Grrr I don't know what to do...

[Curio]

I'm trying to upgrade on a serious budget. What it's basically come down to is that I can either afford an E4300/E6300 and go for 1GB RAM, or an X2 3800 and 2GB RAM. Which would be the best option? I really can't throw any more money towards computer stuff for probably 12 months after this upgrade - so if I get 1GB RAM I'll have to stick with that for some time.

Some more info - will be used with an XFX 7900GS 600M (which I already bought - got a great deal). WinXP until the next upgrade, most likely. Don't really want to overclock to start with. Machine is used mostly for playing games - I'm looking for good performance in Oblivion, FEAR, COD2 and Quake4. Current setup is a 2.6GHz Northwood P4 at 3.0GHz, 6800nu 128MB AGP and 1GB PC3200 - so I'll be looking for a nice improvement over that for gaming. I'm not too concerned about future-proofing - I'm looking for something that'll give me good bang for the buck over the next 12 months or so.

Thanks!

 

[RobertN]

dual core really benefits from 2 gig if you multitask a lot but if it is just for gaming core2 should be a faster in game but it will chug a bit in some programs because of the 1gb i have seen it in quake 4 as it accesses the harddisk more

basicly if your not bothered about futureproofing to much i would go with the 3800 and clock it as it would be a more balanced system it should see you through a year

 

[Zefan]

will be used with an XFX 7900GS 600M

Machine is used mostly for playing games - I'm looking for good performance in Oblivion, FEAR, COD2 and Quake4.

The 3D card you mention will run those games at highest settings, but without 2GB of RAM they will all chug pretty badly. Definitely go for 2GB instead of a Core 2, to be honest the Core 2 has totally overtaken games developers requirements therefore isn't being used fully yet so it's almost a bit of a waste. You'll still have superb performance from your games with the 3800 X2.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Another vote for the X2 3800 and the 2gb here. Especially since you're not concerned with future proofing.

 

[Kamakazie!]

The 3800 is a good choice even if you are concerned with future proofing imo. Socket AM2 is gonna be compatible with AMD cpu's for probably another 2 years or so. Some of the features of the next gen chips won't be available but you'd still see a big performance increase when upgrading.

As said though, if its a gaming machines, 2gb is the way to go. You will probably get better frame rates in most newer games with a 3800+ and 2gb than with the 4300 and 1gb.

 

[Tombo]

RAM DOESNT AFFECT FPS HBBJNNJVCXOHONJXGOHBIN

 

[allllec]

RAM DOESNT AFFECT FPS HBBJNNJVCXOHONJXGOHBIN

firstly buddy kill the caps, i hope that was sarcastic.. if not... if a game has 1.2gb of textures and stuffs.. and you've only got a 1gb of ram then a lot of that is going to be paged to the hard drive.. which means when it is loaded the game will jerk as it waits for the data.. because your hard drive is so slow compared to RAM.. seriously mate, 2gb > 1gb (in this case)

 

[Tombo]

I'm not denying that there won't be stutter, I'm saying there wont be an fps increase, the game will just play smoother.

 

[ByteJuggler]

Erm, but... but... stuttering implies fps decrease?!?!?

 

[schumi84]

Surely wont the GFX card memory play a part as well, if there are lots of textures they will load into the GFX mem, then to the System RAM.

Also with the stuttering issue, with the data having to be read from the page file instead of the RAM, I find, especially in HL2, i get a good constant 30-50 fps, but every so often i get a stutter, often for no reason.

Low FPS in general would be because your H/W can't hack the settings ** playing at, or if there is a lot of movement/action that needs to be processed quickly.