Monitor or new GPU and motherboard.

Dark_Angel · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:35

Hey,

Ok this is the complete last week I have to decde what I want before I force myself to order. Basically, I have about 340 or so to spend on an upgrade, and so just trying to decide.

Its either a new phillips widescreen 20" monitor, or a new GPU+ motherboard.

Pretty much at the moment I have to admit that the new monitor is far in the lead, because I would like dual screens, and also would like widescreen for the 360.

Currently my specs are, venice 3000 @ 2.75GHZ, 1GB of ram, X800XT AGP, and a 19" CRT 4:3 monitor.

I have to admit I got out of the PC gaming scene for a while, but I got to admit looking at the prices of PC games they are so much cheaper than console...

The only problem with upgrading is that I would still have to keep unplugging my pc monitor and plugging it in to my 360... which sucks. I have dual screens with a 15" CRT at the moment... but thats kinda terrible.

So, anyone wanna try to convice me that a new GPU + motherboard is the way forward? if I did get them, I would a few months later grab an x3800 x2 CPU. As I said though, at the moment the monitor is winning out, and then I was thinking of upgrading when M2 comes out. Oppions please

deadeyedic30 · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:46

If you are set on an X2 3800 down the road, then get the monitor.

DaveBennett · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:08

Get the monitor in my opinon.

Your current PC specs are fine atm, unless your finding it slow and laggy dont bother upgrading them.

ACESHIGH · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:32

For 340 at the moment you can get a great mobo & graphics card combo.
Especially with the upcomg pc games you will want a better graphics card.
If it was me i would definitely go for the graphics card mobo combo.

Something like ...
Abit KN8 Ultra nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-087-AB)
£76.32 Including VAT
+
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£252.57 Including VAT

Naffa · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:53

Motherboard and Graphics card me thinks.

Dark_Angel · 12 Mar 2006 at 17:03

A few things which are bothering me is that I would probablly need a new PSU (because I only have a 20 pin one, which as far as I know is not going to work to well with a PCI-E card) and I guess I would need 2GB of ram in the future (say a few weeks)

Does anyone know what type of specs Elderscrolls 4 would take to run perfectly at high res?

I am guessing My CPU would be fine, with a 7900GT or a X1800XT plus 2GB of ram or something?

Lastly, what is slightly faster? a 7900GT or a x1800XT? and how much of a jump would I get from a X800XT which is clocked to about 550/550?

Naffa · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:05

either of those cards would offer a big big increase in performance. i think that youll find many people on this forum would say the X1800 is faster. ive been told its worth buying 2GB of RAM in one go as if you didnt already have some and if you mean a 3800X2 being your cpu then that should be fine. im not very knowlagable with that game but theres a lot of people on here that would be but im sure a 7900GT/X1800XT, 3800 dual core and 2GB memory would run it no problem.

Dark_Angel · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:20

Hey naffa mate, I was looking at your signature and noted I would be upgrading to a similar system to you. How do you find gaming on that setup?

Naffa · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:32

i play ANY and EVERY game with forced AA to 8x and 16xAF, transparancy anti aliasing and gamma correct anti aliasing. i always get a playable framerate, always. i do play at 1024 as i have a shocking monitor, but i could roll back the AA if i were to get a bigger monitor.

oh and when i say "all games" i mean FEAR, COD2, CSS (which is at 1152), BF2 and without 2GB DDR :eek:

so pretty decent system and its about 6months old

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 01:59

Dark_Angel said:
A few things which are bothering me is that I would probablly need a new PSU (because I only have a 20 pin one, which as far as I know is not going to work to well with a PCI-E card) and I guess I would need 2GB of ram in the future (say a few weeks)

Does anyone know what type of specs Elderscrolls 4 would take to run perfectly at high res?

I am guessing My CPU would be fine, with a 7900GT or a X1800XT plus 2GB of ram or something?

Lastly, what is slightly faster? a 7900GT or a x1800XT? and how much of a jump would I get from a X800XT which is clocked to about 550/550?

If you have a decent 400w+ PSU then simply get the molex-PCIE converter, no need for PSU upgrade.

The X1800XT 512MB is faster than the 7900GT & offers double the ram, which is becoming more & more a requirement. Better to get a 512MB than 256MB if buying now.

The ATI cards are cheaper too --
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£252.57*Including VAT

The performance of these new cards is about double of the X800XT depending on games / resolutions playing at.

Dark_Angel · 13 Mar 2006 at 11:25

Have to admit that I am surprised with the rather large performance jump.

It's really killing me tbh, the extra monitor would make using my 360 so much easier... however not having a awesome new graphics card to play PC games on is hurting me to