Help With Decision For Upgrade

[wrens_splein]

Hi
Been pointed to this forum by a friend and I have had a good look around. SOme great stuff here.

Decided now I need to improve my machine.

At the mo I have the following

Dell Dimension 4400

P4 2.0ghz 400FSB (Northwood I think)

512mb DDR PC2100 Ram

NVidia GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP graphics card

Right then, is there anything I can do with this system so I can run Doom3 etc???
Or am I flogging a dead horse??

I am thinking about building my system but that aint gonna happen for at least 6 months.

I have a budget of about £300 for some upgrades on this.

Any thoughts are much appreciated

Cheers

[Xaneden]

I have the same specification as you except for the graphics card (I have a GeForce 2 ). In my case, the processor and Asus motherboard have no upgrade path. I'm not sure about you processor, but my 2.0ghz P4 was the last of its range, and a new design of the P4 was introduced after I purchased.

Sorry I can't help more, but I think you'll find you may need to replace the lot. The RAM isn't even used anymore too.

[skb3]

I would purchase another 512mb of Ram and a decent graphics card. Probably a Nvidia 6800GT AGP or an ATI X800 Pro, both can be had for sub-300 quid.

[wrens_splein]

I would purchase another 512mb of Ram and a decent graphics card. Probably a Nvidia 6800GT AGP or an ATI X800 Pro, both can be had for sub-300 quid.

I have seen extra ram @ CRUCIAL for £43 for the 512 stick.

Do you think the card will be happy AGP x4, that is all mine will run at.

[kushtibari]

If you intend to build your own system in six months I'd probably keep hold of the cash and spend it then. You're stuck with the current system really. Whichever upgrade path you choose, a different bit of your system will still slow you down ands as it's a Dell you can't really get a new mobo/cpu. If you spend the cash on an upgrade for your current system it probably wouldn't suit your new machine, in which case you're not really getting value for money.

[wrens_splein]

If you intend to build your own system in six months I'd probably keep hold of the cash and spend it then. You're stuck with the current system really. Whichever upgrade path you choose, a different bit of your system will still slow you down ands as it's a Dell you can't really get a new mobo/cpu. If you spend the cash on an upgrade for your current system it probably wouldn't suit your new machine, in which case you're not really getting value for money.

Yeah I was mighty p***ed off when I found out that I could swap out the Dell mobo. Damn machine cost a fortune 3 years ago as it was top of the range.

Thanks for the advice there, that is waht I thought but I was hoping I could squeeze a bit more out of it.

[noah]

get yourself a gf ti4600 or ati9500, that may tie you over until you build your own system and wont cost you too much (£40ish)

personally i woldnt worry about the extra ram yet, as you will be held back by that processor and low memory bandwidth and that graphics card.

hope it helps

edit: i could play doom3 on my old athlon 2000+, 512 of 2100 ram and ati 9600 so it should work ok for now

[wrens_splein]

get yourself a gf ti4600 or ati9500, that may tie you over until you build your own system and wont cost you too much (£40ish)

personally i woldnt worry about the extra ram yet, as you will be held back by that processor and low memory bandwidth and that graphics card.

hope it helps

edit: i could play doom3 on my old athlon 2000+, 512 of 2100 ram and ati 9600 so it should work ok for now

Thanks for the feedback

Well Doom3 does run but I am getting a frame rate of about 15fps!!!! So as you can imagine as soon as more than a couple of creatures appear it grinds to a halt. Also it is only running at 640x480 at low settings!!!!

I think I may get a new card then, minimal layout then if it is no improvement

[Xaneden]

Glad we could help.

[Stigggeh]

Ram is a must in my opinion, it was painful on my pc when i only had 512mb, got real slowdowns when lots of action or running through doors, 1gb really is needed for farcry, doom and HL2

get another 512mb of ram, (get pc3200 if possible it may go in your next rig) and a 6800GT (best value at the moment i think ?). could maybe use the new gfx card in new pc in 6 month time ? the new graphics card will be bottlenecked by the processor, so might be worth looking at 6600gt ?

[Xaneden]

Stiggeh, his motherboard doesn't even support DDR.

I have exactly the same problem unfortunately, and it looks like we're both going to have to replace the main system components entirely.

[Stigggeh]

At the mo I have the following

Dell Dimension 4400

P4 2.0ghz 400FSB (Northwood I think)

512mb DDR PC2100 Ram

NVidia GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP graphics card

says he has 512 ddr 2100 ?

[Xaneden]

I'm sure that said 166mhz earlier!

[wrens_splein]

Peeps, my RAM is defintiely 512mb DDR PC2100

Will 3200 run on this mobo with this cpu??????

If I goto CRUCIAL it only gives me the DDR PC2100 as an option.

As for the card, when I do start the new rig I will be going to down the SLi/PCIe route with AMD for sure.

Can you get the 6600GT in AGP or should I just go for an older ATI that is cheaper?

[noah]

3200 will default to 2100 for your cpu

6600gt's do come in agp scan have em for £128

i would save the money for the pcie-e rig your gonna build and get a second hand ati9800pro for around £85, they have them for sale on these forums but you need 50 posts to see then, soz

[Xaneden]

What Noah said.