I have a little extra money now and I am trying to determine the order in which to upgrade. Here is my current system:
Shuttle XPC with socket 754 VIA motherboard
athlon64 3200
Liteon cdr/dvd drive
Seagate 80gb sata hd
Radeon 9600 pro
Ati TV tuner card
and the piece de resistance: 256mb pc2100 valuram
The ram involved a freak accident where I was building a computer for my parents that had some issues. I took my 512 stick out to test if their ram was having problems. For some reason, the ram never got switched back and I am stuck with it half-way accross the country.
Just a note on what I expect out of my computer. I currently play CS and DoD and will switch to CS:S and DoD:S when leagues decide to abandon half-life 1. I want to run all my games at 1024X768 resolution, with almost all eyecandy off. For example, no detailed textures, no shadows, no ragdoll physics, generally no trilinear filtering, etc. My goal is performance. I do not care about picture quality. As long as my fps doesn't drop below 60 I am satisfied. However, I would prefer a minimum of 85 fps. My current system seems to average at about 50-60 on CS:S and drops to about 30 in fights. There are also some random lag spikes I think caused by my lack of ram. I know swap files are very slow.
Obviously I need to get ram first. My question is, without considering overclocking, how much of a performance increase does 2-2-2 1T timings give over 2.5-3-3 2T valuram timings if I have 1 gig of both running in dual channel? Will 1 gig of value ram outperform 512 of performance ram? Can someone link me to a test that compares these two?
This is my problem: the corsair 512x2 pack costs $135 and a single 512 stick of the Crucial costs about $115. A gig of the crucial will be $100 more than the corsair. Is it worth it to spend $100 more on ram for the performance gain I get? If you consider minor overclocking (this shuttle doesnt have many options on overclocking) how much better does the good ram get?
My next purchase after I buy ram will be a video card. I will probably be waiting until march to buy the video card while I save up money. The 6600GT seems to be the best one in the $200 price range. I heard rumors about the vanilla x800 dropping to $200. Because I will be sticking mostly with half-life, will ati be preferable over nvidia? I am a little confused because all of the anandtech comparisons took place before ati dropped their prices. Considering the settings I run at, is anything more than these cards overkill?
After I finish with ram and video card, I plan on getting an audio card. I will be running a headset and 2.1 speakers. Is audigy 2 still the best?
Any suggestions and comments are welcome. If I am doing something stupid please tell me before I waste my money.
- Ojannen
Shuttle XPC with socket 754 VIA motherboard
athlon64 3200
Liteon cdr/dvd drive
Seagate 80gb sata hd
Radeon 9600 pro
Ati TV tuner card
and the piece de resistance: 256mb pc2100 valuram
The ram involved a freak accident where I was building a computer for my parents that had some issues. I took my 512 stick out to test if their ram was having problems. For some reason, the ram never got switched back and I am stuck with it half-way accross the country.
Just a note on what I expect out of my computer. I currently play CS and DoD and will switch to CS:S and DoD:S when leagues decide to abandon half-life 1. I want to run all my games at 1024X768 resolution, with almost all eyecandy off. For example, no detailed textures, no shadows, no ragdoll physics, generally no trilinear filtering, etc. My goal is performance. I do not care about picture quality. As long as my fps doesn't drop below 60 I am satisfied. However, I would prefer a minimum of 85 fps. My current system seems to average at about 50-60 on CS:S and drops to about 30 in fights. There are also some random lag spikes I think caused by my lack of ram. I know swap files are very slow.
Obviously I need to get ram first. My question is, without considering overclocking, how much of a performance increase does 2-2-2 1T timings give over 2.5-3-3 2T valuram timings if I have 1 gig of both running in dual channel? Will 1 gig of value ram outperform 512 of performance ram? Can someone link me to a test that compares these two?
This is my problem: the corsair 512x2 pack costs $135 and a single 512 stick of the Crucial costs about $115. A gig of the crucial will be $100 more than the corsair. Is it worth it to spend $100 more on ram for the performance gain I get? If you consider minor overclocking (this shuttle doesnt have many options on overclocking) how much better does the good ram get?
My next purchase after I buy ram will be a video card. I will probably be waiting until march to buy the video card while I save up money. The 6600GT seems to be the best one in the $200 price range. I heard rumors about the vanilla x800 dropping to $200. Because I will be sticking mostly with half-life, will ati be preferable over nvidia? I am a little confused because all of the anandtech comparisons took place before ati dropped their prices. Considering the settings I run at, is anything more than these cards overkill?
After I finish with ram and video card, I plan on getting an audio card. I will be running a headset and 2.1 speakers. Is audigy 2 still the best?
Any suggestions and comments are welcome. If I am doing something stupid please tell me before I waste my money.
- Ojannen
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