Upgrade Advice

[Caporip]

My system consists of

Abit Nf7 mobo (version 2)
Athlon3200xp barton processor
1.5gb pc2100 memory
pny Nvidia 6600gt graphics
Audigy 2ZS pro soundcard

I am looking to upgrade the system used for work and gaming (FEAR; Half Life 2; Far Cry and Quake 4) and wish to improve its performance. I have a budget of £300 (or a bit more if i can get away with it) and seek advice where that could be best spent?

Thanks

Richard

 

[tomsega]

My system consists of

Abit Nf7 mobo (version 2)
Athlon3200xp barton processor
1.5gb pc2100 memory
pny Nvidia 6600gt graphics
Audigy 2ZS pro soundcard

I am looking to upgrade the system used for work and gaming (FEAR; Half Life 2; Far Cry and Quake 4) and wish to improve its performance. I have a budget of £300 (or a bit more if i can get away with it) and seek advice where that could be best spent?

Thanks

Richard

Well, as far as gaming ability is concerned, your graphics card makes most of the difference, although it must be taken into consideration that your processor bottlenecks the graphics card as well. Your problem at the moment is that you have the most powerfull processor possible for your motherboard, although the Athlon XP 3200 only really matches an Athlon 64 3000. Also, because this is an AGPx8 board, the most powerfull graphics card you could get is a 6800 ultra. Which are only available second hand. So basically if you were to keep your processor and motherboard, the best thing you could do is find a second hand 6800 ultra.

However, your 6600gt isn't that bad (if its 256mb?) - and it will fair alot better with a powerfull processor. Currently the ONLY motherboard that supports AGPx8 graphics cards AND PCI-E graphics cards is the 'Asrock 939 Dual Sata-2' - this would support your current card AND allow you to upgrade to a PCI-E 7800 in the future if you wanted. The board got 86% in this months CustomPC, and are only £50.

So yeah, if I were you-

Sell the Motherboard/Processor/RAM on Ebay, Buy that Asrock mobo
find the best value Athlon 64 (3700?), find 1GB of PC3200 RAM
and then use your old graphics card again for a while.

 

[Caporip]

re 6600gt

thanks for your comments the card is only 128mb does that alter your view?

Richard

 

[tomsega]

Hmm... Well, you could always 'share' that system RAM with the graphics card (IE, set the AGP aperture to 256mb in the bios). Seeing as your processor and RAM will be so fast, you shouldn't notice a particularly big difference in performance.

You might not want to hear this, seeing as just buying a new graphics card and RAM with that £300 would be a 'quick-fix' for your requirments, but you really will be better off updating the motherboard and Processor, and then sticking with the graphics card untill you can afford to upgrade again.

You might want to check out this - its a barebones PC (Case/mobo/processor), featuring an athlon 64 3500+ and that AGPx8/PCI-E motherboard I mentioned - £279

http://www.1megashop.net/1ms-computers/64-bare-3500-939.htm

If you could get £200 out of selling your old components on ebay, you'd then have enough to get a 6800gt.

 

[Caporip]

Ok thanks for that.


Plan B (aka its only money)

If i was to up the ante to say £500 i could forget about needing a dual graphics MOBO but what MOBO would you then recommend and what card I reckon approx £50 for the card and £200 for the card.

Thanks

Richard

 

[tomsega]

Ok thanks for that.


Plan B (aka its only money)

If i was to up the ante to say £500 i could forget about needing a dual graphics MOBO but what MOBO would you then recommend and what card I reckon approx £50 for the card and £200 for the card.

Thanks

Richard

That mobo isn't dual graphics like 'SLI' technology is (where you can link 2 graphics cards together), it just supports your old graphics card and it would leave support for new ones as it has PCI-E. If you just want a regular board, any recent Asus 939 motherboard should be fine, look for one for about 80. If you wanted to spend only 50 then the board I mentioned already is the only decent 'budget' board im aware of.

If you got one that has SLI, you could add another graphics card to it later in time and almost double performance. The 6800gt is the best £200 quid card, but for £270 the 7800gt is substancially faster. Seeing as you are now getting a new graphics card, it would be better for gaming to settle for an Athlon64 3200, and then get the fastest graphics card possible.

However, getting 1gb of decent pc3200 RAM should be a higher priority if a 7800 is too much money - Your old RAM would substancially bottleneck any new components, even if they are top of the line.

 

[muckshifter]

tomsega is giving good advice ... read it

Here we go again ... cutting ANY corners on the motherboard will leave you with a crap system no mater WHAT you put in it ... ALWAYS get the best MB you can afford, you can then add a better this-n-that later.

 

[tomsega]

cutting ANY corners on the motherboard will leave you with a crap system no mater WHAT you put in it

Aah indeed, but a 'crap' mobo is not always defined by the price. I would only recommended that £50 budget one because it DID recieve a very good review from CustomPC, who I trust.

Granted, they also mentioned it can't overclock particularly well. And it doesn't have SLI. And its not NForce4. So yeah, AIM for a deluxe Asus board, but its not the be all and end all - as long as you've seen it get good reviews and feedback.

 

[muckshifter]

Aah indeed, but a 'crap' mobo is not always defined by the price. I would only recommended that £50 budget one because it DID receive a very good review from CustomPC, who I trust.

Granted, they also mentioned it can't overclock particularly well. And it doesn't have SLI. And its not NForce4. So yeah, AIM for a deluxe Asus board, but its not the be all and end all - as long as you've seen it get good reviews and feedback.

Tom, I was not knocking your advice ... merely pointing out to Caporip to be aware that buying a supadupa graphics card would be a waste if it will be throttled by the MB ...

tomsega is giving good advice ... read it

All your advice is very sound.

 

[tomsega]

oh. okay.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I'll be getting one of those Asrock Dual SATA AGP/PCI-e boards next week, I'll let you know how I get on with it, I may even do a review.

It will be replacing my daughter's ageing Asrock 4 x AGP Sis chipset board.

The old motherboard, I have to say, has been rock solid for 3 or 4 years.

But, without going into the who why or where, I'll be making changes throughout all my 4 systems and the old Asrock board will end up as my Linux/Win 98 machine.

I'll be putting an XP3200 Venice core CPU in there and she'll go from one 40Gb IDE disk to 2 x 80Gb IDE Hard disks (one of which will be purely for backup using Acronis True Image). Her mp3 collection is threatening to spill over

I'll be using the old AGP 9800 Pro video card in it for now.

This now gives me the advantage of a 64 bit system with options to upgrade later to a PCI-e video card and/or SATA HDD's.

Uli as a chipset manufacturer is a new one to me, but that board got some very good reviews indeed, although it's limited facilities were of course mentioned. £46.17 + postage from Scan.

 

[muckshifter]

Dig out an old "286-486 IBM Clone" and you'll most likely find an ULi chip on it somewhere ... they seem to loose out when SIS came on the scene ... same stables though, cheap.

 

[Caporip]

Upgrade advice result

Many thanks for your help

eventually went for
ASUS a8n-e mobo
2gig kingston 3200 ram
Connect 3d 850xt PCI e
Athlon 3700 san diego

All set up yesterday and going fine. Have not tried to push these yet but will have a try over the weekend. Any thoughts on oc'ing would be welcome.

Richard