The dreaded 2 year mark...

[Beer Drinker]

Hey guy's,

I've enjoyed playing with many of you on the sniper server, and thought I might ask your advice.

I built my pc almost 2 years ago... I put the best I could into her, and now of course I'm feeling outdated. Looking to upgrade. CPU, and video card.

Here is what I have now...

Mobo - Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE (socket 775)
CPU - P4 640 3.2 (Dual core)
Video - (don't laugh) NVidia 6600 GT (I know I know)
300 gig SATA
2 gig pc4200


Ok, so Video card is the obvious first thing to go, but I've been really impressed that this card has lasted as long as it has...even playing G.R.A.W. it keeps up.

New card XFX GeForce 8800 GTS extreme $340.00. For the price do you agree?

Now is changing my CPU going to make much of a difference? Yes I'm a Pentium kinda guy. As always, it was on the top when I bought it, but then the Core 2 Duo came out. Now I am confused by the lower clock speeds.

P4 3.2 Dual Core 800 FSB (what I have now)

replace with which one of these

Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHZ 1033 FSB $289.00

or

Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHZ 1066 FSB $289.00

I just realized something while typing this... My board FSB runs 800/1066. Does this mean I cannot run the Core 2 Duo 1033 FSB. Believe it or not I used to do this stuff for a living...I'm getting old at 33...lol

Any help would be great.


Beer Drinker - A.K.A. Todd

[Macaroni]

I jus tgot the Geforce 8800 (with 320 MB ram) this week and so far I LOVE IT.

Not sure where you live - but I got mine for $299 US dollars ($314 with tax) at Circuit City. Best Buy on-line had the same price but did not sell the card in their stores.

Make sure you hook up the additional power to it. Also consider if your case will reamian cool enough.

one other thing... It takes up 2 slots in the back (1 PCIE slot - but 2 physical slots because of the large cooling piece on it).

Regarding your other specs - they look good to me. I got dual core 2.8 GHZ and 2 GB ram and I am content with it for now.

You could always add more RAM (another Gig).

There is a Geforce 8800 640 MB ram - but it is in the $400's.

Hope that helps
Tom

[Beer Drinker]

Hey Mac,

Thanks for the reply, I'm in San Diego, Ca. I get most my pc stuff online... the 8800 GTS (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3296600&CatId=2514) I'm looking at is the 640 mb.

Not worried about the case...it's built around cooling (not my first build...lol) Running 7 fans I think...Main/Dual or Quad Ram/North Bridge/Dual Otis/ hmmm maybe 8 and plus the vid card. Real nice power supply with the thin coiled wired to maximize airflow. Plus I crank em' up when gaming - using uGuru software. Pushes my CPU up to 3.5 ghz Not sure how much it adds to the vid card but I know it over clocks it a bit.

I have the room for the double size...I even think the 6600 takes up two, but thanks for the reminder. I am really, really happy with this MoBo, except that I can never run SLI configuration due to only one PCI-E slot open. So I will go with the 640 MB card. Thanks for the review I've been hearing great things too.

Any thoughts on the CPU's?

[Crazy Ivan]

You need to check with Abit Tech support, Intel has not tested any motherboards with the 925 chipset and your MB may not work with the new Core-Duo or Quad core chips.

The AA8XE has been discontinued by Abit and, while it was a great MB 2-3 years ago, it is showing its age.

It does support DDR2 but only at 400MHz, current standard for DDR2 is 800MHz and 1066MHz. A lot of the Newest MBs now use DDR3

SATA 150, the current standard is SATA 300,

Personally I don't think you would gain much in terms of performance by just upgrading the CPU and Graphics. That is kinda like putting a V8 and 50 series tires in a Chevy Vega.

Tiger Direct and Newegg have some great MB/CPU combo deals. Get one that you can move your drive and memory into and then upgrade those when you can...

a Quick search at newegg shows this combo deal
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6750 - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029)
XFX MB-N650-IUL9 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813141004)
for a Combo Price: $294.98

Just my opinion, I could be wrong,

Dave can chime in with a novella too (come on Dave you know you want to).

Dan

[Beer Drinker]

Hey Dan,

Thanks for the input. I wasn't even thinking about the chipset, but did see this reg. the board I have

"The Fatal1ty AA8XE is ABIT’s latest LGA775 based motherboard. ABIT chose to mate this board with the Intel 925XE chipset, boasting full support for all LGA775 based processors including the latest release 1066MHz FSB processors"

I am going to look into this further. Thanks for bringing up a good point. Is upgrading to a quad core 2.4 GHZ going to make a huge difference for me? To be honest my system isn't slow by any means...I just like to have a fast rig. Although I am aware that my video...well let's say it could be so much better. (Side note...I'm going to be running dual monitors soon, and need the dual DVI out's on a good card).

I've been happy with Abit boards, and LOVE the Bios control software...uGuru.
Here again, just my preference. Although MoBo, aren't that costly to upgrade so I may consider...I look at Copydudes thread and my head starts to throb. lol.

Tiger and Newegg are where I usually get my stuff too. Thanks


Beer out.

[Yourself]

LOL

I never intend to write a novella, but they sometimes come out.

I'll try to keep this short, as I have mainly questions.

What gaming resolution do you run at?

What games to you play/want to play?

How much do you want to spend?

Why do you want to upgrade? Just to make it faster?

You mentioned that your current system even plays G.R.A.W. fairly well,

Tom (Mac and Cheese) and Dan (IvanStefanov) have some great advice and suggestions.

I do have a question for all of you....that's twice that I've seen (in these forums) a dual-core P4 mentioned....I was not aware that there was a production dual-core P4....just a HyperThreaded P4 (single core, works like a dual-core).

You can't compare clock speeds on different families of chips. Most of the new processors around 2.0 ghz are plenty faster than a 3.2 ghz P4.

Tom's Hardware has some CPU charts that compare different processors. (http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html)

Unless you're doing some heavy graphics or video processing though, you're current processor isn't much of a bottleneck for current tasks.

You will have a problem running games like Supreme Commander with it, but there aren't many other games that perform that much better on multi-core processors.

Upgrading your video card will give you the biggest bang for the buck (gaming wise), however DON'T upgrade it with the anticipation of running DX10 games.

The high-end gpu's out now (8800GTX, 8800GTS, X2900XT) will run DX10 games, but not very well. I read that people who have those cards still game in DX9 when a game supports both DX10 and DX9 - the DX10 render path (or game path) doesn't perform well enough for them. Keep in mind that these same people also game at max resolution and max graphics settings (max eye candy).

My guess is that you don't game at a very high resolution, as you stated that your 6600 runs adequately.

If you game at 1280 x 1024 or 1024 x 769 (like most people), the 640 meg 8800GTS will perform the same as the 320 meg....save yourself a bit of money there (if you pull the trigger on one).

If you plan to game higher than 1280 x 1024, then go for at least the 640 meg.

However, there will be new processors and gpu's out before the end of the first quarter, and these will have significant changes over the current generation - they aren't just incrememtal upgrades.

Microsoft will also be releasing an upgraded DX10.1 spec sometime in the first quarter.

If you're going to do a full system overhaul, I would suggest waiting about 6 months or so.

If you want to get more bang right now (only gaming assumed), upgrade the video card - the 8800GTS series is an excellent DX9 performer, and is a good choice.

The AMD X1950XTX is also an excellent DX9 performer, and is less expensive.

You may have to upgrade your power supply for a new video card, though.

Upgrading the other components will give you a performance boost, but probably not anything you'll distinctly notice.

Going from 2 gig to 3 gig probably won't make a difference, unless you run a ton of things at once.

Changing the CPU means changing the motherboard - there the general system performance will be much better, but not noticable in gaming (again, except in games that require multi-core processing).

Changing the memory speed also means changing the motherboard.

Just a few pennies of my thoughts.

And, yes, I did write more than I initially intended.

Yourself (Dave)

[Beer Drinker]

Hey Dave,

Wow, thanks for the response. where do I start...

My screen resolution right now is 1280 x 1024 (upgrading to dual monitors in the future. I will be running one at 1280 x 1024 and the second 22" wide at 1680 x 1050. The wide screen will then be my gaming screen.

Type of games -
All F.P.S.'s COD4 soon. and i want a card that will last me a while. The cost of the card? I feel that $350.00 is reasonable for that 8800 GTS at 640 mb.

As for the CPU, I was hoping to simply get something faster. My current P4 640 @ 3.2 GHZ is the "Dual Core" by name. It is a single core processor that utilizes hyper threading. (Intel calls it Dual Core). The new Core 2 Duo is, at least in my understanding, a true 2 core CPU. reference Link (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_cpu.asp?name=CPUs)

My curent CPU has a rendering time (according to the chart you linked) of 4:22. With that said, my computer is plenty fast for most everything I do. But it's not the fastest on the block.

I have noticed when running multiple applications, and say, ripping two CD to my hardrive, while streaming music on line, and surfing the net (I just riped half my cd's last week), that when I used my uGuru software to up the voltages pretty much across the board... i.e. over-clocking my system, my PC handled all applications faster. CD's ripped faster, and my net browsing was seamless.

Adding to this is realizing to change my CPU means changing my MoBo, I agree it might be better to wait 6-8 month for the next technology paradiam shift...lol

I am going to look into the AMD X1950XTX card, might save me a hundred bucks...thanks.

My power supply is good.

Wow...more things to think about...I appreciate the info.

[Yourself]

1680 x 1450?

That's not a standard resolution (either regular or widescreen), is it?

Do you mean 1680 x 1050?

I'm not very experienced with dual monitors, but I do have a dual-monitor setup.

My main monitor (on that machine) is a 19" regular screen LCD at 1280 x 1024.

The second was a 17" CRT - whenever I changed the resolution on the main screen, the 2nd monitor followed suit.

My dual-monitor setup is basically an expanded desktop - if there's any other configuration for it, I don't know how to do it.

Any of you dual-monitor guys care to express your opinions and experiences?

Also, I find that if I try to game on the 2nd monitor, many games don't work correctly. I've tried full-screen and windowed on it, and some of them become slideshows (that's on an X1950 PRO) - they run fine on the 1st monitor, just not the second. Since it only affects some games, I assume it's a game coding issue.

And, some games will only run full screen on the 1st monitor.

With my dual-monitor setup, when I switch the LCD to native resolution for better gaming quality, my desktop effectively becomes 2560 x 1024.

However, 1280 x 1024 on that second crt was hard to read, so I just replaced it with another 19" LCD, that also has a native resolution of 1280 x 1024.

Basically, what I'm saying is that both monitors will be at the same vertical resolution - if that doesn't work for the native resolution of the 2nd monitor, it will either scale it, or not display a picture.

I would be concerned that you won't get decent performance (with any card) if you game on the 2nd monitor without including the 1st monitor, and I'd be concerned that one of them will fail to display a picture because of an unsupported resolution.

Most multi-monitor setups I've seen have all been at the same resolution, or been devices, like CRT's, that can switch resolutions. The sweet ones contain a Dell 30" widescreen LCD, flanked by two Dell 20" widescreen LCD's in portrait mode (rotated so the long part of the screen is up and down). That effectively give you 3 monitors, all with the same vertical resolution. Of course, that's probably a $2k+ solution. Here's a sweet linky of that setup. (http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2006/02/dell_3007wfp_on_dell_2001fp_action_8_megapixel_des ktop.html)

Additionally, if you game on the 2nd monitor, you're effectively gaming at full desktop width. Assuming a 19" LCD and a 22" LCD, that would be gaming at roughly 2960 x 1024. <DING! Warning: new thought coming> For me, that would be gaming at 2560 x 1024 - maybe that's why I get the slideshow effect. <wow...seeing a thought being born...my brain is a bad thing to observe>

So, I don't think the 8800GTS 640 will be enough horsepower to game on the 22" widescreen, if it is not the 1st monitor. I may be wrong, but that tally's with what I've observed.

It should work fine, though, if you use the 22" as the first monitor, and the existing 19" as the second monitor, but the mismatched vertical resolutions may still cause an issue.

As far as the processor, here's an interesting discussion (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=2100529&enterthread=y) regarding someone upgrading from a P4 3.0 and wanting more bang for the buck, but not spending much.

Here's a great discussion (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=2095224&enterthread=y) about overclocking the relatively inexpensive (USD $70-$85) Intel 2xx0 series of processors - at stock clock speed (1.6 and up, I think) they each are faster than a 3.0 ghz P4, and people have great success o/c'ing them to around the 3.0 ghz range.

The big difference between the 2xxx, 4xxx, and 6xxx series of processors (from general use perspective) is the amount of onboard cache. There are actually many technical differences, but this is an easy and effective way to generally think of them.

While the 2xxx series are o/c'ing screamers, the 4xxx o/c'ed are better for gaming because of the cache.

The quad core versions tend to run hotter than the dual core versions.

If you run many applications at once (even occasionally, as you describe), I think you may want to look at processors that have more cache per core.

There....I did that novella thingy again.

Drats!

Yourself (Dave)

[Beer Drinker]

More great info, thanks Dave. And yes, I did mean to say 1680 x 1050. Now back to checking out your links...thanks