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Upgrade?

6

68falcon

Senior member
specs are in the sig, the mobo is supposedly customizable, i have room for 4 GB of DDR or 2 GB of DDR2, i have onboardsound, which is 8 channel, but really dont care and probably couldnt tell the difference if i got anymore speakers, im running on just the 2. i play games, just got half-life but cant play online game cause i have dial up atm, trying to get dsl in our area but not working. my resolution stays at 1024*768. i thought about overclocking but am a little hesistant because of the warranty, but am open to new ideas. my current temps with the stock heatsink are: CPU 40 C and mobo 28 C
so how far could i overclock without worrying about it blowing up.
the ram is patriot, dont know how gooda brand so might need to get corsair or something
any suggestions would be appreciated
 
anybody, please, i saw some logitech 5.1 speakers at sams for 50 bucks today and i think they would be nice, will my onboard sound be good enough or do i need to upgrade?
 
your computer should easily run HL2 at 1600x1200. P4 2.8 should overclock to 3.4ghz or so. However, you have to make sure that your motherboard allows Front-side bus adjustment in the BIOS (or it can be adjusted using a windows-based overclocking utility). Your videocard should overclock to 435/535 or more.

As far as speakers go, onboard sound is fine for $50 speakers, even if they are 5.1 setup.

 
Originally posted by: 68falcon
anybody, please, i saw some logitech 5.1 speakers at sams for 50 bucks today and i think they would be nice, will my onboard sound be good enough or do i need to upgrade?
Click to expand...

Onboard sound is a great option for most people with budget speakers.
 
Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Originally posted by: 68falcon
anybody, please, i saw some logitech 5.1 speakers at sams for 50 bucks today and i think they would be nice, will my onboard sound be good enough or do i need to upgrade?
Click to expand...

Onboard sound is a great option for most people with budget speakers.
Click to expand...

Amen.
 
your computer should easily run HL2 at 1600x1200
Click to expand...
i thought so too, but like when a barrel explodes it gets choppy, and right after it loads for the next level its choppy for a few seconds, and im only running in 1024x768. anything i can do?
 
the ati control center has a thing were you can turn it all the way to performance or quality, its balanced atm, should i turn it all the way to performance, or is there any other tweaking i can do
 
Originally posted by: 68falcon
anybody, please, i saw some logitech 5.1 speakers at sams for 50 bucks today and i think they would be nice, will my onboard sound be good enough or do i need to upgrade?
Click to expand...

$50 5.1 speakers are probably very crappy.

You could feasibly (sp.?) get okay 2.1 speakers for $50, but I'd suggest getting good $100 2.1 speakers (Logitech z-2300s) or good 5.1 speakers at $150 (Logitech z-5300s or 5500s). Anandtech frequently lists Logitech speakers as good choices for their buyer's guides and I believe that they are wonderful for their price.

DSL is awful, btw. Get cable and be a happy camper. I hate my DSL.

Intel CPUs are okay to OC to 60C, IMO. But make sure you have a hardware monitor or something to detect your temperatures and you'll want to turn your PC off more frequently than usual to prolong the life of your CPU. OC'ing with Intel is never easy.

Patriot RAM is just fine.

0roo0roo wrote: "you don't need an upgrade. maybe a new monitor if you are stuck at 1024x768," and I agree. ATI cards should start to perform better than their Nvidia counterparts at higher resolutions (eg 1248x1024).

The X800XL is a solid, solid GPU, so something else is bottlenecking your system if you are lagging a lot. I have a BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC PCI-e in my rig and I'm able to play HL2 with all settings up and quite a bit of antialiasing at 1024x768 with no lag ever. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do the same given your specs.

Good luck and keep us posted (forgive the horrible pun).
 
you don't need an upgrade. maybe a new monitor if you are stuck at 1024x768
Click to expand...
im not stuck at 1024x768, i just choose to play at that level, the speakers were logitech,i'll get the numbers later, i think ill up the res and everything, atm im running HL2 at the defaults, idk what could be bottlenecking my system
 
Originally posted by: 68falcon
you don't need an upgrade. maybe a new monitor if you are stuck at 1024x768
Click to expand...
im not stuck at 1024x768, i just choose to play at that level, the speakers were logitech,i'll get the numbers later, i think ill up the res and everything, atm im running HL2 at the defaults, idk what could be bottlenecking my system
Click to expand...

You should be able to do some antialiasing, antistropic (sp.?) filtering, reflect all, and pretty much every other graphic option set to its highest setting @ 1280x1024. Make sure your desktop resolution is set less than or equal to your game resolution or you will have many problems. Also check for spyware/adware and run something like Norton or TrendMicro (my personal favorite).

Let us know how it turns out.
 
Originally posted by: 68falcon
you don't need an upgrade. maybe a new monitor if you are stuck at 1024x768
Click to expand...
im not stuck at 1024x768, i just choose to play at that level, the speakers were logitech,i'll get the numbers later, i think ill up the res and everything, atm im running HL2 at the defaults, idk what could be bottlenecking my system
Click to expand...

Speakers are probably x-530s.

It's a good set on a budget.
 
$50 5.1 speakers are probably very crappy.

You could feasibly (sp.?) get okay 2.1 speakers for $50, but I'd suggest getting good $100 2.1 speakers (Logitech z-2300s) or good 5.1 speakers at $150 (Logitech z-5300s or 5500s). Anandtech frequently lists Logitech speakers as good choices for their buyer's guides and I believe that they are wonderful for their price.

DSL is awful, btw. Get cable and be a happy camper. I hate my DSL.

Intel CPUs are okay to OC to 60C, IMO. But make sure you have a hardware monitor or something to detect your temperatures and you'll want to turn your PC off more frequently than usual to prolong the life of your CPU. OC'ing with Intel is never easy.

Patriot RAM is just fine.

0roo0roo wrote: "you don't need an upgrade. maybe a new monitor if you are stuck at 1024x768," and I agree. ATI cards should start to perform better than their Nvidia counterparts at higher resolutions (eg 1248x1024).

The X800XL is a solid, solid GPU, so something else is bottlenecking your system if you are lagging a lot. I have a BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC PCI-e in my rig and I'm able to play HL2 with all settings up and quite a bit of antialiasing at 1024x768 with no lag ever. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do the same given your specs.

Good luck and keep us posted (forgive the horrible pun).
Click to expand...

thanks for all the info, btw about the dsl being crappy, in my area-way out in the country- dsl will probably be the only thing i can get and anything is better than dialup, any ideas on the choppy gameplay, i turned up the antialiasing and stuff and when you pick up an item it only shows half of the display of it
 
HL2 runs so well for me... I can't even begin to troubleshoot those kind of problems with your card. ATI supposedly runs better on HL2 than Nvidia, too...

BF2 has been killing me though. If you get a chance to test BF2 on your comp, lmk how it turns out for ya.
 
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