Wow! when an upgrade really becomes worth it

[MooSey-UK]

a little while ago i posted about watercooling my trusty XP3000 Barton in order to get better overclocking for frame rates.
well,
i junked that idea and got an X2 4400 which i promptly whacked up to 4800 rating.
to say the difference was noticeable would be an understatement. previously in BF2 at 1280x1024 with everything maxed and 2xAA i was getting 25-40 fps. this i found dissapointing as i'd only fitted a gainward bliss 7800GS+ 512 (7900GT/AGP).
so yesterday when i fired up BF2 after the rebuild i was just a tad happy......
from 25-40fps old cpu to 80-100fps now.w000000000000000000000t!!
who sez cpu's don't make much difference for games?
its reasons like this that make upgrades worthwhile.
thanks to the low prices of 939 X2's here at the shop i got my cpu and mobo for just over £200. considering i'll get nearly £100 for my old cpu/mobo thats what i call value for money

 

[MooSey-UK]

i was determined not to upgrade the cpu. i had a mindset that it was'nt worth it until the vista platform and consequent games matured.
however when you compare the cost of w/c kit to a cpu/mobo upgrade it does'nt take a genius to work out the bang per buck deal.
i loved my xp3000, it clocked to 2.5 and would have loved water. i'd still like to get a loop fitted but i can't afford now or justify what would essentially be the bling factor.
every dog has its day and my xp had its.
i just hope intel and amd keep battering each other so we, the consumer can enjoy the price wars

 

[MooSey-UK]

I've got a heavily overclocked Athlon XP running at just over 2.6GHz, just upgraded GFX card from an FX5800 to a 7600GT and am very happy that I can run fear at maximum everything (except textures due to having only 1Gig of RAM). I was suprised at how well the old XP stood up to be honest.

FEAR, cod2, Q4 etc being fairly linear did'nt bother my XP much. BF2 did tho hence my bargaintastic upgrade 2142 is even more resource hungry but i aint worked out yet if its cpu or gfx.

mrthingx wrote;

"The OP sounds like he has a brutally fast system, however!"

my 7800gs+ goes to 600/1500 from 450/1250 stock. i think i missed the duffers and got a good 'un. plus the prerequisite 2gig of ram always helps bf2 along.