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Upgrading, should I or not?

K

kyle1745

Member
I currently have:
1600XP
EPOX 8KHA+
512mb ram
Gainward ti200 limited with 128mb

Is it worth upgrading my CPU, and vid card? Or should I wait?
I was thinking of getting a 2400XP, and either a 9600pro (but a little more than i want to spend), or a 5200fx ultra.

Ideas? Opionins?
Thanks,
Kyle

 
XP2400 will be a nice upgrade, and probably run cooler than your 1600. I would go for the 9600, as they are know to OC VERY well.
 
Neither upgrade will make a huge difference for games the fx5200 ultra is a bit of a dog. A 9700 Pro by itself would help much more, even if you have to wait a bit longer to save up for it. Then upgrade the XP later.

(I'm not a fanATIc: my current card is a gf3 and I might even buy a fx5900 for Doom3, but 9700 Pro is a good card.)
 
Yeah, I'd get the 9700 Pro right now as well. You can then upgrade the CPU later since it'll be fine for m ost games ri ght now. Maybe around Doom3 you can upgrade it and by then it'll be alot cheap since Athlon64 will be out or about to come out...
 
Hey

I have Athlon XP 1600+, MSI KT3-Ultra2 and 256mb of Ram, as well as RAdeon 8500

get 8800 in 3dmark2001

so far alright for most current games

uless you wanna play with FSAA and Anisotropic Filtering enabled

.....................

As far as upgrades you can buy Athlon XP 1700+ with JIUHB core for $42 on newegg which overclocks to 2ghz easy => equivalent of 2500+ or higher if you want to overclock more

And they also have Radeon 9500 Pro for about $175 which is faster than 9600 Pro anyways

if you want to play doom 3 and half-life 2 with no problems (esp doom3) you might wanan wait till end of summer when RAdeon 9700 Pro drops in price and buy it then, but the processor you can buy right now it wont get cheaper than that (make sure you buy a nice cooler)
 
The Athlon XP 1600 wont bottleneck you that much anyways

as you can see here CPU scaling with Q3

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/e-vga_e-geforce_fx_5600_ultra/page15.asp

and Unreal Tournament 2003

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/e-vga_e-geforce_fx_5600_ultra/page16.asp

at higher resolutions liek 1600x1200 which most people play at anyways (otherwise games dont look so good)
and anyone will agree highering to 1600x1200 is a lot better than playing 1024x768 with 4xFSAA+8ANISOtropic

in that case processor speed doesnt even matter
 
Thats interesting... Now i'm more confused.

2400XP is only $100, but I don't think it will be that much faster than my 1600xp.

9600pro is about $180.

So I can get both for about $280, but from the looks of your post it might be better to just get the vid card.

Hmm...

Kyle
 
So I can get both for about $280, but from the looks of your post it might be better to just get the vid card.
Click to expand...
Yes, according to this TomsHardware vidcard comparison your CPU might not be driving the 9700 Pro at 100% of its max speed but it will still be faster than even a 2700+ with a 9500 Pro.

Toms lists speeds at 1 GHz and 2700+. Your 1600 XP should be midway between them, which for the 9700 Pro is about twice the speed of your ti200. When you upgrade the CPU later you'll get another speed boost.
 
Hm. Depends on what games you play. If you were to upgrade anything right now, it would be your mother board. At least then you will be able to upgrade later on and to expect 100% from every product you buy. I would get a nforce 2 with that AMD. Then later on when you need a higher frame rate, get the 9600 or CPU.
 
Well that is why I might just do the video card now, but i'm wondering how much lacking 8x AGP will matter?

I could then do the mobo, cpu when the bus speed goes beyond 333mhz.

Kyle
 
Well that is why I might just do the video card now, but i'm wondering how much lacking 8x AGP will matter?
Click to expand...

Read around the forums and you will see people replying over and over on how worthless 8x AGP is. Cards hardly ever use the full bandwidth available of a 4x card let along 8x.

Use the search button, comes in-handy for me.
 
There is more to a mother board then just 8x AGP and Duel DDR. Take the nforce2, supports the latest AMD CPU's with a FSB of up to 400 Mhz, faster IDE drivers and interfaces, hypertransport support , firewire / USB 2.0 ports, dolby digital sound, and the board over clocks like a dream.

So there is so much more to a mobo then you think. It will always be the back bone to your pc, not the cpu or video card.
 
Yes that is very true, but the one I have still has some life in it, and I don't feel like building a who new PC right now. So the CPU/VID Card upgrade should be enough for a few months.
Kyle
 
I'd still suggest spending all the money on the video card instead since a 1600XP is still a decent processor for current games.

Otherwise you'll buy a mediocre video card now and it will be holding you back the next time you upgrade the CPU / mobo.
 
bang for the buck, a video card is going to buy you the most with what you presently have.

if the ATI's are a little too much, even a GF4 (NOT mx) would give you a nice boost.

(when it's time for a CPU, I would do it as a bundle with mobo and RAM. It's worth the wait to avoid getting less than what you really want right now)

-Sid

A newer MoBo will speed up your video, but it won't be the 8X feature that is doing it...... (IMO..... 8X=all hype)
 
Buy something weird for you computer like a TV tuner, something that you don't use everyday like a DVD writer. Maybe a new monitor. I would also have to agree though on the motherboard. Then in the future it will be ready to take the CPU upgrade. WIth a 1600XP I would wait until a 3ghz amd CPU became affordable, I don't relaly believe in upgrading until I can double what I already have.
 
Originally posted by: Regs
There is more to a mother board then just 8x AGP and Duel DDR. Take the nforce2, supports the latest AMD CPU's with a FSB of up to 400 Mhz, faster IDE drivers and interfaces, hypertransport support , firewire / USB 2.0 ports, dolby digital sound, and the board over clocks like a dream.

So there is so much more to a mobo then you think. It will always be the back bone to your pc, not the cpu or video card.
Click to expand...

This may be true but it might also be solving the wrong problem for kyle1745. The NF2 also requires expensive RAM and other goodies to get the performance out of it - and no matter what else it will do it won't make his current games run any faster or look any prettier than a simple vid upgrade.
 
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