Time to upgrade?

Porkie · 4 Jan 2007 at 12:10

Hi All,

It has been a while since I have upgraded my Computer, about 3 years in fact. It has served me well in this time but I feel it is time to upgrade as I can’t really run games with full detail. It is mainly used for gaming, WoW and FPSes

Currently I am running with:

Athlon XP 2500+
9800 Pro
1Gb RAM

I have been looking around and it looks like I might go for something along the lines of:

Intel E6600
2gb Ram
X1950 Pro

Obviously I will need the rest as well, motherboard etc, but I am not looking for specifics at the moment, I was just wondering if this is going to be a noticeable upgrade. I have looked around but as my machine is so old now there are no benchmarks of the old 9800 pro in comparison to the latest batch of cards.

Will I be able to run games at 1280x1024 with everything on full? And if I decide to get a new monitor, thinking about a 20” widesecreen, will it be able to cope with 1680x1050 at full detail?

Thanks in advance.

steve258 · 4 Jan 2007 at 12:27

The new spec will definately blow your mind in terms of performance, it will run everything fine with all settings maxed out @ 1280*1024 on all latest games but may struggle at higher resolution.

If you are planning to get a new screen then you may want to consider the 1950XT for around £170

Porkie · 4 Jan 2007 at 14:16

What is the 7950GT like, is that worth considering?

kmistry · 4 Jan 2007 at 14:22

Thats also quite a good card, although I would say if you can afford it then maybe get an 8800 GTS as that will definitely be able to handle higher resolutions

Kiz

steve258 · 4 Jan 2007 at 14:30

7950GT is good too, about equivalent to the 1950XT I think.

Antar Bolaeisk · 4 Jan 2007 at 14:58

Is it really worth getting an expensive ATI card right now with DX10 around the corner? Surely they'll be releasing a new family of cards with DX10 support shortly. Although the nVidia 8800 supports DX10 already doesn't it?

stickroad · 4 Jan 2007 at 15:03

Yep the 8800 is the first card to support DirectX 10

steve258 · 4 Jan 2007 at 15:34

Antar Boaleisk said:
Is it really worth getting an expensive ATI card right now with DX10 around the corner? Surely they'll be releasing a new family of cards with DX10 support shortly. Although the nVidia 8800 supports DX10 already doesn't it?

I'd say 1950XT / 7950GT is as far as I will go, ATi offerings are not expensive at all (apart from the 1950XTX) if you consider how much Nvidia DX9 equivalents are costing even after the release of 8800GTX/GTS.

There is still quite a long time yet until DX10 games/cards become the standard so you will be OK imo.

Porkie · 4 Jan 2007 at 16:32

Thanks for the input all. Sounds like it is time for an upgrade then. I am not going to go for a dx10 card at the moment as I refuse to spend over £200 on a graphics card ever since I made the mistake of buying a GeForce 3 for £300 and seeing it be outdated in a month or two.