Last Upgrade on a skt754 board... a Good idea?

Beren · 7 Apr 2006 at 14:27

Hi,

Finally decided to scrape together a couple of hundred quid to upgrade my system. I think I have decided to try and make this a final upgrade that should hopefully give me an ok system till I build a new rig next year.

Currently on a A64 @ 2.2ghz
1gig ddr 400 ram
80 gig hardrive
5900xt 128meg ram (clocked about 20%ish)
Audigy 4 sound card

As I'm on a skt 754 AGP board I am thinking that the
7800GS 256meg card
160gig Sata Samsung Spinpoint
Would give me enough life to play pretty much everything out now.

My main concern is that I have just wandered into the world of BF2 and want to get back into eve. And my current rig really isnt up to that.

Am I missing something really obvious? or is that a good move.

Cheers

sja360 · 7 Apr 2006 at 14:49

perhaps sell your current ram for some 2GB goodness? the 7800gs is a good move and i suppose if you need the hdd space the samsung is aswell.

Beren · 7 Apr 2006 at 14:57

Yeah I know my gig of ram is starting to be an issue, but then if I start mucking about with that the CPU is also a bottleneck... and then I would need to change the motherboard... :rolleyes:

What I am looking to do is make this the last upgrade on this machine so I can then let the good lady wife inherit it in 9-12 months when I buy a nice new shiny dual/quad core machine.

And yeah I am down to the last 10gigs on this drive, and figured that going SATA over IDE would do a lot to improve loading times if I cant do the 2 gigs of ram thing.

I might do the ram thing in a month and keep the gig lying around if I am sure that I can take the 2 gigs forward into my new system. But not sure if there are going to be DDR2/DDR3/DDR4?? motherboards by then to cope with quad core machines.

Emlyn_Dewar · 7 Apr 2006 at 14:59

I'd say it was a decent upgrade, I'll agree that 2gb ram is the way forward though!
The 7800GS will be a huge step up from the 5900XT!

Naffa · 7 Apr 2006 at 15:10

Arctic Freezer 64 Pro
2GB GeIL Value
7800GS
160GB HDD

The cooler will allow you to overclock your cpu more. the memory will allow BF2 to run better. The 7800GS will be a massive improvement on your 5900XT and the 160HDD will offer you more space.

Thats the best upgrade solution imo if not wanting to buy a new CPU and mobo.

sja360 · 7 Apr 2006 at 15:19

would hardly say a 2.2ghz A64 is a bottleneck, i mean its not like a 1.8ghz or something athlon xp.

Beren · 8 Apr 2006 at 17:02

Mmm will definitely bear the 2gig ram in mind... will flog off the 5900xt... and if I can get more than £30 quid for it it will make the £110 for a 2gig geil kit more of an option.

Already have my A64 up from 1.8gigs to 2.2... and thats using a reasonable flower cooler. Not sure how much more I should expect to be able to get out of the chip tbh. I prefer to run a stable system than on the outer limits of what is possible.

Ahh well will be picking the bits up tommorow so all being well will post the changes it makes... I am expecting large ones :cool: