Am i nuts to consider spending £800 on upgrading from a P4 NW [email protected] to an Opty 170?

[Spudgun]

i can't go down the route of the dothan either, as i have the p4c800 deluxe not the -e version.

Currently, i'm thinking that i'll wait for the next games that i can't play at the resolution/quality that i want to (i'm running a Mitsubishi 930sb for the people that asked previously) and then upgrading. The only game i've really had to sacrifice detail on so far is FEAR, but with my next 2 games purchases likely to be the new star wars and LOTR RTS games i am going to see how they run

 

[AWPC]

i can't go down the route of the dothan either, as i have the p4c800 deluxe not the -e version.

Currently, i'm thinking that i'll wait for the next games that i can't play at the resolution/quality that i want to (i'm running a Mitsubishi 930sb for the people that asked previously) and then upgrading. The only game i've really had to sacrifice detail on so far is FEAR, but with my next 2 games purchases likely to be the new star wars and LOTR RTS games i am going to see how they run

Only SLI/Xfire owners can get the full monty on FEAR so would not worry about it as your in good company

 

[marc2003]

i can't go down the route of the dothan either, as i have the p4c800 deluxe not the -e version.

i'm pretty certain you can flash the bios on your mobo with the -e -dlx version and it will work. obviously needs thorough investigating first....

 

[m3csl2004]

yes you can

m3

 

[epoxy5]

I currently run a p4 NW [email protected]. on stock volts on a P4C800 Deluxe with 2gb OCZ ram and an X850XTPE.

I have, however, been tempted to spend over £800 on an Opteron 170 and X1900XTX and an ASUS motherboard.

However, as i don't know anyone that runs AMD64 processors i am really hesitant on whether this is a sensible use of cash.

The main use of my PC is games playing, mostly FPS, but with the odd RTS and sports title thrown in. It would be essential for me, however, to run a very, very quiet rig as my current setup is nigh on silent and is full on zalman and silenx components.

If there is anyone out there that has made a similar upgrade is it really worth it?

Many thanks

Spudgun

I went from 3.2hgz, 6800gt and 1gb ram to x2 4400, 1900xtx and 2gb ram, everyting seems overall more snappy, but in gaming and running a couple of big creative applications there was a HUGE difference imo.

My gf got the old system now, and she is happy with it, but I could not go back.

I am running my games on a 24" monitor now, and the old system was not able to handle 1920x1200 with high settings, at smaller res it ran fine though.

 

[stigggeh]

i'm pretty certain you can flash the bios on your mobo with the -e -dlx version and it will work. obviously needs thorough investigating first....

you can run it without too, latest bios.... just without multi options in the bios.

 

[locutus12]

So what are you going to do?
Wait or play!

waiting for the next gen dx10 cards is daft IMO you would lose months of gaming!

at least a year actually... does anyone really think DX10 games will be on the shelves on the day of DX10 release with Vista ??? very doubtful. New games take time to make and currently DX10 doesnt even have a publicly available development kit for the games makers to work with.

 

[Brwmogazos]

Hi Brwmogazos, sure I remember you, I was there back when we were all scambling to find 30 cappers/m0 stepping P4s

I understand your opinion 100%

Having said that I did decide to upgrade about 1 month ago now, from an overclocked P4/springdale/9800Pro to an Opteron 146/nForce4-Sli/X850XT.

The weakest link in my old system was the Radeon 9800Pro, as good a card as it still *is* I was missing out on being able to play games using my DELL 24" widescreen. After a lot of headscratching I decided it was a bad idea to throw a lump of cash at an AGP update, so I bit the bullet and moved over to A64.

My existing system/structure (Case/PSU/Mem, etc) was sound so I only needed to buy a new CPU, Mobo and PCI-Express, think it came to a grand total of £470? pound approx.

Having owned a Hyper-Threading P4 for a few years I was a little concerned about switching to a pure single core CPU but much to my suprise the Opteron running at a humble 2GHz was wickedly fast!!! I mean we have all read these forums and seen the way people are talking about A64 etc etc but Im happy to confirm that its basically true.

In the case of the O.P who already has an AGP X850XT in his P4 system the choice is not so easy.

Thing is, the nForce4-SLI platform is pretty refined at this stage and very mature, basically a no-nonsense platform (SLI driver issues aside!). AMD look ready to release their updated platform sometime this year (AM2/DDR2) so the choice is again made trickier, but I think I would prefere to wait until this platform has bedded down a bit, maybe had a revison or two and has full working driver support, so I went for the mature nForce4-SLI, so far so good!

Hi buddy...good to see ya...i loved the old days heh? ...always in the look for a fine good clocker

I have to admitt i am in the same boat as you...or was....man this 9800pro i got...i cant stand it anymore tbh...its far too slow for todays games...i was thinking of upgrading just the card as well but then again pcix cards are a lot faster than agp at the same price range...so i had a quick look for some a64 lovin etc...mainly cpu mobo gfx for some serious overclocking and it came up to 900euros...about 700 quid...changed my mind straight away since i wont be getting anything by selling my current config...so i am sticking with it for a year or more...

Then its gonna be overclocking heaven again