a processor upgrade also sence i'm getting the ram soon

I see xp2500 333fsb @ 1.8ghz - $83

and xp2600 333fsb @ 2.13ghz - $88

then xp2700 33fsb @ 2.17ghz - $107

so I was kind of looking more toward xp2600 .. what do you guys think are there any issues with overclocking them?



also you said BFG Technologies Asylum ... how much does brand name affect the performance opposed to that and a asus card?

 

[amdskip]

The 2500 will be the best overclocker. Many people have them running at 3000+ speeds.

 

[TrECeNTeRs]

wow thats cool see how much help you all been I would have probably got the 2600 and not been able to OC as much thanks skip..

ok last thing im wondering, Is Asylum the best brand gf? or pretty much just decent and affordable?

 

[Cornel]

Originally posted by: amdskip
The 2500 will be the best overclocker. Many people have them running at 3000+ speeds.

Not anymore...
It seems AMD decided it would be a good ideea to lock the multiplyer on new bartons. Still a good overclocker but not as good as it used to be