Which comes first?! (upgrade confusion)

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Hello,

I have a dfi lanparty 754 motherboard, 3200+ processor, 6600gt agp graphics and 1 gb ram.

I'm thinking of upgrading to a sapphire X1950 pro 512mb. Is there any point? will my processor hold back the card too much?

Also will i need a new power supply? I currently have a 400w paxpower (i think that's what it's called).

I was hoping to get away with not buying a new psu as i wanted to get an x-fi as my current soundcard is an ancient soundblaster live. Will i notice a huge difference with an x-fi?

All and any help much appreciated!
 
Difficult to say what is best to do here, I would expect you could fetch £200-£300 with that current system, and I'm guessing you have about another £150 for you to be able to afford that X1950 Pro. So at tops you could have £500. If thats the case then I would upgrade to core 2 duo purchasing an E4300 and overclocking it to give you best value for money.
 
I was hoping to keep the processor and motherboard and just add a new graphics and sound card and a new psu if i really had to. Could i get away with this or would my aging processor bottleneck the sapphire x1950 512mb agp?
 
A 17" crt. I don't go over 1280 x 800 (i think that's right). Is getting the sapphire x1950 512mb overkill? Should i look at something a little less powerful?
 
I'll be running, Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 2 and medieval total war 2.

I bought Oblivion the first it came out and it ran like a turd on my old system! I promised myself i wouldn't play it with a crappy framerate and with all the fancy visuals turned down so not to ruin the 'experience' :D .

I just bought NWN 2 and MTW2 and they run horribly too. I have to turn all everything to it's lowest to make it playable. So i've finally cracked and have dusted the cobwebs off my bankcard. What card would play these games well without having to turn off the fancy effects?
 
Try a 7900GS maybe? They overclock nicely and at 1280x1024 should run most games maxed out.

Your processor should be okay for a while still, do you have it overclocked at all? Might be worth looking into that to get a bit extra out of it.

To be honest I would start saving up money for a decent upgrade to C2D or wait for the new AMD cpus at the end of the summer.
 
I haven't overclocked the cpu, that kind of talk starts my knees-a-knockin! I just about managed to put my last computer together but the stress was almost too much.

How much is the 7900gs and can i run it off a 400w paxpower?

I don't know what a c2d is! :confused: I'd just be happy with being able to play the above games maxed (or fairly close to)
 
It's difficult, even if you get a decent graphics card those games won't be able to run at much higher settings than you have now due to you only having 1gb of RAM. I'd get RAM if I were you, love the stuff.
 
I don't mean i play those games at 1280 x 800, i mean that's the highest resolution my aging eyes can read text on my monitor. I play those games at 1024 x 768 with all the settings on minimum. I'd be happy with a card that can play at 1280 x 800 and be near maxed
 
If you want to play those games on high then you will need more than 1gb and the better card, it's up to you which one you go with first. If you go with RAM first then you'll just have consitently low framerates whereas with less ram you'll have intermittent chugging.
 
To be honest your best bet would be to wait until you can upgrade to a DDR2/PCI-E motherboard, spending money on DDR ram or an AGP card is a bit of a waste at the moment as you'll have to sell them on or dump them probably once you want to upgrade your motherboard.

If you can get some money together then I'd have a look at the Asrock DUAL-VSTA board. Get one for £50 and an E6300 for £110, through in your AGP card and DDR ram and enjoy a massive boost in performance from the CPU. Then when you get the money you can upgrade your graphics card and then get a 2GB set of DDR2 RAM. After that you're home sweet for a good long while, you can get a decent overclocking motherboard if you feel up to it at that stage.

For £160 + p&p you can have a massive cpu upgrade. Definitely the best course of action in my opinion.
 
Oh boy, my brain is hurting! :D It's all getting a bit more complicated than i wanted. Not that i don't appreciate the help i really do! All i want is to be able to play these three games at good settings without having to upgrade everything or change motherboards.

I know it's not very forward thinking but nor am i! Is there a card between my current 6600gt 128 and the x1950 512 that anyone can recommend that would run off a paxpower 400w?

Also should i forget about the soundcard update for now? Would geting an x-fi make a big difference to gaming compared to my old soundblaster live.
 
OK! After careful deliberation i think i might go for a 1gb stick of ram (bringing me to 2gb), an x-fi (not the crappy one or the one with the silly memory) and a 7600gt. Question is do i get the 'golden sample' 7600gt? is it worth the extra bucks?
 
That seems like a good idea to me, you'll have a nice performance boost from that (Although the 7600gt isn't really that much better than the 6800 series).

Don't bother with the golden sample.

:edit: I would say try looking in the clearance section for good AGP deals but it seems to be going really slow/timing out.
 
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I think there's an agp version of the 7900GS around if you want to spend a few extra bucks.

7600GT is about 20% faster then 6800GT and 7900GS is about 20% faster then 7600GT.

If you want to keep it simple then yea your plan sounds good. Get the X-Fi music, all you'll need.
 
I ordered the 7600gt, and extra gig of ram and the x-fi. I was in a rush as i was on my dinner break and didn't take the time to check i wasn't ordering either the crappy cut down x-fi or the one with the silly extra ram. I'm now panicking a little! Can someone confirm i got the 'right one' please? The link should be below. Cheers :)

Medieval TW2, NWN2 & Oblivion overload here i come!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-045-CL&groupid=701&catid=11&subcat=

P.S. Has anyone tried Lord of the rings online yet? (can't remember it's proper name) If that's any good i'm willing to give up a social life completely.
 
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