To upgrade or not..

Deaco

Deaco

Deaco

Associate
Joined
14 Mar 2007
Posts
327
Location
Gloucestershire, UK
Ok some of you may have seen this post from me recently.. but I've gone back to the drawing boards entirely ;)

At the minute I'm on:

3200XP Socket A CPU
1gig (2x512) Corsair Twinx (400)
XP Pro
A9800XT AGP Card
Audigy 2 w/ 6.1 Creative Speakers
2x 15" 1024x768 (only use one usually at my desk) or 32" TV (1360x768) when working on that)

Now if I understand correctly Nehalem is out for server application soon, and general use about this time next year.

My thoughts are these, I could upgrade the whole shooting match now spending about £1k and hoping the setup will last 2 years or so with maybe an additional GPU for x-fire.

Possibility of:

q6660 OCed
4GB (2x2) Corsair RAM DDR2 (800)
485(7)0 (crossfired later)
1kW Corsair PSU
Vista Home Premium Retail
Spinpoint F1 1TB
Asus Xonar

for roughly 1k

or

HIS 3850 pro AGP card
2gb (2x1) Corsair Value DDR (400)

Maybe vista Home Premium depending on how well everything works

£280ish w/ Vista
£150ish w/o

Do you guys reckon that I could perhaps hold everything together till Nehalem becomes mainstream enough? If so, is Vista worth nabbing or should I stick with XP Pro SP3 as DX10 would kill my comp?


Can't remember when C2D was launched, were there any major hiccups? Did the first people to change get royally shafted with bugs etc?

Also I am a gamer, however mainly use my 360 purely for ease and lack of really good titles - although will be getting Warhammer online and Starcraft 2 and hoping they will be able to run pretty well.


*edit* After doing some searching on google, found that XP can now support DX10, is this worth doing with an DX10 compatible card - is it the same as running the same setup on Vista? If so, why upgrade? ;D */Edit*

Cheers =D
 
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Get some 2nd hand 1900XT/2900xt and extra 1gb ram stick and wait for new stuff imo.

I wouldnt do any major upgrades now since heavy price cuts on everything are about to come very soon. It will be a waste to spend now 1k if in 2months it will be worth 600 ;).
 
Doubt you will regret an upgrade. I upgraded from a very similar spec to 7900gtx, amd 939 dual core and don't regret it. Altough the upgrade only cost me about £200 about a year ago.
 
Hello Deaco,

I am in a similar position to you, though even more undecided on which path to take. I like a lot of old games and mainly use my PC's for games, music, movie and internet, I still have my old AGP system.

I am sort of glad I have kept putting off a new build now that the 4800 series cards look like a good buy, but am still wondering when we will see a replacement for the Q6600 that will hit 4gig per core on air, and a newer mobo replace a certain magazines Asus P5K recommendation.

I cannot make my mind up on budget, mid or high.

I bought an HIS 3850 AGP some time back (and was surprised at its 8pin PCI-E connector and 150w power recomendation), and used 2gig of TwinX for a short period before fitting 2gig of XMS Pro in my AMD 3300 set up. It has got me by and allowed me to continue my old games but is seriously bottlenecked and the money would have been better spent on a budget DDR2 rig.

I personally think old systems are best not to be used with Vista, as it hogs too many resources and would run like a pig. (with C&C 3 I have seen 1.5gig of ram with 100% CPU in use with XP Pro)

I am also not sure DX10 will not work well with an Athlon 3200+?

Would an E2180 system work well with an ATI 4850 card? I am sure second hand prices of old AGP, DDR1, Athlon 3200+ stuff pretty much matches or exceeds budget DDR2 builds.
Selling up and starting fresh is the advice I was given, and maybe should have taken, as nice as the HIS 3850 Pro AGP is, it is too good for most AGP systems, is easily bottlenecked, and I cannot imagine anyone thinking it performance per pound matching PCI-E cards such as the ATI 4850.
 
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Cheers, guess I'll wait till the Intel price drops and see what the E72(3)00 cost and hopefully the 4850's might be a bit cheaper in a few weeks time.

But I'm guessing going down the AGP route and holding out for a year isn't the best route.

Cheers
 
PhoenixUK said:
not exactly a year, 5-6months ;).
And the upgrade i've mention earlier will cost you no more than 50-60quid.
Click to expand...

5-6 Months?

Is that for a sensibly priced nehalem? Or give us a grand and we'll give you a beast of a machine and then a few months later, the more reasonably priced CPU's come out?

I know it's all kinda speculation, but hey there might be someone who knows for definate ><

[EDIT]

Can't seem to find AGP versions of the card's you suggested only PCI-E...

[/EDIT]
 
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