Should I upgrade?

[Cr0nJ0b]

I've been looking to upgrade my system for about 6 months, but today, I sat back and thought..."Do I really need the upgrade?"

Here's my current PC
P4 2.28GHz
500MB RIMM
Mirrored ATA 80GB drives
ATI 9800Pro 128.

Here's what I want...
AMD64 (Rev.E) 3500+
PCI-E Graphics card...not sure which but a fast one
2GB Main Memory (I'd like a 1GB RAM drive for booting games)
Striped (3 X 160GB) SATA II disks Possible with the nForce RAID thing

This is all going to cost me big time, but will I really see the difference?

 

[o1die]

Yes. But have you tried overclocking your current rig? It's not bad.

 

[Fern]

What you use the rig for may have some impact. Ex. surfing the net. No

Gaming, maybe better to just sell the 9800p and get a 6800GT or X800 XT etc. I think the cpu w/b a little bit of a bottleneck. But nothing drastic.

My .02

Yeah, I'd love a 64bit system too. Just don't think the $ is worth it yet.

 

[perillo34]

For the money you want to spend on an amd chip, I say no, but if you were going to just go with 3200 or 3000 winchester and overclock it, I would say hell yeah. Fern I just upgraded from your exact setup to a 939 board, and a 2.55ghz winchester, and the difference is quiet drastic, in fact I had my xp oced to 2.63 ghz, and the real world performance difference btwn the two is amazing, HL2 runs twice as good with some extra trimmings. All in all I sold my setup, for 245, upgraded to a winnie and an Epox, for 255, all in all I payed 70 dollars for the upgrade. In my honest opinion worth it....

 

[Fern]

For $70? I'd say so. :thumbsup:

But, I don't think he's gonna be able to get as much for his rig as you did for yours. He can't use that old ram either.

I know a 2.55 64bit is better than 2.63 XP, but twice as good? Well twice as good in HL2?

In any case, the cpu upgrade will be MUCH more for him then it was for you. I wouldn't put that P4 much ahead of XP2000 (If at all). Unless his is diff than the one I got.

He may be like me. I don't sell my old rigs. I move 'em to the office (other than the vid card). I'd be paying 8-10 times what you did (I'm gonna have to replace one soon. Since its a lappy, I won't have a PSU, HDD, ram, optical drive or case etc to keep for my gaming rig. It'll all new- from ground up).

Course, when this lappy dies, it'll won't be all bad 🙂

 

[stevty2889]

It won't cost that much to upgrade if you can manage to sell that 512mb of RDRAM, it's still expensive, and for some strange reason, people still buy it..

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

My two cents. I went from a Barton 2500 running at 2.5 ghz with an Abit NF7-S v2.0..to a Kv8 Pro and an A64 3400...no noticable performance increase at all. Yeah, my CPU scores went up in 3dMark..but who cares..an extra $120 dollars after selling my old stuff for same full up 3dmark benchmark scores, same loading times.

 

[perillo34]

I dont understand how you didnt notice any performance difference, I did windows loads faster, games run faster, I shrink dvds faster, I feel the performance for dollar was worth it. Twice was an overstatement, but where my games lagged before they did not with the upgrade, and also getting rid of my blowdryer of a fan added some real world performance to my hearing. But hey to each his own. Benchmarks dont lie. I am a bit drunk as I write this so..... IF you are a gamer the amd64 is the way to go, the xp cant compete, especially if you like to run your games with all the extras turned on.