Biggest bang for the buck ???

[Big Red]

Here is my rig:

Asus A78NX ver 2.0 latest bios
Barton 2500+ o/c 3200+
2 x 512 Corsair 3200 LLPT
ATI AIW 8500 128

I love the ATI AIW cards - I've had 4. My ??? is should I buy an AGP upgrade
such as the AIW 9800 Pro or should I bite the bullet and upgrade everything
? If AGP
is going away - how long should you wait ? I guess my real question is -
will my current
processing power last me 2 more years and just upgrade the video card or
will the
processing power be more of an issue then I realize ? I dont game that much
but I cant
run Unreal 2004 with all the eye candy on. The newer games are bound to be
worse.

If you think I should upgrade the AIW card .. which one ? 9800 Pro or X800
XT

 

[John Edmister]

I have a similar rig, mine is

MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR
Athlon XP2500 oc'd @ 2.2ghz w/Thermaltake Volcano Extreme hs/f
1gb Geil pc 3200
Maxtor maxline plus III 300gb SATA w/16mb cache
ATI Radeon 9800 pro
I have tried twice, unsuccessfully to upgrade my video card, once with an
MSI 6600gt, and once with an X800 GTO both cards had 256 meg of ddr3, and,
quite honestly, both cards sucked in comparisson to my 9800 pro.
I am a gamer,and I get between 50 and 70 fps in BF2 and D3 @ 1024x 768 high
settings, no aa or af. Yea, I guess if I had extra $$$ to burn, I could
upgrade everything and get higher settings and rez, but, right now, I have
to ask, why? If I'm getting good fps with what I've got.
Oh, I DID successfully upgrade my HD to a 300 gb SATA, and I saw an extreme
performance boost in system boot time, game map load time etc. I would
suggest if you are using an IDE drive, the cheapest 2 upgrades you can do is
go SATA, and, sell your ram, or put it in another system, and upgrade to 2gb
<my next step>
I know 64 bit, and/or dual core and PCI-E is the next generation, but right
now, they're still breastfeeding all the changes. 64 bit, dual core, PCI-E,
SLI and Crossfire etc etc etc. Remember on top of all the bloody upgrades
and changes, to fully get the benifit of a 64 bit system, you must also get
a new Windows XP 64 bit edition, otherwise you're running your 64 bit system
with a 32 bit operating system. And I'm not a pro, but to me, that would be
like running an 8 cylinder car with 4 of the spark plugs unplugged lol. I've
added up the prices over and over again to upgrade my system, and, I settle
on a decent, upgrade proof way to go, GOOD mobo, decent CPU, and a good
video card, and then I ask myself, am I having problems?
I would suggest if you want to boost your system, yea, a better video card,
maybe either the 9800 pro, or X800 or Nvidia 6800, a SATA HD, and 2 gigs of
ram would give you the boost you desire.... inexpensively.
I wish someone would come up with an adapter so you could use an agp card in
a pci-e slot, or vice versa......
Oh, btw, there is a mobo on Newegg that does support both agp and PCI-E if
you want to upgrade slowly, thats what I'm thinking about.... but, the
drawback, it doesn't use an Nvidia chipset...... <which I love>
Good luck

 

[Guest]

snip

I'm in a similar situation, currently using an 8500Pro. The choices for my
current budget seem to lie with either the 9800Pro (a card that I've always
seen as the one-to-have) or the Nvidia 6200. A few weeks ago I'd have gone
and bought the 9800Pro without any hesitation whatsoever but I've since
learned that the 6200 is cheaper, runs faster, and cooler. Also it consumes
less power.

The only thing that is stopping me buying it is doubt. I really wanted the
9800 Pro but now I can't decide

FWIW the Barton core 2500 is a superb chip - wish it was in my PC. I have a
2600XP, 512Mb DDR400, and an MSI KM3MV mobo.