Computer Upgrade

[Craig]

Recently i have started to play PlanetSide quite a bit and my computer struggles quite alot in the heat of battle, at the moment im running:

Athlon 2600 XP ( 333Mhz FSB )
Gigabye GA-7VAX-A ( KT400 Chip )
1GB of OEM 2700 DDR Ram ( Not in Dual DDR mode )
Club GeForce 4Ti4600
SoundBlaster 5.1
80GB Seagate Barracuda ( Gonna keep this, lovely drive )
60GB IBM Hard Drive
CD-RW and a DVD Drive
All housed in a Cheiftec Scorpio case, with 4x 80mm (loud) CM fans, oh and a verry cheap Coolermaster heatsink+fan.

What i was thinking of upgrading too is....

Athlon 3000+ (400Mhz, Barton Core) Can get this from work for a cheap price
Abit NF7-S 2.0 (Anyone able to point me to the cheapest place to get one?)
2x 80GB Seagate Barracuda's in RAID
Radeon 9800 AIW OR a Exair GeForce FX 5600 256mb

Ill keep my ram for now as its doing ok, if anyone could give me some advice on the above id be most greatfull, what id like to know also is if there is anything else id need to upgrade? I have heard people saying the sound on the NF7-S is excelent, better than a SB 5.1! Is that true? Cheers guys!

Meminur

[EDIT]

Could anyone possably point me in the direction of a nice cooler for the 3000 chip (i was looking at an Aero 7+) and a place for some quiet 80mm fans please Thanks once again!

[steve-o]

Id recommend upgrade just the graphics card to maybe 9800 speeds to see if that helps with the framerate issues. If not then spend a bit more on the obvious bottlenecks.

[Riley]

I would just get a new graphics card. The rest of your system is fine. A radeon 9800 Pro would set you back around £250 and you will be able to play the latest games at very good res for atleast a year!

[Lexeus]

JYea, just get the 9800Pro

[SilentDeath]

get a 9800se aiw, without modding they are as good as 9600pro/9600xt and with softmod, which ive only heard of ppl having sucsess with so far, you wil get 9800 pro speeds.. they are about £150

gfx card will make most difference...

[gamezfreak]

The Aero 7 Lite has been known to peform better then the plus version

And its a lot cheaper!

[azrael1]

How can the lite perform better then the plus version ?

[gamezfreak]

It has an aliminium base with a copper "pipe centre" that cover's the core. The copper is focused in one area allowing maximum heat transfer.

Cool eh?

[Nox]

yeah, that system if set up correctly should be good with just a gfx card upgrade. i went for a 9700pro (not clocked) recently and am getting faster scores than a friend who has a 9800pro - simply because he doesn't know how to look after windows xp and which bits you can safely switch off. They are pretty close and the 5-10% performance difference i couldn't justify spending £100 on...

Nox

[chrisf6969]

what about overclocking your current system a little bit... and buying the new videocard.

Your system is a decent system just the way it is.. I'm surprised its slowing for you?

[Craig]

Id like to replace the motherboard and video card definatly, what would a 2600XP overclock too? Im looking at getting a SLK-800 cooler and a NF7-S mobo

Meminur

[Stringent]

Don't bother. Be happy with what you have.
















Reverse psycology. Worth a shot!