The Woes of Upgrading

[novacthall]

First off, I suppose an introduction is in order. I'm Chris and I'm new to AnandTech forums. I have what I would describe as an advanced amount of experience and exposure to hardware, though my knowledge of current hardware standards is not quite as up-to-date as I would like. I'm comfortable with the insides of a computer, though, and very comfortable in Windows.

With that out of the way, I was hoping I could get some advice on my current situation.

Here's a quick rundown of my system:
ABIT AV8 939 mobo
AMD Athlon64 3500
2GB RAM
ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum 256MB
WindowsXP Pro

In the recent months, especially since Core2Duo hit the streets, I've been getting more and more antsy about upgrading the rig, which I built in October of 2004 primarily to play computer games. I keep running into a few problems, though. One: my mobo's socket 939, so I'm limited with what CPUs I can throw in there. Two: even with a CPU upgrade, my mobo's AGP only, and doesn't have a PCI-Express slot on it. Which means that my next upgrade is probably going to be major. New mobo, new CPU, new GPU, new RAM, the whole shebang.

But then I saw on DailyTech that Sapphire is releasing an AGP X1600. Just when I thought I had the last great AGP GPU, this rolls along. This may, I think, give me another upgrade option to tide me over until the massive C2D refresh, but I wanted to run it by here to get some input first.

I was contemplating finding myself a 939-pin dual-core Athlon and coupling it with the X1600(AGP). The first question, really, is "can I even do that?" The second question is whether or not I would get any sort of tangible performance boost from the upgrade, which I anticipate would cost probably around $500-$600. Would it just be better to hold off and go all out three to four months after Vista launches, or take the smaller upgrade now to keep me good through next November or so and go all out then?

It's a lot to read, and for that I apologize. If there's anything that needs clarifying, by all means bring it to my attention and I will do what I can. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to any advice I receive.

 

[KeithTalent]

Apparently an AGP X1950 is out: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1944853&enterthread=y

So if you do not want to upgrade everything yet, but still want a gaming performance boost, you may want to go that route in the interim.

 

[novacthall]

KeithTalent,
Now that I hadn't heard of. Thanks muchly for the information! I'm assuing the X1950 would beat the pants off the X1600 on paper and still offer me a performance increase over my X800XTPE? I haven't seen anything on NewEgg yet, is the card out or do I just need to look elsewhere?

 

[A5]

The X1950 AGP isn't out yet, but it would beat the crap out of the X1600.

The X1600 probably isn't much faster than your X800.

As far as CPUs go, you can still get just about any of the Athlon X2 series of processors for socket 939.

An X1950 AGP combined with a dual-core CPU will last you quite a while in all but the most extreme gaming situations.

 

[brikis98]

yeah, the easiest solution for you would def. be the x1950 agp if/when it comes out. it'll be pretty damn fast and be good for more than a year, depending on what games you play, at what resolution and if you like lots of eye candy (AA, AF, HDR, etc)... there are also plenty of faster/better s939 CPU's that you can always drop in, provided you can find them in stock at reasonable prices. you could see a decent boost with a nice OCed s939 opteron as dual core is nice for multitasking now and will only become more useful in the future (even in games). there are quite a few deals online and in the FS/FT forum here.

another alternative is to just grab a cheap s939 motherboard that does have PCI-E x16. The MSI Neo4-f is <$50 these days and works pretty well (i'm using it now). this gives you the ability to get whatever PCI-E x16 video card you want (and with more choice, you can hunt for better deals) and will last you for even longer. however, it's slightly more expensive and changing mobos can be a pain in the ass (you have to take everything out, usually reinstall windows, etc) that some ppl wouldn't do without an entire system refresh.

 

[razor2025]

I agree with the suggestions for AGP 1950pro.

It's pointless to move to a new motherboard now, unless you want to overhaul the entire system outright. Your last worthwhile upgrades are 1950pro (unless there's faster AGP card) and maybe a Athlon X2 for your Socket 939. Don't bother with going onto PCI-Express unless you want to spend for complete overhaul.

So AGP 1950pro ~ $250, a X2 3800+ ~ $150, so total is ~$400. Reasonable amount of money. You'll see tangible results for the 1950pro upgrade and maybe not so much on CPU upgrade. Don't worry about Vista, as there's barely any games in the pipeline that will use DX10 anytime soon. Maybe in a year or two, will we see an actual need for Vista-related upgrade useful.

 

[KeithTalent]

I have read they are expected to be out before Christmas.

Backordered at BestBuy and showing for $300.

From what I have read they should be closer to $250 at decent online retailers by Christmas. Not sure if you can wait that long though.

 

[DaveSimmons]

An A64 3500+ should work fine with the 1950. A second core is not very useful for gaming yet, so you'd have to get at least a 4400+ for one that's better at gaming than your 3500+ at stock speed.

Just get the video card, and consider overclocking the 3500+ slightly if there is some game that really is CPU bottlenecked enough to annoy you.

Otherwise, enjoy the video card well into next year. By then good core 2 motherboards will be $50 cheaper, RAM may be $100 cheaper, and DDR2 compatibility nightmares will be a thing of the past.

 

[novacthall]

Looks to me like I've gotten some excellent advice here tonight. Thanks to everyone for their input.

It looks like that AGP X1950 will be the best way for me to go, and just save up for a killer C2D in fourth quarter. Do you think NewEgg will carry them, or should I just snatch up what I can when I can and not be so picky? Will there likely be a 512MB version, or with GDDR3 is that largely unnecessary?