So, I'm still running an Athlon XP...

[Rip the Jacker]

By the way: I'll be using my PC for some light gaming (WC3, WoW maybe, CS: Source, nothing heavy. I don't want it to lag if I have multiple applications open though (Photoshop, WC3, DVD Editing)

Is there any real reason to get an X2 nowadays? Does it offer any real benefits now? I'm still on my Athlon XP 2500+, but this rig is about 2 years old and I think it's time for an upgrade.

However, I don't want to just spend $1000 on an upgrade that won't really improve my performance by that much.. I was thinking of just getting an A64 3700+ San Diego + 2 GB of ram..

Thoughts?

 

[MrUniq]

This late in the game...probably be best to just wait until next year and pick up a core2 cpu...and when reasonable prices for MB..and MAYBE memory roll around. I upgraded from an XP and there are significant perfomance gains...but I don't think it's worth sticking with AMD in the short term.

 

[zainali]

just stick with what you have a little longer.

then go for a full upgrade with vista and dx10 video card.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Aye if you've been runing this long w/ an Axp I'd just wait till Decent DX10 cards and cheaper Core 2 chips or possibly K8L

 

[ForumMaster]

hey i still run an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ oc'ed to 2.2Ghz and it's very fast. i am saving money for a planned upgrade in a couple of month. i'll wait atleast 6 more month and then see.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I saw a very big difference going from an socket A Athlon 3200+ to a socket754 3700+ on every task and it doesn't cost very much. If you're planning on upgrading...what's the rest of your hardware look like? Will you have to upgrade everything, ie hard drive, video card, etc to get the performance you're looking for?

PC specs:

Abit NF8
s754 3700+
2x512 Crucial Ballistix
MSI 6600GT
36GB Raptor, for OS

I play games like Source and it runs great, even while streaming music to my other PC I rarely get hiccups.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
hey i still run an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ oc'ed to 2.2Ghz and it's very fast. i am saving money for a planned upgrade in a couple of month. i'll wait atleast 6 more month and then see.

Dude, I've got the exact same chip overclocked to the exact same speed, and let me tell you, it isn't "very fast." This thing is REALLY getting long in the tooth and I've been putting off my upgrade for far too long. I'll be jumping onto a quad core processor at the beginning on next year, and let me tell you, it is going to be a breath of fresh air. I just REALLY can't wait to dump my current system. :|

 

[Rip the Jacker]

Yeah, I think my specs will be almost exactly like yours, ch33zw1z, except 939 though.

current specs tho
R9700 Pro
1x512MB Ballistix
AXP 2500+

 

[lobbyone]

I went from an Athlon XP 2100+ to a A64 3000+ 939...and boy, huge difference it is, I didn't want to throw away my existing ram so I got an ASRock mobo to reuse my ram and vid card, and I thought going from a Celeron 533MHz to Athlon XP was extreme! lol, if you can wait a little bit longer for the prices of C2D and DDR2 ram to go down, its going to be worth your wait...and i'm waiting for that day myself

 

[MXtra]

i had a 3700+ san diego and a 1900xtx with 2 gigs of ram. guess what? i still had lag sometimes in new games @1600x1200 with eye candy on max. i returned the video card to compusa and sold the rest on ebay. i now have a core2duo 6600, 2gb ram, and x1950xtx and no more lag even though I'm running it all @stock speed! the 3700+ processor is too slow unless you know for sure you can overclock it A LOT. stock doesn't cut it. the video cards are practically the same so it was the cpu holding me back.

 

[Corporate Thug]

why wait? there is always something bigger and better around the corner.

get a nice e6300 and gigabyte 965 board and be done with it. For the GPU, there is a hot deal right now for a 7900 GTO

 

[xgsound]

I assume you have few parts to put in any new system. Case, hard drive, and power supply are probably all you can recycle forward. My recent upgrade was from a 750 Mhz Athlon, so I was done waiting.

I went with the MATX MSI K9NMG2-FID, AM2 AMDx2 3800+, and 1 GB of 667 DDR2 ram for $327. It has Nvidia 6150 (fine for me) video and a PCIe 16 slot. It also has 2 IDE controllers and 4 SATA ports so my old drives (and CDs) work and so will new ones. The more you wait, the more the prices settle in on PCIe video, core 2 DUO, AMD skt AM2, DDR2, and the motherboards to support them. The older stuff will get expensive fast when the new stuff takes off so get the new sockets and ram, with IDE and SATA ports if possible.


Jim

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
hey i still run an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ oc'ed to 2.2Ghz and it's very fast. i am saving money for a planned upgrade in a couple of month. i'll wait atleast 6 more month and then see.

Dude, I've got the exact same chip overclocked to the exact same speed, and let me tell you, it isn't "very fast." This thing is REALLY getting long in the tooth and I've been putting off my upgrade for far too long. I'll be jumping onto a quad core processor at the beginning on next year, and let me tell you, it is going to be a breath of fresh air. I just REALLY can't wait to dump my current system. :|

what mobo do you have? i have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and it's very fast. true i don't encode movies and proccesor intensive tasks, but i can game quite well. don't know why you're getting so angry though. my specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ OC'ed to 2.2Ghz
1GB DDR400 Mushkin RAM
Nvidia 6600 AGP 256MB

this is that matters. i know i need to upgrade but since Intel has been releasing CPU's so often lately, i want to wait, save up the money, and then see what is better when AMD brings K8L.

 

[kenji4life]

what mobo do you have? i have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and it's very fast. true i don't encode movies and proccesor intensive tasks, but i can game quite well. don't know why you're getting so angry though. my specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ OC'ed to 2.2Ghz
1GB DDR400 Mushkin RAM
Nvidia 6600 AGP 256MB

this is that matters. i know i need to upgrade but since Intel has been releasing CPU's so often lately, i want to wait, save up the money, and then see what is better when AMD brings K8L.

wow, ditto to that..
i have an epox 8rda3+ with the athlon xp-m barton 2400+ oc'd to 2.2ghz
1 gb ddr400 corsair ram (crappy)
and an nvidia 6800gs agp 256mp
i also run games fairly well. the roughest games for me are cs-source and quake-4, but that doesn't stop me from bringin it. i might not have maxed out gfx settings, but my fps's are still smooth.

I too can wait, although I must say I'm sick of the ram I have (it's holding back my overclock from ~2.7ghz)

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: kenji4life

what mobo do you have? i have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and it's very fast. true i don't encode movies and proccesor intensive tasks, but i can game quite well. don't know why you're getting so angry though. my specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ OC'ed to 2.2Ghz
1GB DDR400 Mushkin RAM
Nvidia 6600 AGP 256MB

this is that matters. i know i need to upgrade but since Intel has been releasing CPU's so often lately, i want to wait, save up the money, and then see what is better when AMD brings K8L.

wow, ditto to that..
i have an epox 8rda3+ with the athlon xp-m barton 2400+ oc'd to 2.2ghz
1 gb ddr400 corsair ram (crappy)
and an nvidia 6800gs agp 256mp
i also run games fairly well. the roughest games for me are cs-source and quake-4, but that doesn't stop me from bringin it. i might not have maxed out gfx settings, but my fps's are still smooth.

I too can wait, although I must say I'm sick of the ram I have (it's holding back my overclock from ~2.7ghz)

that is exactly what i was talking about. i don't think you need 2.7Ghz but if the RAM is holding you back, get better ones. i have found that the mobo used sometimes affects the speed. wonder what mobo JackBurton has. i mostly play GTA:SA with the settings at max and i get fine FPS. i also play UT:2k4.

 

[Madwand1]

WoW is CPU hungry, an XP is a definite bottleneck there, and a X2 can give some benefit (5-10% in the tests I did when I was playing WoW; I also benched 2600+ XP vs. 3800+ -- big difference).

 

[Makaveli]

WOW and CS S both are cpu limited on Athlon XP's.

I could play wow with not alot on screen, but in like ironforge was getting like 20fps EWW!

CS S was playable at 1280x1024 but no AF or AA. and in heavy firefights and smoke FPS dropped into low 30's.

This was not acceptable for me. I upgrade to a A64 and both games improved an insane amount. This is with a X800XTPE. Playability varies per person. I don't find the 30fps mark very playable for me in those 2 games.

This was on a 2.4Ghz barton wiht a Abit NF7-S v2.0

 

[Makaveli]

Reply is to Mxtra

I seriously doubt you were cpu limited at 1600x1200!

your videocard would be the bottleneck there, I doubt C2D vs A64 was the problem.

Is it possible that u have since upgraded your videocard drivers since that switch.
and just maybe X1900XTX has improved with the newer drivers.

also which games were u playing?

 

[drum]

Originally posted by: Rip the Jacker
Yeah, I think my specs will be almost exactly like yours, ch33zw1z, except 939 though.

current specs tho
R9700 Pro
1x512MB Ballistix
AXP 2500+

R9500 Pro
1x512MB Kingston value
AXP 2500+

fixed for me. I was going to upgrade a couple months ago and never got around to it. I'll probably wait for another few months now

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
hey i still run an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ oc'ed to 2.2Ghz and it's very fast. i am saving money for a planned upgrade in a couple of month. i'll wait atleast 6 more month and then see.

Dude, I've got the exact same chip overclocked to the exact same speed, and let me tell you, it isn't "very fast." This thing is REALLY getting long in the tooth and I've been putting off my upgrade for far too long. I'll be jumping onto a quad core processor at the beginning on next year, and let me tell you, it is going to be a breath of fresh air. I just REALLY can't wait to dump my current system. :|

what mobo do you have? i have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe and it's very fast. true i don't encode movies and proccesor intensive tasks, but i can game quite well. don't know why you're getting so angry though. my specs are as follows:
AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ OC'ed to 2.2Ghz
1GB DDR400 Mushkin RAM
Nvidia 6600 AGP 256MB

this is that matters. i know i need to upgrade but since Intel has been releasing CPU's so often lately, i want to wait, save up the money, and then see what is better when AMD brings K8L.

I'm not angry man, my system just reached the end of its line for me:

Athlon XP mobile 2600+ (forgot I got a 2600+ instead of a 2400+) running at 2.2GHz
ECS K7S5A
1GB (512MB x 2) PC3200 (FSB is 147MHz)
PNY 6800GT

Like I said, this system just doesn't meet my needs anymore. I can play FEAR at 1280x1024 but I can't max out the settings. I also have to make sure nothing else is running to make sure the game is getting all the CPU power it needs. I also do alot of encoding and it takes FOREVER.

 

[Makaveli]

Yep a C2D or a X2 is calling your name!

...Jack Buy me, Buy me, Buy me!!

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Makaveli
Yep a C2D or a X2 is calling your name!

...Jack Buy me, Buy me, Buy me!!

Sorry man, I think the QX6700 is the one calling my name.

 

[Makaveli]

lol nah, I think the QX6700 just wants your wallet.
You can keep the ID!

 

[InFeXiOn]

Bit off topic, but I saw some earlier posts about WoW and was wondering how it would run at a resolution of 1366x768 on max settings with the following rig:

AMD Athlon X2 4200+
GeForce 7600 GS 512mb DDR2 PCI-E
2GB OCZ PC3200 400mhz DDR RAM

And that's about all you should need to know, right? I mean, I want to play on max settings hopefully at the above stated resolution and even in raids and stuff want to know what kind of frames per second I could expect to experience?

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Makaveli
lol nah, I think the QX6700 just wants your wallet.
You can keep the ID!

Oh yeah, it definitely wants that too.