Upgrade for Sims 3

[Ciber]

I want to upgrade my girlfriend's PC to run the Sims 3 better as a kind of christmas present. It currently has no discrete graphics so I'm thinking adding a cheap AGP card is the way to go. The motherboard is a K8M800-8237 socket 754. It has a Sempron 2800+ (1.6ghz) and I recently upgraded it to 1gb ram. I only want to spend 20 or 30 or less as the PC is not worth much and she might not actually game on it that much.

So, has anyone done a similar AGP upgrade recently or have experience of Sims 3 on low end machines? I've found that the game runs pretty badly on my similarly specced laptop but i just about playable so I'm aiming for a nice improvement on that.

Would it be worth getting her an Athlon 64 3700+ or 3400+?

[razer121]

have you looked at the min specs for the sims 3? i have no idea what it is but id take a guess that a 6600 agp would play it alrightish, well better then integrated! erm there abotu £30 if you look in the right places good luck

[Terbinator]

eBay is probably your best bet.

[Ciber]

Yes I have read the min spec and it's not that helpful. The box says 2ghz cpu 1gb ram and 128mb graphics with Pixel shader 2.0. It does tend to suggest a GPU upgrade would be most helpful. Plus decent S754 CPUs are not that cheap on ebay, so I probably won't bother upgrading her CPU.

I was thinking a FX5200 would fit the min spec and have the advantage of being silent over something like a 9800pro (ati) bought from ebay. Link: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?NOV-FX2128

[Salazaar]

The nVidia 5 series GPUs were really quite poor compared to ATIs 9800s.

This might be better:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/256MB...assive-Cooling

[jim]

My sister used to play the Sims 2 on an FX5200 and it was an absolute dog, terrible to use.

You should be able to get a 7600 off eBay for £30-35

[nightkhaos]

My sister used to play the Sims 2 on an FX5200 and it was an absolute dog, terrible to use.

You should be able to get a 7600 off eBay for £30-35

An AGP 7600?

[jim]

An AGP 7600?

Don't see why not :/

eg: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Leadtek-WinFas...item4a9b321598

[Jay]

my g/f can play it a 1920 x 1600 with an ATi 3850 and an AM2 X2 5000+ with 2GB RAM

[watforddude]

Its not silent and its a bit over budget but hay its a christmas present

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144327

or like everyone else said a 7600GT isnt too bad.

[Ciber]

My sister used to play the Sims 2 on an FX5200 and it was an absolute dog, terrible to use.

You should be able to get a 7600 off eBay for £30-35

That's exactly what I wanted to know, so a 5200 definitely isn't good enough.

So I'm thinking maybe this, more than I want to spend as I want to get her lots of other presents as well! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASUS-Silent-76...#ht_1041wt_958

Hmm or this might be good if it doesn't go too expensive! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Gainward-BLISS...7#ht_708wt_958

[jim]

That's exactly what I wanted to know, so a 5200 definitely isn't good enough.

So I'm thinking maybe this, more than I want to spend as I want to get her lots of other presents as well! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASUS-Silent-76...#ht_1041wt_958

Hmm or this might be good if it doesn't go too expensive! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Gainward-BLISS...7#ht_708wt_958

I'd expect to pay upwards of £50 for a 7800GS... I had one a very long time ago and it certainly did the job, although I'm sure you can get away with a bit less if you have to

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 7600GS GDDR2 is crippled by the slow memory speeds. I would get a 6800GT or 6800 Ultra instead!

Also I would consider the X1950 pro AGP too.

[jim]

The 7600GS GDDR2 is crippled by the slow memory speeds. I would get a 6800GT or 6800 Ultra instead!

Also I would consider the X1950 pro AGP too.

Mind you, the latter was really difficult to get hold of IIRC - has that changed now with all the second hand trade?

[Champman99]

6800GT was my last AGP card, pretty decent performer.

A few available on ebay (example)

[Ciber]

Christmas approaches and she wants to play the sims 3 but her PC definitely won't do it without a graphics card. A 3650 should be pretty good? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASUS-AH3650-SI...item2c51f97a57 .. or .. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASUS-AH3650-SI...item439bd00452

Although having bought lots of presents funds are low, so I'm thinking this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/xfx-geforce-68...item3ca833d0bd