What to upgrade?

DEL 707

DEL 707

DEL 707

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2004
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It's gotten to the point where I've stopped looking at PC games because I normally have to play them at the lowest settings.

I know my graphics card is dragging me behind, I cut costs on it when I was building this machine.

Here are my specs

MD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (I have this clocked at 2400Mhz)
NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit
BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache x2
Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU

I wouldn't mind spending about £100-£150 on a new graphics card, but I'm not sure if I should bother if the other specs of this machine are letting me down as well.

Is there anything else in my machine that's worthwhile upgrading?
I'm also thinking of replacing 1 of my hard drives (pretty sure it's faulty), is now a good time to upgrade to Vista?
 
cut costs ? the 7800gtx was a pretty impressive card at its time....if u want to a quick upgrade then like peon has pointed out....4850
the rest of the system will hold it back a little but there should still be a fair amount of increase in fps.
i just put my old 8800gts(640) in the secondary computer which held a 7800gt and its made a world of difference..that only has an AMD3700+
 
Thanks for the advice.

I don't know much about graphics cards these days, I take it the 4850's are comparable to some of the top range nvidia cards?

I'm looking at the different cards, there's a £25 difference between the 512mb card and the 1024mb card?
Is there going to be a big performance difference between the 2?
 
buy the 4850, 512MB card, as it will work wonders on that system. No need as far as I'm aware in getting the 1GB card as it is unlikely that the card will utilise it.

From what I can gather the 4850 is approximately around the speed of a 8800 GTS 512 / 9800 GTX, although in some games it is much faster.
 
vista would just end up using more cpu power & memory so there would be little point.
maybe after you have upgraded the cpu/motherboard/memory but even then .....dont rush it.

as an upgrade....vista would be more near to the bottom of my list.
 
Sell all the 939 stuff for some extra cash and head forth for core2 with a 4850!!

Dual core 939's are a premium second hand now, and then wip out a cheap core2 duo proc and 4gig of ddr2 ram (thats not a lot) :D
 
Must say after reading all the threads about new builds I have been tempted to just go ahead with a rebuild ;)

But I think I'll just go ahead and order the 4850 and see how well the ol' gal performs with a new graphics card.

1 Last thing I need to ask before I make an order.
Some fans on my machine need replacing, the chipset fan on the motherboard and a case fan, they're starting to make a noise, I've tried cleaning them but they're still the same.

For the chipset fan, I take it I could use any 40mm fan, like
Akasa AK-160 BL-S 40mm Blue LED Fan

But for the case fan, I've measured it diagonally, it's 110mm and I can't seem to find any on the website that fit :confused:
 
DEL 707 said:
Must say after reading all the threads about new builds I have been tempted to just go ahead with a rebuild ;)

But I think I'll just go ahead and order the 4850 and see how well the ol' gal performs with a new graphics card.

1 Last thing I need to ask before I make an order.
Some fans on my machine need replacing, the chipset fan on the motherboard and a case fan, they're starting to make a noise, I've tried cleaning them but they're still the same.

For the chipset fan, I take it I could use any 40mm fan, like
Akasa AK-160 BL-S 40mm Blue LED Fan
Click to expand...

Yep, should do fine.

DEL 707 said:
But for the case fan, I've measured it diagonally, it's 110mm and I can't seem to find any on the website that fit :confused:
Click to expand...

Pythagoras suggests that is an 80mm fan ;)

(x)2 + (y)2 = (z)2

z = sqrt((x)2 + (y)2)
 
Nice, can always count on good ol' Pyth :p

I'm looking at ordering

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Akasa AK-160 BL-S 40mm Blue LED Fan
Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 8025L 80mm Fan - 3 Pin
 
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While I'm sure it's tempting to go Intel, the CPU and motherboard architecture you have are still very quick. You'd have to spend a lot of money to see a marked overall improvement. I've upgraded lots of S939 gaming systems (CPU/Mobo/RAM) and only a few owners have really noticed the difference. Everyone notices a graphics card upgrade though - almost immediately. The graphics card will give you the biggest single overall improvement for the least cost. And don't forget that 8800GTX are available for ~£70 second-hand. That would give you one heck of a bang-for-buck improvement.
 
WJA96 said:
While I'm sure it's tempting to go Intel, the CPU and motherboard architecture you have are still very quick. You'd have to spend a lot of money to see a marked overall improvement. I've upgraded lots of S939 gaming systems (CPU/Mobo/RAM) and only a few owners have really noticed the difference. Everyone notices a graphics card upgrade though - almost immediately. The graphics card will give you the biggest single overall improvement for the least cost. And don't forget that 8800GTX are available for ~£70 second-hand. That would give you one heck of a bang-for-buck improvement.
Click to expand...

Exactly, was just about to post a similar response.

I'm on sk.939 and its still a great platform and I think in real world use (not benchmarks) its not too far behind a half-decent intel rig. Sticking in a 4850 you would see a HUGE difference. Also, that CPU of yours (4400+) is the best available, you mentioned you are running it at 2.4? You could easily see 2.7-2.8 I would think. I have a 3800x2 @ 2.6!

Also just read you have the same board as me, DFI-Expert. You still have a great rig, you really shouldn't be having problems running ANY games once you upgraded your GFX. At the moment its just the 7800 that's pulling you back.
 
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Well, all ordered now. :)

I might be tempted at having another go at overclocking, I'm pretty sure I used to have it at 2.6 before but I think I stopped because it became unstable.
 
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