Upgrading my gaming rig, need suggestions....

[SylEm]

Ok, here's the current hardware I'm considering replacing:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Winchester)
MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset
4GB DDR (400) PC-3200 Patriot Extreme Performance
Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PCI Express

All of which have been fantastic this past year, and is still doing the drop pretty good, but I want a bit better. Here's my computer usage:

Lots of gaming (City of Heroes, Call of Duty 2, Counter Strike Source, Half Life 2, etc)
Decent amount of DVD decrypting/burning
Lots of multi tasking (i.e. running itunes, with firefox, smartftp, azereus, and some photoshop)
Decent amount of graphic design (Photoshops CS2 mostly)

The rest of my hardware (found in my sig) should be fine the way it is I think. But if you were going to upgrade given the parts, and my needs, what would you think I should get? And also working on a budget around $800-900

 

[coolpurplefan]

teh new X1950 Pro in my opinion is cool

As far as CPU/mobo, I would choose an AM2 to upgrade to a quad core next year. But, in your case, you might be looking at a Conroe core. But, then you'd have to replace your RAM.

I guess if you only wanted to change one thing then I'd go for a dual core since you mentioned multitasking (something like the 4800+ or above).

 

[ColemontHD]

Originally posted by: SylEm
Ok, here's the current hardware I'm considering replacing:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Winchester)
MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset
4GB DDR (400) PC-3200 Patriot Extreme Performance
Sapphire Radeon X850 XT PCI Express

All of which have been fantastic this past year, and is still doing the drop pretty good, but I want a bit better. Here's my computer usage:

Lots of gaming (City of Heroes, Call of Duty 2, Counter Strike Source, Half Life 2, etc)
Decent amount of DVD decrypting/burning
Lots of multi tasking (i.e. running itunes, with firefox, smartftp, azereus, and some photoshop)
Decent amount of graphic design (Photoshops CS2 mostly)

The rest of my hardware (found in my sig) should be fine the way it is I think. But if you were going to upgrade given the parts, and my needs, what would you think I should get? And also working on a budget around $800-900

Why upgrade? DX10 isn't even out yet.

 

[SylEm]

hey coolpurple, thnx for the advice. I want to upgrade all the hardware listed in my post. I expect to have to get new ram, most of the duel core mobo's won't support my ram, thats ok. And Colemon, what did u mean DX10? The reason I wanna upgrade is because Im not getting the FPS and graphic quality I want out of my games. I want a lot smoother graphics, and faster renderings. Some of my friends have upgraded their comps to dual cores and better graphics cards than me, and I've seen the HUGE difference.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

You left off your monitor from your specs. That's important in determining what resolution you play games at. Your video card could use an upgrade, but with new cards from nV coming out within 30 days or so, it's hard to justify right this minute. The games you play don't really take advantage of dual-core CPUs, but your DVD decrypting would get a great boost. When it comes to multi-tasking, the apps you listed aren't really CPU-intensive. i.e. I can run all those at the same time on my 1.2ghz laptop at the office. Now, if you would like to run DVD encoding at the same time as you play a game... now *that* would be some good multitasking that a dual-core CPU would help you out with.

My suggestion is to wait just a few more weeks and see what this 8800 hoo-haw is all about. If nothing else, the new cards will drive down the price of the old ones. If you absolutely can't wait a little longer, my suggestion is to pickup an x1900xt (or 7900GTO) and an X2 3800+. Total upgrade cost would be $500ish.

 

[coolpurplefan]

yeah, new vid card but that might require one of those PSUs that fit in a 5.25 inch bay.
the new ATI will be out in February.
The only difference in video might be partly due to Shader Model 3 or Purevideo/AVIVO.