Upgrade Recommendations

[BigfootsMonk]

Hi all,

Today I received $500 for a scholarship award in check. I am planning to upgrade my computer with that money. Here are my current specs with my opinions.

-new MSI K7N2 Delta2 motherboard. nForce2. This was a cheap replacement for my faulty Epox 8RDA+.
-Athlon 2000+. Planning to upgrade to a better socket A. FSB 133
-768mb RAM. Seems good enough for the time being. However they are three sticks of 256, two of which are PC3200 and the last one is only DDR266. Which means if I get a new processor with an FSB of 200 I can't use that. Decisions decisions
-ATI Radeon 9500pro. Was a great card when I got it. Now it seems to be limited on low to medium graphics on UT, WoW
-SB Audigy 2 Platinum. Good enough
-Lian Li PC-7. Good enough.




I'm thinking of upgrading to a Athlon XP 2500+ and OC that to 2.2 ghz while getting the AIW X800XL. Since it will have TV input I can use my LCD to view TV in college instead of buying a new TV.

 

[modedepe]

Well if it were me, I would probably lean towards selling everything except the sound card and case (and whatever else you can salvage). Then I'd use the money from those parts and the scholarship money for a cheapy A64 setup. Depends how long you're planning on keeping it and what all you do on it though.

 

[imported_pak9rabid]

ya, cheap A64 setup would be preferred. I'd stay away from MSI for your mobo choice though. I've had really bad experiences with MSI, and they are/were being sued for putting faulty capacitors on their motherboards at one point.

 

[BigfootsMonk]

What if I don't want to sell too much though. I remember reading an article about how CPU capacities do not really matter too much anymore in future gaming. Now what would be the least expensive CPU where it shows how more expensive and powerful CPU's won't make a difference. And how does that CPU compare to the most powerful XP processor?

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: BigfootsMonk
What if I don't want to sell too much though. I remember reading an article about how CPU capacities do not really matter too much anymore in future gaming. Now what would be the least expensive CPU where it shows how more expensive and powerful CPU's won't make a difference. And how does that CPU compare to the most powerful XP processor?

It compares in favour of the 2500 over any other, because the 2500 can be overclocked to 3200+ levels which is the highest "XP" processor available. I still say go for an A64, even if it's just a 2800, I went FROM a 2500+ to my A64 3200+ and it was one of the nicest jumps in recent memory.

 

[BigfootsMonk]

What if I just upgrade my videocard? Would my processor hold me back so much that I would not see much of an improvement?

 

[BigfootsMonk]

Another thing I'm also worried about is that if I only upgrade my CPU + mobo + heatsink to a 64 based machine, chances are I will get a board with PCIe and that will force me to buy a new motherboard and get me out of my budget.

 

[imported_pak9rabid]

Originally posted by: BigfootsMonk
What if I don't want to sell too much though. I remember reading an article about how CPU capacities do not really matter too much anymore in future gaming. Now what would be the least expensive CPU where it shows how more expensive and powerful CPU's won't make a difference. And how does that CPU compare to the most powerful XP processor?

Actally, games like doom3 and HL2 are pretty CPU intensive due to the calculations required for the physics of games such as these. I would imagine as games become more life-like and the physics in these games become more sophisticated, the CPU requirements will rise.

The future is still a little fuzzy as where the hardware industry may go regarding physics processing. On one hand there are physics accelerators in the works that could handle the physics processing in games so that the CPU does not have to (much like how GPU's in video cards alleviated the need for CPU's to render graphics), and then theres the Cell CPU which could easily handle complex physics calculations.

Hope this was informative/helpful.

 

[l Xes l]

Originally posted by: BigfootsMonk
Another thing I'm also worried about is that if I only upgrade my CPU + mobo + heatsink to a 64 based machine, chances are I will get a board with PCIe and that will force me to buy a new motherboard and get me out of my budget.

u dont HAVE TO buy a pci-e board.. there's still plenty of people using/buying AGP boards and cards... we won't be putting pci-e to its full usage till years later.. if i were u.. i'd get A64/agp mobo path... and if ur WoW doesn't play too bad.. keep the vidcard for now... and cpu/mobo/ram should come bellow $500...