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price vs performance. (NOT bragging post, seriously!!)

TimeKeeper

TimeKeeper

Diamond Member
I am in the situation where I need to give a "proper" suggestion to a family on their new PC. Please do understand, they are average Mr., Mrs. Joe w/ 2 teenagers, MONEY IS OBJECT!

Here is a list of items that I have problem answering.

1. Video card. MX vs GTS price different $70.
Will there be "WOW~~~~" improvement if they are using 1024X768@16bit w/ 17incher?

2. RAM on Win98SE. 128MB vs 256MB price different $40
Again, how significant will this be if w/ Win98se?

3. CPU. T-850 vs T-1.0Ghz price different $80. NO-OC, please!
150mhz worth an extra $80? or $80 just to reach that "club"?






 
get em the most/best they can afford. chances are they're not freaks like us wantin to upgrade all the time. It'll add life to the pc
 
1. The MX will perform fine in most games. GTS is not needed for average users.

2. Get 128mb ram. The won't be doing any Memory intensive applications.

3. A T-bird 850mhz is a good option for all-around applications. 1ghz is not needed for regular use unless you need that extra power.
 
1. MX is good price/performer.
2. 128MB is good, they can alway upgrade later..but it's cheap now.
3. If money is an objective then consider a Duron and save more $$$.

Games will be limited by the MX, so a faster CPU won't do much for games. An average person does not need a T-bird to run word or excel.
 
For the video card I actually would recommend a Creative Annihilator Pro (GeForce 256 DDR) for just about $10 more then a MX... but it will be faster at high res and 32-bit.]

As for the CPU really the 800 will be fine now, but then again if they want the PC to not be outdated as quickly then 1Ghz might be worth the extra.
 
IMHO, just get the MX, I doubt that they really care about the difference in FPS. but I'd spend extra on the RAM, since it'll improve the performance quite some (a lot less disk usage, and minimum cost), and you use stay with the 850Mhz CPU(again, unless the it's game/science intensive, there's not much point getting Ghz CPU..)

 
Duron... That will save them extra $40. That certainly a good idea.

Oh, I believe those kids will be playing Simcity2k, Red alter3, and Mechwarrior4 or something.. Parents will be using Words, Excel, E-mail, web, and regular analog 56K. (no autocad, light photoshop,...that's about it)


I guess MX is good buy. ( I might mod it into MXR for them)
128MB should be adequate, I hope.



Now Duron 800 vs T-850?

 
Well, I think they will benifit more with more RAM than a faster processor.

So you could compromise...

Geforce 2 MX - $70
RAM 196MB - $60
CPU Duron 750 - $60
----------------------
Total about $190

To me this is very cost efficient. And I know you said no ocing, but that duron 750 will hit 800 without a doubt 🙂
 

"1. Video card. MX vs GTS price different $70.
Will there be "WOW~~~~" improvement if they are using 1024X768@16bit w/ 17incher?"

This depends on the game actually!
Not with HL or CS etc - if you play IGI (I'm Going In) then yes - but you can just run at 800 x 600 and it looksfine 🙂
YOu will see a major difference presumably at 32Bit colour - 16Bit is good enough for me though - I'm using an MX2 card also 🙂 I'm sure when they see the MX2 performance they will think WOW anyway 🙂

"2. RAM on Win98SE. 128MB vs 256MB price different $40
Again, how significant will this be if w/ Win98se?"

There is a difference between the two - 192MB is probably the sweet spot for value but not really the way to go with current RAM prices!
128Mb is enough - 256 will help - but not necessary really - I have 256MB though which I would recommend!

"3. CPU. T-850 vs T-1.0Ghz price different $80. NO-OC, please!
150mhz worth an extra $80? or $80 just to reach that "club"?"

I'm sure your friends will be more than happy with a "mere" TB750 but again as people have mentioned save the money for something else and just get a Duron 700 perhaps.
I'm using my mates old Duron 700 which he upgraded with a TB900 @ 1000Mhz - he can't tell the difference he says. I could feel it though - snappier feeling (microscopically!) But not worth it for the perfomance to $$$ ratio.
 
I would consider myself something of a hardcore gamer, but only in the respect that I play only one game - and in that, I aim for framerates, not eye candy (q3a).
By this, I play a hell of a lot of q3, but nothing else.

The GF2MX is well.... 164fps at my play settings on a K7-1GHz+256MB, win2k.
172fps under Me.
For most things, a GF2MX is entirely sufficient. My opinion of course will differ from others - like I said, I don't use any of the eye candy.
I can tell you now that this system would CHUG with even 192MB. Theres just so much crap installed, it idles at about 150MB on startup.
IMO, 256MB is pretty much a minimum these days.

With an MX video card, you DO want the extra 150MHz - it's a noticable difference... in my case it would equate to about 30fps.

Of course, the preference order again depends on exactly what you do with the system.
However, for myself, I would put the GTS last on the list. My brother has one - although he runs q3 @1152*864 - but at around 80fps timedemos (Cel566). Both the MX and GTS are extremely limited by the CPU - current CPUs on the market wont get the most out of them.

Hope that helps.
 
you can save like $10 if you get them a radeon LE instead of a geforce2mx. plus their parents will thank you if they look at a lot of excel spreadsheets
 
TimeKeeper, this is easy!
1. Quality branded MX over quirky Radeon if they don't know much about computers. When their game demo don't run properly who they gonna run to?
2. Get 256Mb. SDRam is going to go up when DDR takes over. Some games already require 128Mb. There are teenagers don't forget.
3. Duron. In some benchmarks it goes as fast as a T-bird, and is cheaper.

Try a very integrated motherboard if price is so important. Not that I have anything more to do with them since I won the lottery...
 
pretty much agree w/ travis on this...

256mb, as sdram is bound to go up eventually...especially w/ dropping ddr prices and wider adoption of it

radeon LE over the MX, tho the MX over the GTS...an MX will easily suffice for 1024x768@16-bit color depth

duron 800 is cheaper than the t-bird 850 by a substantial margin and performs relatively on a par with it...
 
Quality branded MX over quirky Radeon if they don't know much about computers. When their game demo don't run properly who they gonna run to?

Never had a problem with Radeon in Windows 98, plus a DDR Radeon will whoop the snot out of a similarly priced GeForce MX. For the money, the Radeon is the better card. Better 2D (because the filters being put on Geforece cards suck haha!) and 3D is higher quality too.

Don't listen to Geforce zealots, there are better alternatives at your price level. Hell if they are not gonna play games or need 3D at all, skip the 3D cards and get a Matrox.
 
Get the radeon le, or the regular radeon 32mb ddr. With the le you can turn it into a regular radeon. I have the 64mb and it runs fine in win2k so I see no reason why it wont work in win98se.
 


<< 1. Video card. MX vs GTS price different $70.
Will there be &quot;WOW~~~~&quot; improvement if they are using 1024X768@16bit w/ 17incher? >>

Benchmarks section of the Radeon VE review Look here at the GF2MX reviews, I think you will see that for most people a GeForce2MX would be sufficiently fast for 1024x768x32, if it is to slow they can certainly back off to 16bit and get a good speed boost. I think that a GF2MX should be quite good for any non-hardcore gamers.



<< 2. RAM on Win98SE. 128MB vs 256MB price different $40
Again, how significant will this be if w/ Win98se? >>

I'd go with 256MB, RAM is pretty cheap right now, and while in Win98SE you should be fine with 128MB, there are some pretty memory hungry games out there. Go 192MB maybe. I'd just go 256MB.



<< 3. CPU. T-850 vs T-1.0Ghz price different $80. NO-OC, please!
150mhz worth an extra $80? or $80 just to reach that &quot;club&quot;? >>

No. Not at all. I'm a pretty avid gamer, and I use an 850Tbird with 256MB RAM and a Voodoo5-5500 (not much faster than the MX). I'm not a &quot;hardcore&quot; gamer, but I do game quite a bit. And I'm quite satisfied with my Rig. 850 will give you tons of Juice.
You may want to consider a Duron, though TBirds are pretty cheap in the 750-900 range, so I'd go with one of those.
 
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