Usual 'Am I buying the right stuff' request.

[Count Stex]

Hi guys. I'm looking to make some 'holding pattern' upgrades to our two gaming rigs this year, to hold us over until 2008 when hopefully there will be a total revamp of both machines. However until then I need to make some minor upgrades to keep me happy

The current specs of the two systems are as follows.

His
CPU: A64 3700+ (939)
Mobo: ASRock DualSATAII
RAM: 4x512MB DDR Corsiar Value
HDD: 1x80GB SataII + 1x80GB PATA
GFX: HIS X1900XT 512MB PCIe
PSU: Hiper TypeR 580

Hers
CPU: P4 2.8Ghz (478)
Mobo: MSI 865PE Neo2
RAM: 4x512MB DDR Corsiar Value
HDD: 1x73GB Sata Raptor
GFX: XFX 6600GT AGP
PSU: Thermaltake 560W

The upgrade plans come in 3 stages..

Stage 1
4x250GB Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 - 2 for each box, installed in RAID-0 (I realise we'll not be able to use the SATAII aspect of the drives in the current motherboards, but these will hopefully move with us in the overhaul)
Then some Artic cooling, a Freezer 64 for me and a Freezer 4 for her.

Stage 2
HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ3 Turbo 512MB - To bring her graphics up to date.

Stage 3 (If it's not 2008 already!!)
P4 upgrade: 3.4Ghz Prescott 1MB
AMD Upgrade: 3800+ A64 X2

Not sure if ther CPu upgrade will be worth it, but might be much cheaper by the time I get to them.

Any suggestions for improvements to this plan? Alternative upgrades, or any complete oversights on my part? If I've missed any vital details off my specs give us a shout and I'll update.

 

[carlazai]

Hi guys. I'm looking to make some 'holding pattern' upgrades to our two gaming rigs this year, to hold us over until 2008 when hopefully there will be a total revamp of both machines. However until then I need to make some minor upgrades to keep me happy

The current specs of the two systems are as follows.

His
CPU: A64 3700+ (939)
Mobo: ASRock DualSATAII
RAM: 4x512MB DDR Corsiar Value
HDD: 1x80GB SataII + 1x80GB PATA
GFX: HIS X1900XT 512MB PCIe
PSU: Hiper TypeR 580

Hers
CPU: P4 2.8Ghz (478)
Mobo: MSI 865PE Neo2
RAM: 4x512MB DDR Corsiar Value
HDD: 1x73GB Sata Raptor
GFX: XFX 6600GT AGP
PSU: Thermaltake 560W

The upgrade plans come in 3 stages..

Stage 1
4x250GB Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 - 2 for each box, installed in RAID-0 (I realise we'll not be able to use the SATAII aspect of the drives in the current motherboards, but these will hopefully move with us in the overhaul)
Then some Artic cooling, a Freezer 64 for me and a Freezer 4 for her.

Stage 2
HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ3 Turbo 512MB - To bring her graphics up to date.

Stage 3 (If it's not 2008 already!!)
P4 upgrade: 3.4Ghz Prescott 1MB
AMD Upgrade: 3800+ A64 X2

Not sure if ther CPu upgrade will be worth it, but might be much cheaper by the time I get to them.

Any suggestions for improvements to this plan? Alternative upgrades, or any complete oversights on my part? If I've missed any vital details off my specs give us a shout and I'll update.

Okay the disk drive upgrade can be made a lot better by the inclusion of seagate 320gb 16mb cache drives. If you need the idea of raid0 then you can always add another.

The gfx card upgrade looks fine though maybe stretching to a 8800gts 320mb would be the better course. Esp as these are getting cheaper all the time and will help future proof the machines.

I dont know much about the intel chip spec wise but real time use on my mates machine shows it seriously lacking in modern games i.e. MTW2 and Anno 1701. Full upgrade to conroe can be achieved for ~300 and the performance gains are unbelievable. The amd upgrade is less challenged by modern games but the same goes for the conroe upgrade. The chips are seriously good. I went from 3200+ with 20fps in MTW2 to a steady 40fps with huge armies.

 

[Count Stex]

Okay the disk drive upgrade can be made a lot better by the inclusion of seagate 320gb 16mb cache drives. If you need the idea of raid0 then you can always add another.

Ah, perpendicular tech. A fair point, and not a huge price differential, might well be worth it. Any idea if the Seagates have internal temp sensors?

The gfx card upgrade looks fine though maybe stretching to a 8800gts 320mb would be the better course. Esp as these are getting cheaper all the time and will help future proof the machines.

Will take a look at both options when the time comes then, see which tempts me the most.

I dont know much about the intel chip spec wise but real time use on my mates machine shows it seriously lacking in modern games i.e. MTW2 and Anno 1701. Full upgrade to conroe can be achieved for ~300 and the performance gains are unbelievable. The amd upgrade is less challenged by modern games but the same goes for the conroe upgrade. The chips are seriously good. I went from 3200+ with 20fps in MTW2 to a steady 40fps with huge armies.

The master plan is a full on upgrade to some C2D tech, my current spec has this listing at around the £1.2K price point given the costs of new mobo, ram, and moving her machine to PCIe graphics. Although £0.2K of that was the hard drives, which I can do ahead of time as currently planned.

 

[richjs]

Any chance i could have a chat with you count stex? If thats good by you, just add me on [email protected], cheers.