Need some advice on a system!

[Lorn]

I need some advice on a system right now. Bottom line - I want to be able to play Battlefield 2 and CS:S on a 200FPW with good details and steady frame rates. I don't need to multitask, I don't need to do any hard work on it... just games. I have a Mac to do all of my work on so this is strictly gaming. Because of that same reason I'm a bit budget concious; I don't want to spend a grand so that I can play some computer games.

That said, here's what I have.

AMD Sempron 2800+ s754
ECS 755-A2 s754 Motherboard
eVGA 6800 Ultra AGP

I haven't yet seen how this works yet because I don't have any RAM to put in it. Will this suffice? Should I go ahead and purchase...

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
MSI K8N Neo4 Motherboard

...to go with a X850XT PCI-e I have?

If the Sempron system will work great with the 6800 Ultra I'll go ahead and finish that system and sell the X850XT. If you guys don't think that this will suffice and I should go ahead with the s939/PCI-e system I'll do that and sell off the rest.

Thanks for any help.

 

[MBentz]

Venice + X850XT.

 

[gac009]

venice and the x850xt, the limited bus and L2 cache of the sempron will really affect your performance I believe.

 

[SrGuapo]

Aren't there a few socket 754 PCI-e boards floating around? Maybe you could pair one of those with the sempy...

Undoubtabley the A64/x850 will destroy the sempron in most games. Both the CPU and GPU are vastly superior...

 

[blckgrffn]

I would say get a S754 3400+ A64 to go with the Ultra and save the dough you would be spending on that other stuff and buy 2 gigs of ram, which BF undoubtedly likes... I loved my 6800U AGP!

Saying an X850XT is "Vastly Superior" is a bit of a stretch, bud

Let us know how it works out!

Nat

 

[Peter]

You will find that cache size does little for game performance, and hence, the Sempron won't be doing THAT bad.
Of course that other system will be faster, but by how much, and for how much money? I suggest you maximize on /this/ ratio.

Your best bang-for-buck upgrade indeed is the socket-754 A3400+. 2.4 GHz core for much less money than on 939 - pair with an ECS NF4-A754 board if you want PCIE, and off you go!

 

[Emultra]

Itanium + 7800GTX SLi


No, seriously, both those systems should be good. I'd go for the second, though. Or rather, the second CPU with the first GPU.

 

[nitromullet]

Personally, I would go with the PCI-E setup purely because you already have a (really good) PCI-E card. This route will give you the most upgrade options in the fuutre. The advice to go with a s754 A64 3400+ for your AGP mobo probably is your best bang for the buck option short term, but it leaves you with barely any upgrade wiggle room.

 

[johnnqq]

go to www.tomshardware.com and go to their cpu charts. u will see taht an a64 is WAAAY better in games than a sempron. if u play doom 3 with the ultra, the graphics will probably be around the same as the a64 but maybe worse bc of that sempron. besides, agp is dying.

 

[Lorn]

Thanks for the help, guys. I'm really just looking to play BF2 and HL2 for fun once and a while, so I really don't want to spend that much. There's no doubt that the s939/X850XT system would be faster, but it'll come at a much higher cost ($146 CPU, $90 Mobo, $80 RAM). With THAT said, stick to s754 and get a better processor?

 

[blckgrffn]

Yes, get at least any A64 and you should be sitting pretty, but my personal favorite would still be the 3400+, I had one with my AGP 6800U and it was very speedy

 

[Bushman5]

x850xt is the best card

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: NOLOVE
Thanks for the help, guys. I'm really just looking to play BF2 and HL2 for fun once and a while, so I really don't want to spend that much. There's no doubt that the s939/X850XT system would be faster, but it'll come at a much higher cost ($146 CPU, $90 Mobo, $80 RAM). With THAT said, stick to s754 and get a better processor?

Go with what you have first. My guess is it'll be good enough for a solid game experience. Next step up would be replacing the Sempron with a faster CPU, focussing on core speed - Athlon 3400+/754 as recommended before.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: MBentz
Venice + X850XT.

 

[gac009]

I think either should work fine.

since you already have a x850xt why not just sell everything else and use the money for a new mb/cpu/ram. you will have more than enough and a really good system as well. the fact that you want good performance is a given what matters is whether money is an issue.

simple.

money issue- sempron 6800ultra

money not issue- venice x850xt

 

[HDTVMan]

No.

Venice + 6800 is the best way to go.

The 850 is nice and a little faster than the 6800 but Smart Shader 3 is going to be used in a lot of games and would be a better choice for the longer run.

Even if ATI comes out with the 850SLI it still wont add SmartShader 3.

 

[johnnqq]

do whatever is cheaper...but just get an a64.