Let's pretend it's 2004 again

[speg]

So I built a machine October 2003, sweet. By the time I got my next machine I had converted to Apple :heart:

So this machine got put on Media/Server duty. Now that I have moved and set up a new office, I've started using this machine more day to day. I might be considering playing some games here and there too. Soooo, it needs a quick and dirty update, I already upped the memory to 2GB and am now asking you guys if it's worth it to upgrade the video (and to what?). I won't be doign anything too intensive, probably just some WoW, and maybe get ready for the new Star Wars MMORPG...

Specs (remember, this is 2003! ):


Asus A7N8X-X
AMD XP 2500+ 1.83Ghz
2GB
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro

I have been out of the loop for the past 5 years so I have no clue what's what right now. I don't have PCI Express, so I guess I need an AGP card...

So far I'm looking at stuff like a GeForce 7300GT and ATI's 3850/3650...

Obviously the CPU is going to be the bottleneck... but WoW isn't that intense... and I don't want to play the latest FPS at 60 FPS...

Thanks for any reco's!

 

[SergeC]

most MMORPGs are CPU-bound anyway. Your CPU will massively hold up anything you do.

That said, I believe ATI has the best AGP card around now. Someone who knows more than me will tell you which one, I'm sure

 

[nyker96]

sorry hate to break it to ya but it's 2009 going to 2010. AGP is .... D-word. anyways, if you need a agp gcard, just get anything off ebay, for a media/server machine, almost anything will do it.

 

[v8envy]

The ATI 3850 is as good as it gets for AGP. A 7300GT is going to be on par with your 9600. You can find AGP 3850s for about $100 shipped.

A single core, 32 bit, low memory bandwidth CPU at 1.83 ghz is going to choke on anything starting with flash and ending in HD video, not to mention any remotely modern (read: 2006 or newer) game. Just bite the bullet and build a low end box based on a dual core celeron or sempron (and hope for an unlock). If you work hard and vulture hot deals you could score a 9600GT or GSO, dual core celeron and a board + RAM for around the same $100, leaving only a PSU to upgrade.

 

[alyarb]

There is a Sempron+785G combo on newegg for $96. The sempron will unlock to a dual core athlon II x2 and do over 3.5 GHz. The 785G IGP will outperform your radeon 9600 in the meantime and, being a PCI-express system, you could always spend $60-80 on a midrange GPU or ~$120 on a 4870 when you're ready for performance.

do not make any humongous $100+ investments in AGP when you can get a cheaper PCI-express system that is overall much better for you in the long run.

 

[faxon]

yea for the price of a worthwhile AGP upgrade to what you have now, you could get a cheapo mobo with IG, CPU, and ram just like people have said. the HD4200 IG on the 785G chipset is going to be an upgrade in both raw performance as well as a massive upgrade in fixed function hardware codecs for high def playback. even if you were to get a video card for that old system that had these hardware decode paths, it still isnt 100% gpu decode, and your cpu would max out and throttle like no other. i have an XP 2600+ that i tried outfitting with a 2600PRO AGP for example to do some basic 720p playback, and while the GPU decode worked fine, the cpu just didnt have enough crunch left in it to feed the GPU in that playback mode. even my athlon 4000+ is hitting up against the top wall of what it can do in that field with GPU accelerated decode for high def content. i ended up piecing out parts of the athlon64 rig for cash, but im still holding the 2600+ rig since it's a legacy test bed for AGP and old DDR now, being the only rig i have that still works and runs both of these.