Upgrade or New PC?

[hitman67]

Ok I've just been taken off the number of shifts I do at work, so as a result I'll be spending more time at home, more than likley gaming on the PC. The games I have are San Andreas, Vice City, GTA III, Need for Speed Most Wanted and Premiership Manager.

Now this PC does it alright, but the Radeon 9600 does seem to create a bit of a bottleneck, especially on San Andreas and Need For Speed, so is it worth just getting an X800/X850 for this PC, or going the whole way for a new Socket 939 Machine?

Cheers,
Matt.

[kempez]

It all depends on which way you look at it mate

If you just get the x850 then you'll still have a bit slower CPU but you should be able to play the games a bit easier

But if you go 939 then you'll get a nice full AMD 64 CPU on 939 (like an opty) and get an easily upgradeable system with PCI-E

Depends on what ya want to spend I spose

[hitman67]

I guess I could spare up to sort of £1000, Which will get me a Dual Core System off Ebay, possibly build my own, an A64 Powered 3XS system or a job lot of X850XTs, so I'm not sure really.

[YorkieBen]

Id just get an X800

Im playing on an X800 pro with a athlon xp 3000+ and get play most games at 1280*1024 or a bit lower for FEAR and Quake 4, but still good resolutions with AA on as well

you want to get a shift on though as alot of the good agp cards are getting harder to find.

there is an AGP version of the 6800GS coming out but it looks a bit pricey and slower than the pci-e version

tekheads.co.uk are going a 256mb X800GT for £130 http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=605232

whilst Lowestonweb.com are doing a 128MB X800GTO for £115 http://www.lowestonweb.com/Products/...E-7EE073E25BF4

and a place called 'Computer Supermarket' are selling an X800 pro for £180 http://www.computersupermarket.com/c...ode=proddetail

but I have never heard of this firm before

[Thorsson]

I certainly wouldn't spend too much on a Gfx card for the existing machine, but it might be better at this point to go with that and look at the full upgrade next year. The reason I say that is that there hasn't been a huge change in the past year, same 939 mobos pretty well. Dual core has happened but us more expensive than it should be. Another year may see more future proofing for your grand.

[chojin]

Well If i had £1000 to spend I would self build a monster Double Core 64bit and use my old PC as a Game Server / Web Server / Download PC.


.

[hitman67]

Well the £1000 is only if I can convince her indoors, which is like trying to get a Camel to Lap Dance....

So would it be better holding on and getting a A64 x2, or perhaps just a 3500+ Backed with good specs that I can O/C?

[YorkieBen]

tbh you wouldnt see a huge benefit in games from getting a socket 939 system unless you got a graphics card that you cant get on agp e.g. 7800 or x1800

[fredered]

and for playing gta you wont really find agp a problem, it ran at full settings on my gto before i unlocked/clocked it. premiership manager -which i have no experience of, i doubt will use that much graphics power the main focus would be i expect on the cpu. Although i wont take advantage of dueal core so for your current apps a whole new pc would be a bit of a waste. As Thorsson said waiting a year until you can get the best advantage would be the best bet as stuff like dual core will probably be more developed and actually usefull

[hitman67]

Well it's more to the fact that the Graphics card can play SA pretty well, but it creates a bottleneck. The CPU and Ram are not underpowered by any means. What I was thinking was a simple upgrade would possibly get me another year out of this machine (It's only about 4 months old) and then I'd upgrade to a 939 Machine (Possibly a shuttle).

[sawyen]

I saw an ad for a 6800GT on classified today, might want to have a look for only £165.

Comes with a VF700-Cu and clocks to Ultra easily. Not doing any commercials here.. ehehehe..

Figured since ur plans might be looking for one.

[hitman67]

Is it possible to get 754 boards with PCI-E? and so is it possible to switch mobos considering my system was a barebones?

EDIT: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=213218

Any good? If I could just get this then a PCI-E X800XL then I'm sure I can convince her indoors to go for it.

[RDL]

To be honest it's not really worth buying into S754 now, as it's getting dated. If you're buying a new board I would go for S939. If I was you I'd probably swap out your motherboard, graphics card and CPU for now (money providing) and just work from that, but that's because I don't really see the point in shelling out for a new GPU if you're looking to upgrade your system further in the next year. But everyone is different.

[NightshadowUK]

Few things if you're gonna be using that board:

- The heatsink over the chipset gets in the way of a large PCI-E card so you have to slot it in between the heatsink 'slots'... click here for my visual aid (<3 MS Paint).

- Also, the hard drive setup can be quite annoying as the BIOS defaults to RAID settings, we had to go through disabling everything we didn't need until it would actually recognise that a SATA hard drive was present. This may not apply to PATA though...

Aside from those minor faults, it was a nice board to work with. The best of the three on Scan anyway since they stopped stocking the Asus.

EDIT: Stick with S754 for now man. Dual core's coming in and your current rig is fine so save your money until the time is right.

[hitman67]

Well it's just I shelled out close to a grand on this PC not too long ago and it is starting to get me really peed off, I wish I'd have gone for something slightly more expensive.

And if Socket 754 is getting dated what does that make Socket A? I still have a Socket A Machine in the loft with an Athlon XP in it.

[NightshadowUK]

EDIT: Stick with S754 for now man. Dual core's coming in and your current rig is fine so save your money until the time is right.

Why I couldn't agree more Nightshadow.