Upgrade question from noob

[Alexander Crawford]

I currently have:

A7V266-E MB
XP 1900+ 266 FSB CPU
512 MB PC2100 RAM
GeForce4 Ti4600 (Gainward 750 XP GS)

My thoughts about possible upgrades were:
1) upgrade CPU as high as MB will support
2) upgrade graphics card with Radeon 9800 Pro
3) upgrade RAM to 1Gb

Questions:

1) Is it worth upgrading any single elements of this setup such as these or would it be better to replace the whole lot?
2) What is the highest speed CPU that this MB will support
3) Is it worth waiting for PCI Express or any other technology just around the corner?

 

[Fern]

Hi AC & Welcome to the Forums!

If the upgrade is for HL2 (games) and one item, choose the vid card. A 9800 pro or a 6600GT maybe (yeah, I hear the AGP version is now out).

PCIe will basically mean a new cpu/gfx card/mobo/& maybe ram. Lot more $s

Fern

 

[Spartan Mustang]

Well my recomendation is that you really should build a whole new system. But if the cost is a problem for you then your best bet would be to start with your graphics card. If you plan on playing a lot of Half Life 2 then your best bet would be to buy a ATI card since the source engine is built around the strenghts of ATI. One thing you will want to be carfull about is your power supply. Most cards out today require a minimun of 300Watts of power. Since it appears that you have an aging system you will want to know how much juice your current power supply has. You might have to buy a new power supply as well. As for the RAM i would say that would come second when compared to a new graphics card. Also you should be aware of your mother boards limitations in regaurds to how much RAM it can handle. Hope this helps and good luck...

 

[DrCool]

Alexander

have you actually played the game yet?

that system will run HL2 just fine.. not at max settings, but at 800x600 with medium settings.

the HL2 game engine scales really well. It's perfectly playable on my Visiontek GeForce 2 MX.. and there aren't many new games you can say that about.

ignore the ignorant posts saying you need a $300 dollar video card to play 'any' game for that matter. If you have a 21 inch monitor and need to play at 1600x1200 then YES, you would need a GeForce 6800 Ultra.. otherwise, you don't.

 

[JSt0rm]

the minimum spec for the cpu is like 1.2ghz so I would upgrade to a dx9 videocard and leave it at that. Then play with full candy on and see if you are ok with your fps. If not then do more.

 

[uOpt]

Whatever you, keep in mind that for many games your Ti 4600 is faster than many GeForce FX models. Don't go buy a 5700 or so.

I am still waiting for medium-range graphics cards benchmarks with HL2, possibly the FX's shaders will make them better by comparision in HL2, but I wouldn't bet on it. It's probably best to run without advanced shaders at all.

Or in short: don't underestimate your TI 4600.

 

[Alexander Crawford]

Thanks for the helpful comments. I am currently playing HL2 at 1024x768. It works well although stutters a bit at complex scenes (especially those involving water) and is pretty slow at loading screens. However, I am enjoying the game SO much that I am keen to play it at or near its best.

I will wait to see graphics card benchmarks and then consider an early upgrade of the card - the thing that's preventing me do so is the change in standards from AGP to PCIe, so that when I do upgrade in full, I would have to buy yet another card rather than transferring the recently purchased graphics card.

 

[RobCur]

your pc2100 dimm is limiting your ability to run at 166FSB so in honesty it would be cheapest to replace dimm then try to overclock it to say 166mhz giving you 2000GHZ=PR2400 but your mobo maybe is not good overclocking so maybe replace mobo as well.

It would be cheapest and best to just buy the fastest cpu your mobo support such as xp2400, 1.93ghz
only a difference of 400mhz, won't boost performance much.

 

[Interitus]

Don't know if this helps you or not but this is my experience.

I used to run a similar setup to yours.

A7N266-E Board
XP2000+
1024MB PC2100
GF4 Ti4600

I moved at first to this

A7N8X Deluxe
XP2500+
1024MB PC3200
GF4 Ti4600

The difference was VERY noticeable even in older games. Loading was tons faster, games didn't stutter as much and even app loading was smoother. For a decent amount of cash you can upgrade to my second system.

A7N8X Deluxe is around $70
XP2500 is around $70 (or even a mobile barton for around $85)
RAM to PC3200 (I got my gig of Corsair Value select for $165 shipped from the egg)
Keep your card. I moved to a GeforceFX later and the Ti4600 seriously would've owned most of them. If you do want to move to a 9800 Pro, it'll help but I can't see it making a world of difference. I use one now and I still kick myself for selling my Ti4600.

The gig of ram is going to help a LOT with HL2. I think your vidcard will be ok. If you wait for PCI-E you're going to be looking at a more expensive processor upgrade, so if that's what you want, you're going to be spending a lot more cash for not so much of an improvement over the current AGP cards. PCI-E is going to be implemented with the new A64 boards and newer Intel CPU's. Yeah it's nice, but keep in mind that this is in the top rung of systems. PCI-E boards aren't going to be drastically more expensive than AGP boards, so upgrading to PCI-E later instead of now isn't going to hurt you. If you're not looking to buy an A64 or Intel rig in the near future I wouldn't use this as a make or break point.

Just my experience.

The mentioned upgrade will keep you at about $300 and you can also sell your old hardware. I would imagine you could get at least $100 for the mobo, cpu and RAM.

Your current board will accept any 266FSB Athlon. I don't know for sure what the highest one runs, but for me the upgrade to a Barton core XP with 512 cache instead of 256 was really noticeable.