Thinking About An Upgrade...

demon8991 · 23 Mar 2006 at 09:17

My current spec.

AMD Barton Xp 3200+
ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition 256mb
2GB Crucial 3200 Ram
17" Hyundai Flat Screen
Abit NF7 v2.0 Motherboard
460w Enermax Psu
Antec PlusView 1000AMG Case
200gb Western Digital 7200rpm 8mb Cache Hard Drives (1 x 120gb, 1 x 80gb), Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Sound Card
Logitech Z-2200 THX® Certified 2.1 200 Watts Speakers
Logitech MX500
Icemat 2nd Edition
Logitech Internet Keyboard
Pipex 2Mb ADSL

Im thinking that my CPU is a bottle neck, i am looking at a AMD 4000+ with a Socket 939 AGP board, what do you guys think, will i see a noticable difference?

PS i play a lot of HL2 & CSS

BigDom · 23 Mar 2006 at 09:36

I'd say your CPU/Graphics balance isn't too bad so IMO both are a bottleneck of sorts. Taking your suggestion as a guide for budget I'm assuming you have about £350 - but will I'd guess get £100+ for the 800 on the bay probably more.

CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM)
£125.95 £125.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
GX-121-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)
£169.95 £169.95
Subtotal £365.85
VAT £64.03
Total £429.88

You might need a PSU on top of that ( but if so you'd need one on your idea too).

demon8991 · 23 Mar 2006 at 09:41

Im not looking at spending that much, i dont see much wrong with my graphics card.

BigDom · 23 Mar 2006 at 09:46

demon8991 said:
Im not looking at spending that much, i dont see much wrong with my graphics card.

Thing is I don't think that your system is particularly unbalanced. Therefore IMO going for your suggestion (which will cost over £300) would not boost performance much as your system would instantly become Graphics bottlenecked. So selling your Graphics (which most probably would get noticeably more than £100) and going full PCI-E would give you a much more balanced system without spending any more than you'd already budgetted for.

demon8991 · 23 Mar 2006 at 09:51

Yer i see where you are coming from but i was sure that my graphics card was still pretty good.

Talbs13 · 23 Mar 2006 at 12:19

Does your current motherboard have PCI-E slot, if not then you need a new graphics card with the new motherboard. Im guessing the x800 is agp.

demon8991 · 23 Mar 2006 at 14:25

Yer its AGP coz its the old Socket A CPU.

ACESHIGH · 23 Mar 2006 at 23:32

Getting the AMD 4000+ with the Asrock dual AGP / PCIE mobo would be a good idea. That way you can get a PCIE card with same mobo when you feel the card is struggling. (OcUK dont stock the Asrock mobo but can be had for about £50)

demon8991 · 24 Mar 2006 at 08:05

Are these mobo good perfomance wise?

lee87 · 24 Mar 2006 at 08:20

I would consider getting a dual core cpu instead of the 4000+ as this will be more future proof or save money and get the 3700+.

The asrock dual mobo is very good, been using it for a while now and haven't had any problems, very fast and stable.
It's not the best board for overclocking, it has limited voltage and a max HTT of 274. This can be fixed by a voltage and bios mod.

demon8991 · 24 Mar 2006 at 10:06

Yer im still unsure as to what mobo to get, do Abit do a dual AGP and PCI express mobo?

demon8991 · 24 Mar 2006 at 10:37

My major conerns with the board are that there are problems when upgrading from AGP to PCI Express at a later date.

Also i am not sure what programs/operating systems/games actually take advantage of dual core yet therefore not sure if i can justify a huge amount of money on a CPU when AMD M2 is round the corner (not that i know much about that either but its another generation isnt it).

I just need some solid advice advising me what is best...

ACESHIGH · 24 Mar 2006 at 11:14

Asrock dual AGP / PCIE mobo - supports both an AGP slot & a PCIE slot - there would be no issues swapping from an AGP to PCIE card afaik.
Was going be personal experience only.

Yes there appears to be some issues - in that 55 page thread.

demon8991 · 24 Mar 2006 at 11:27

I have read the 55 page thread on it mate there are known issues when upgrading of getting blue screens and no input messages on the screen.

demon8991 · 25 Mar 2006 at 12:55

demon8991 said:
My major conerns with the board are that there are problems when upgrading from AGP to PCI Express at a later date.

Also i am not sure what programs/operating systems/games actually take advantage of dual core yet therefore not sure if i can justify a huge amount of money on a CPU when AMD M2 is round the corner (not that i know much about that either but its another generation isnt it).

I just need some solid advice advising me what is best...

What you guys think?

gazozborne · 25 Mar 2006 at 20:03

Not sure what problems people have had upgrading but i did AGP>PCI-E on that board fine, from a 6800 AGP to X1900XT PCI-E with absolutely no problems whatsoever. Thats switching brands too, not just card type.

Also that topic started way back last summer, most of the issues have been fixed now as the versions on sale now have a newer, more stable BIOS on them out of the box.

oh and going dual core depends on what you use the computer for really, i bought an opteron 146 as i used this for games but now wish id gone dual core so i could do much more stuff in the background while gaming. (movie conversion/winrar etc).