Lo chaps Well currently im on a Fx-55 based cyber cafe machine playing COD2, One thing that astounds me is the sheer smoothness of the game/programs that are running on this machine. this is has got me thinking seriously, Will a untimed upgrade will really keep me content(if only for a short while?). Currently im running my SktA Xp-M rig and i love it to bits but this smoothness/speed is rather luctrative. Is it worth envesting in secondhand stuff just to pass the time? or should i do the big upgrade when conroe/AM2 comes out(which i originally planned to do) In termas of specs its pretty similar to my machine, Amd Xp-M 2500@2.40Ghz Vs. Athlon64 FX55(no contest there ) 6800GT/Ultra(AGP) vs. 6800GS(Pci-e) 1 gig of ram Maxtor(ide's) Vs. Westerd Digital (SATA) Arrrgghh!!! i donno what to do, But i can finally understand this new/er tech actually is pretty good.
anything's a step up from the xp range i went from 1ghz athlon xp.. t.t.t.t.T BIRD to a 3500+ 64bit mc job astounding differences.. still loving every moment
yeah, that was the thing, i mean the FX55 was some and still is one bit of serious kit, but the overall smoothness was lovely. but also ive taken into consoderation that cybercafe machines dont have anything on them but games and networking software....so the bare minium. but the point still stands. Im seriously thinking of getting a Opty and OC'ing it to FX57 levels, but i dont want to get rid of my 6800GT(agp) but yeah there are ways of getting round it. I think the sensible decision is to wait, ive waited this long so why not longer.
Could go "middleway" upgrade wise and grab an AGP 939 mobo and a 144 opty perhaps? Will be a huge jump over your current setup and probably wont cost you the earth either.. Selling your old kit will net back some of the losses too, might be able to make the upgrade for a touch over 100 quid.
Yah thats what i was thinking but also if i buy stuff for the full upgrade then i might aswell do it fully. I donno still....
Funny thing is that whilst playing the full version of GRAW today i could really tell that my cpu/system is getting slow. COD2,HL2 and a few other are alot kinder to such a old system but when i was loading GRAW and even BF2 i can tell it takes a good while to load up..but that a overall system thing. But ill wait.Ill prob start buying into bits for the next build like HSF,Ram...small stuff so that later on i can use with AM2/cornroe
Well I am in the same boat as yourself looking to upgrade but have pick possibly the worst time to do it as new tech coming soon the likelyhood these new chips will be immediatly available i.e am2 may and intel conroe july is very remote in my opinion.. have been looking to now avail for a current mbo that will support conroe for future upgrade... So still undecided as having to build completely new system.. bf2 is realy getting on my nerves @ the moment takes ages to load... current rig socket a amd 3000xp barton core 512mb ram 6800le 128mb medion motherboard so starting to struggle and get very frustated.. If I just upgraded the gpu to a 6800 256mb would that make a huge differnce or is it worth saving even more money for an uber conroe pc...
jesus 512 ram is your problem, 1gig minium to play with that game. I remember playing BF2 with 512.....it too more than 2 mins before i could play. Luckly 1gig sorted that out but ive heard 2gigs is better. Never mind, ill invest in 2 gigs of DDR2.....and thankgod for my 25% discount @ PC world.
I decided to upgrade now, like most new platforms AM2 probably wont be worth the extra money for the small performance gain and will probably have a few bugs with it (initially). I prefer to just upgrade when its worth doing, when the performance to price ratio is just right. I just don't see the point in keeping a rig for a year for it to de-value loads when I can just upgrade on the go (and have current tech) and pay a few quid extra after selling my current component. Like with my GFX card, I bought a BFG 7800GTX OC for £240 about 2 months ago, now that the 7900GT has come out I thought i'd snap one up before my 7800 devalues too much. So i've got my 7900GT for £230 and il sell my 7800GTX on ebay for £240, il have a better card plus £10 in my pocket I would probably keep saving then buy a dual core 939 rig, unless the AM2 is easily available and not too pricey. Should be some nice price drops on 939 stuff one AM2 comes out
From when I upgraded I noticed a huge increase fom a 3000xp to a 3000 64. I dont know what the benifit of am2 is other than ddr2 But I would say that a 64 bit is still a smart idea!
I upgraded recently, and I am extremely glad I did. My old setup: AMD XP1800+ 768 MB RAM nVidia 5500 256 MB 19" CRT My new setup, finished installing Windows last night: AMD64 X2 4800+ 2 GB RAM nVidia 7900GTX 20" Widescreen LCD I must say that the upgrade was well worth it. Sure I won't have the luxuries of Conroe's blinding speed or DX10's tweaks, but I don't have to wait until 2007 either. And with my SLI setup, if this card starts to lack I can just get another one. Or a physics card, whichever benchmarks better. My advice to anyone, if you can run the newest games at all, and are happy with that don't waste your time upgrading. But if you can't run them at all, join me.
Personally im not bothered about SLi/Crossfire....load of rubbish for me personally as im not anal about howmany FPS i can get in 3dmark. But also its not about weather AM2 or Conroe is better than each other(well it is but im not fussed) and tbh the only thing that was keeping me away from the pentium series was DDR2 and the price of the cpu's. Now that AMD is going with DDR2 the prices of that ram seems to be falling also the latancies are falling aswell. Not only that Pci-e gfx cards have emerged the stronger and more widely avail source for gfx standards...so obviously thats the way to go. Im not fussed about vista as ill be using XP for a good few years as theres nothing wrong with it, but im sure vista will have its fair share of probs throughout the first year atlest. It all boiled down to the sheer smoothness of how the games i played felt. everything was smoother and not any lag.....i know my 6800GT isnt slow but i can see how the older p4's and now the AthlonXP series is really starting to show its age.
In answer to your thread title; I went mainly from a P4 3.2, to a 3000+, and now a 144. And I noticed the increase in smoothness. Graphically, it was the similar. Went from a 9800SE, to a 6600GT, quite a bit of difference there. And now a 7800GT. Huge improvement. I'd say, if you can notice the lag, or lack in performance. Its a sign
i have an OLD pentium 4 @ 1.8Ghz and now im gonna move to a 3800 oh and i forgot, 256MB SINGLE DATA SDRAM!!!!!
That is what I was thinking 512mb ram was the main problem with the system the graphics seem ok but the load times are massive takes a good 5 to 8 minutes on bf2 the only game I play now... Problem i have when I run PC wizard it say's that the MBo will only accept another 256 mb stick so pretty limited on the ram front as previously posted I will build a new rig and select either a intel for the future upgrade path with ddr2 or a 939 dual core within the next few weeks only prob with intel is the cost of the Mbo's would like the option to upgrade to sli in future but not in intail build... First time that I have also built a pc so fingers crossed..
I'd agree with most on here.. at least wait until AM2 is out, and see how that performs. Dual core is definitely the way to go, also, whichever chip you decide upon, and 2Gb is pretty much essential for a gaming rig now.
If your set-up really is getting you down just upgrade now, its what I did. If not, wait. If you do it the way I did it later on down the line you can upgrade your mobo and CPU once they have dropped in price. Unless you dont really like upgrading every year or so, but the way I plan to do it is to just add bits slowly. Take my current rig for example, its the first system ive build totally on my own. Twas a big step for me and once I had finished I was hooked. I finished building it less than a month ago and already I have replaced the HSF for a high performance air cooler and am currently saving up for a graphics card replacement (from my old X1800GTO). Once I have my new graphics card im aiming for some nice juicy performance ram to use the full potential of my new graphics card. By this time AM2/Conroe should have dropped in price and Vista+DX10 will be drawing near, once it hits its new graphics card time once again. So as you can see although there are alot of things in the near future theres never a perfect time to upgrade, at least not if you want to have a half decet system there isnt. Upgrade slowly as new things are released, eventually you will have a beasty rig that would probably be able to beat down any game of its time. At least that what im hoping for.