Would this upgrade be worth it?

times_champion

times_champion

times_champion

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Joined
30 Oct 2004
Posts
364
Im currently running the below spec on a 3.5 yr old PC:

Pentium D 940 3.2ghz dual core
7800 GTX
2gb PCR2-5200 RAM (4x512mb)

I am planning an upgrade to the following;

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motheboard
E6600 processor
9600GT
2gb PC-2 6400 RAM

Would this make a decent difference to games playing? im thinking Fallout 3, Street Fighter 4, Crysis etc?
 
Second hand yes. I'm not expecting max settings, but on some benchmarks of Crysis I have seen, at 1280x1024 which is the res I would be using Crysis does get about 30 fps on high with that setup.
 
It'll be a significant improvement, but I agree that a cheap second hand card and preferably 4gb of ram would improve things considerably from there. Crisis on a 9600GT made me smile, it's not going to run well on that based on the mad graphics cards people recommend for it.
 
times_champion said:
Im currently running the below spec on a 3.5 yr old PC:

Pentium D 940 3.2ghz dual core
7800 GTX
2gb PCR2-5200 RAM (4x512mb)

I am planning an upgrade to the following;

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L motheboard
E6600 processor
9600GT
2gb PC-2 6400 RAM

Would this make a decent difference to games playing? im thinking Fallout 3, Street Fighter 4, Crysis etc?
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The cpu is fine with some overclocking, but the graphics is seriously letting you down. Like other people have said a 4850 or 4870 will do you nicely, also make that 2GB or ram 4GB and you should be running smoothly :)
 
Im really going for a fairly cheap upgrade (enough to get me through current games at close to max settings at 1280x1024 and the xmas games like Dragon Age and Resident Evil 5 etc) then sell the lot for parts next summer time to build a better gaming rig. if I can get a 2nd hand 4850 or 9800gtx for my budget of around £40 I will go for that.
 
times_champion said:
Im really going for a fairly cheap upgrade (enough to get me through current games at close to max settings at 1280x1024 and the xmas games like Dragon Age and Resident Evil 5 etc) then sell the lot for parts next summer time to build a better gaming rig. if I can get a 2nd hand 4850 or 9800gtx for my budget of around £40 I will go for that.
Click to expand...

If your budget is that low then obviously just make the gfx your priority and get one second hand like you said. Check the bay for good second hand gfx and prices.
 
A friend offered me an upgrade to some parts he already had and I managed to geta cheap graphics card so my rig will now be;

Asus M3N78 mobo
Athlon 64x2 6000+
Radeon 4850 1gb
4gb 800mhz RAM

Will this suffice for 12 months or so for most new games at high settings at 1280x1024? next year I may go for a Phenom as I believe it can run on that mobo, and maybe a 4890 or equivalent.
 
The graphics card is better but the cpu is not as good a the E6600. 2Gb of ram is fine for Crysis. I played through Crysis at 1280x1024 with a E6600 clocked to 3.6Ghz, 2x 1GB Geil PC2 6400, Nvidia 8800GT and had framerates comfortably in the 30's with no stuttering. That was with details set to high as well.
 
The athlon is a definate, I got it cheap with the mobo so cant change that. I have read that it is about par with an e66000 or e6700 though which is what I was goingfor originally. The whole upgrade has only come to about £120 so I cant complain really!
 
First time I played through Crysis i was on -
P8400 2.26Ghz
3GB DDR2
ATi HD3470 mobile
@1600x900

With the Graphics on Custom - half high, half medium. It didnt look spectacular but it was enjoyable and smooth enough.

If your just looking for a quick inbetween step then what your doing does sound good. Try and get the best GPU u can (check some of the popular auction sites) as this will be most noticeable in games.
 
Did Did you really get all that for £120? Thats a steal at that and should act as a nice stop gap if you wish to save for a better setup in the future.
 
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