I want to update my system a little. I know 2 years ago I pretty much had the fastest system I could afford. My current specs. Athlon 64 X2 (W) 4400+ 2.2 GHz 2000 MT/s (mega transfers/second) Socket AM2 2 gigs PC2-4200 MB/sec 320 GB SATA 7200 rpm 16X DVD(+/-)R/RW RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe drive EVGA 7900GS 256MB PCI-E 500 Watt PSU Vista Home What I want to update at this time is the video card and the processor. I'm want to get the 8800GT 512 PCI-E. For the processor I'm unsure on the fastest one I can put on the board. I would like to update to AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor. Will it work on my board? At this point I can only get one. The card or the processor. Thing is when playing say TF2. When there is alot of action my fps drop from 80-100 to 15- 25 on a 32 player server. I have a gut feeling my card isn't strong enough. But on the other hand my processor isnt the fastest either. What should I update? http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.as...+125W+Processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.as...1-AR+Video+Card OR http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.as...YDF4+Video+Card My board.
Yeah, Vista has always been a problem for me gameplay wise. But applications run very well. Thing is i'm on a limited budget, like most people who live on thier own. Being CPU constrained is not near as bad as being GPU constrained imo. But i'm unclear on what to do. I probably won't be able to afford the processor.. that i'm not sure will even work on my board.. if I buy the card for about 6 months without dipping in my savings. By that time I probably would be better off buying a new motherboard and processor combo. I can get a Asus M2V-MX SE Socket AM2 VIA K8M890 DDR2-800 PCI.e Motherboard with 6400 x2 for only $50.00 more than the processor itself I listed in my previous post.
overclock your CPU.2.8-3.0Ghz should be very possible AND FREE. Emphasis on the free part. unless you're playing say Supcom CPU performance doesn't really matter a huge amount, most games the FPS diference ebtween a 2Ghz c2d and a 3Ghz c2d is around 1-2%(basically negligible) as for the card, I usually just go for the cheapest card. they all use the same GPU so ehh. for the card I'd say this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814127329 looks like it has a beefier cooler and it's about the cheepest
Alrighty thanks. I looked at the card also. But I was worried about it fitting in my case. I read a few rewiews. And they said it took up 2 slots. As for overclocking i'm a little leary. Even if it "bottlenecks" the new card. It can't be more than a few fps.
I follow the stock volts = no harm rule. basically if you keep the voltage at stock(auto is not stock FYI) it is all but idiot proof. An athlon at 2.8Ghz is an athlon at 2.8Ghz regardless of whether or not it was sold as such.
Upgrade your ram. When I had vista I had 2 gigs of ram and playing COD4 would lag up a bit. After I put another 2 GB (total 4GB) I saw a huge jump in performance. And I only upgraded the Ram.
If you choose to upgrade your card that one the xlink recommended is actually pretty good. I bought the EVGA superclocked 8800GT and added the Zalaman Heatsink to it. But this card has all the same specs and Cost about 70 bucks cheaper overall. The heatsink on it is apparently the same zalaman one that costs about $60 bucks.
2GB RAM is probably enough FYI. unless you're running into issues where it explicitly says you need more my experience on XP with 2GB RAM cnc3 open CSS open photoshop with a some stuff open 500mb owrth of firefox open(many many many tabs) winamp open no slow down and 10% of RAM still unused. also assuming you're using a 32bit OS not all of 4GB is accessible. 2^32 = ~2billion. There are roughly 2 billion bytes in 2 gigabytes. Inherent limitation of ALL 32bit OSes. technologies like PAE allow some memory to be mapped as a PCI device but it's basically just a work around and not all4GB is accessible for the bulk of systems(depends on the BIOS and motherboard)
consider posting something which is within reach of the bulk of the population. Very few people can justify such an extravagant purchase.
Well, got the card today. Installed the card in the PC . Takes up alot of room btw, 2 slots. Started PC, went to MSI site to make sure there was no BIOS update. Went to Nvivda and downloaded lastest drivers. Launched Counter-Strike source. Just to be dissapointed with the performance. I can't even break 100 fps playing @ 800x600. I'm getting 35- 80. I was getting an average of 60-80 with my 7900 @ 1024X768. Any suggestions? I've used Ntune and turn all the settings to high performance.
If you want top notch video card, I think the new xfx Geforce 9600 is the best. I think. But it is the newest. Maybe you have a defective card? Are your drivers installed right? Does your computer support this card? What card is it?