Upgrade Dilemma

[thumper]

edit: moved from general

Ok guys here goes:
I’m currently running the following system:

Intel D820 2.8Ghz Dual Core
Intel Desktop D955XBK motherboard
2 x 1Gb of DDR2
X1800 XL

Although this system kicks photoshop & premiere’s ass its not so hot on the gaming front – and although I like to able to work on my home rig I have a laptop for that and games are what’s important at home

A read into this makes it obvious that AMD is the better option for gamers at least at the moment – but Conroe is on the horizon & I have heard that the D955XBK may well support it - can anyone confirm or deny this?

So here in lies the dilemma – do I just sell on the dual core stuff and get a faster (gaming~wise at least) 939 system or wait a little while (how long?) and fingers crossed get an even faster system by just removing the D 820 and dropping in a Conroe..

Right now I should be able to sell my current CPU, MB & DDR2 for around ~£300
So I would then have that much to spend on a similar AMD CPU/MB & DDR setup …
I was thinking the 3700+ San Diego + Arctic Freezer 64
Not sure about motherboards – crossfire might be useful – maybe the Abit AT8
& 1gb or ideally 2gb or DDR2 – Geil Value?

Alternatively I could wait for Conroe and just swap my CPU out (if the board supports it when released).

What would you do?
Any advice, as ever, much appreciated

 

[Tooks]

Well, I've got a very similar setup to yours, except my GPU is a 6800, and I'd say my motherboard isn't as speedy as yours either...

But, I can't say I've noticed games performance being a problem (although I game at 1280 x 1024 which is all my TFT supports), as long as you make the tweaks to force some games to run on only one core. Most games are GPU dependant, wouldn't you agree?

I keep reading that AMD CPUs are quicker at games, and benchmarks seem to support this, but I would argue that back in the real world you would struggle to notice much difference.

I don't know if you're mobo will support conroe, but my advice (seeing as you're asking!) is to hold on and wait.

See what happens with conroe and what AMDs response might be, because in the meantime it's not like you're crippled with an ancient system is it?

But, you're probably like me and just want to keep changing things, in which case nothing anybody says will change your mind!!

 

[thumper]

as long as you make the tweaks to force some games to run on only one core.

could you point me in the direction of how to do this and which games it would be benificial for - since I came over from a K7 AMD setup i've been floundering in the world of intel

 

[Tooks]

Need for Speed: Most Wanted is one game I'm aware of.

To make it run on one core only:-

Launch Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and as soon as the game appears to begin loading, or after it has loaded up, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager. Under the Processes tab, find the Speed.exe process, right-click on it, select 'Set Affinity' and in the box which appears, untick 'CPU 1'.

The process is the same for other games that appear to be choppy, but obviously replace 'speed.exe' with the executable for that particular game. You need to do it every time you start the game with that method though.

Check the game sites for dual core patches too, I recently downloaded the COD2 dual core patch and that gave a bit of a boost, although it wasn't choppy to start with.

You can do it automatically too. Follow this link to one way of doing so.

http://www.robpol86.com/Pages/imagecfg.php

Just one of your cores is as fast as most P4 processors, so it shouldn't be holding your games back to any appreciable degree. If it is, then one of the above methods should help.

 

[AWPC]

Wait for Conroe. Below are the current cpu prices I posted in another Conroe thread. The E6600 & higher are a lot faster than the FX57+FX60 which also cost 200-300% more so as you can see Conroe is a no brainer for everyone now.

E6700 (2.67Ghz) = $530 Approx £353 (1.5 average UK exchange rate)
E6600 (2.40Ghz) = $316 Approx £210 (1.5 average UK exchange rate)
E6400 (2.13Ghz) = $244 Approx £163 (1.5 average UK exchange rate)
E6300 (1.86Ghz) = $209 Approx £140 (1.5 average UK exchange rate)

Your DDR2 should be re-useable. As for the mobo I have an Asus 955X mobo and am also waiting to see if that can also be made Conroe ready with a bios update. Currently the only Conroe ready mobo is Intels 975 Bad Axe. Every other current 975X based mobo was made or designed in Jan2006 before Conroe specs were finalised so most will not work due to Conroe needing lower Vcore than the mobos can supply (unusually not higher as per recent intel history!). If your mobo supports DDR2-667 or higher + a vcore in the 1.1-1.2 range then with a bios update no reason why it cannot work. Conroe needs DDR2-533 as the lowest speed but some of the faster models require DDR2-667.

Of course whether or not they release the bios or hold it back to get a new mobo out of everyone is another issue altogether....

With a bit of tweaking your current rig should handle anything @ 1280x1024 or lower as long as you turn down AA on some SM3.0 games.