Opinions on what to upgrade.

_Ad_ · 4 Apr 2006 at 23:28

Hi, just registered here, haven't really bought anything PC related for a few years now, and i think im due for an upgrade

I think my spec was pretty good, back in the day when i built it lol

My basic spec is:-
MSI KT3 mainboard
AMD athlon xp1900(266mhz)
512Mb ram(ddr 2100)
Ge-force ti4200 if i remember correctly.
And a 60gb hard drive.

Basically i want opinions on what would be the best part to upgrade.
The mainboard is a Via333 one, but socket A, which i've noticed most shops dont have processors etc to any more.

I was thinking of getting something like a Athlon Xp 2600, second hand off Ebay or somewhere.
Is it worthwhile fitting a faster cpu, or better to save the money towards newer technology main board etc.

Any opinions on what to do.
thanks

trojan698 · 4 Apr 2006 at 23:39

Depends on how much you have to spend and what you want your pc to do. I'm sure it would cope admirably with theme hospital and windows 95 and if you're happy with that then fine. If you want to play bf2 and fear however, I'd consider buying a whole new computer.

_Ad_ · 4 Apr 2006 at 23:51

Lol
The budget is pretty tight,lol.
Not enough for a new computer anyways.

I mostly use it for internet use, and sometimes gaming, some games keep locking up tho. Which i thought was a hardware problem at first, but maybe not.

I've tried latest graphics drivers etc tho.

Hmmm

I was thinking a higher Xp procesor, if i can find one.
And pc2700 ram, to match the 166 fsb of the processor.
Not sure if i would actually notice a difference tho.

ACESHIGH · 5 Apr 2006 at 01:39

If on a tight budget getting something like an XP 2500+ or better & a 2nd hand Radeon 9800pro, would help. The old Ti4200 is limited to DX8 whereas the 9800pro has DX9.

hhhhbk · 5 Apr 2006 at 03:35

does your motherboard support pc3200 ddr

if so id sell the 512mb pc2100 you have and the ti4200 and the cpu
(should get atleast £60-70 for them)

and buy
2x512mb pc3200 geil value
xp2500 processor (possibly a mobile if you are prepared to overclock
ati 9800 gfx card

if buying second hand the ram will cost about £45 the cpu about £40 and the gfx card about £50

total upgrade will only cost about £80 and will get you a noticably faster pc

i remember doing almost the same upgrade
(xp1700 512mb ram to xp2500m @2.3GHz plus the 2x512mb geil value)
and performance increased dramatically especially when doing cpu intense tasks such as video encoding

Monstermunch · 5 Apr 2006 at 10:25

trojan698 said:
I'm sure it would cope admirably with theme hospital and windows 95 and if you're happy with that then fine. If you want to play bf2 and fear however, I'd consider buying a whole new computer.

That's not strictly true, look at my sig! I play HL2, FEAR, BF2, FarCry, B&W2 etc etc.

However IMO, spending money on that rig atm would probably be a waste. I would try and save up £700+ and try and get a dual core rig later on. All you could hope for is something like a 2500+ and a 9800pro like mine and I upgraded from a 2200+ and a 4200ti last year, there was a difference in benchmarks but not a whole lot of difference in things like HL2, at least not worth the extra anyway!

Monstermunch · 5 Apr 2006 at 10:31

Just to give you an idea:

MB-046-MS MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS)
£64.95 £64.95
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£127.95 £127.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£89.95 £89.95
GX-042-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1800 XL 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-042-HT)
£159.95 £159.95
CA-007-TG Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-007-TG)
£46.95 £46.95
HD-001-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31637) (HD-001-HI)
£44.95 £44.95
Subtotal £534.70
VAT £93.58
Total £628.28

A dual core chip would take you up to about £700inc

_Ad_ · 5 Apr 2006 at 17:37

My mainboard only supports 333 fsb.
So no, it wont do pc3200 ram(400fsb iirc)

Cheers for everyones help.

I'll see what i can find going on ebay etc

Or just save towards a new system.

I am using DX9 with my Ti4200 :confused:

Monstermunch · 5 Apr 2006 at 21:30

_Ad_ said:
I am using DX9 with my Ti4200

Yes you will be. Although your card is not hardware DX9 compliant, the drivers compensate so your card will still run. The 9 series radion and upwards are DX9 hardware compliant as are the GeForce 5 series and upwards.

Monstermunch · 5 Apr 2006 at 21:34

_Ad_ said:
I'll see what i can find going on ebay etc
Or just save towards a new system.

If you're thinking of looking at second hand items like the 9800pro and the 2500+ then you need to consider that by about January 2007 top games like unreal 2007 will not run on that spec and you will need to look at building again.

_Ad_ · 5 Apr 2006 at 23:01

Why wont they run?

Will they require a higher spec system than that?

Think i might just save up for a new system then.

Monstermunch · 5 Apr 2006 at 23:14

_Ad_ said:
Why wont they run?

Cos they won't

Will they require a higher spec system than that?

Yes!

Think i might just save up for a new system then.

Yes!

My machine runs fear, but only just (800x600 at med/low detail and no aa or af). It struggles with FarCry as well. Games like Sin Episodes, CrySis, Stranglehold and UT2007 will require more power than Fear. So i'm guessing that they would only be playable in something like 640x480 all low detail, which IMO isn't worth playing.