Upgrade advice

Thordon

Ive been thinking about upgrading my box for a while now, i've narrowed it down to either a new 3d card, or a new cpu (possible new mainboard), based on my current specs, which would give the larger performance boost (in terms of gaming: fps etc):

Specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon ~1.1ghz
RAM: 896mb 133mhz (I think, 1 step below DDR)
GFX: Geforce 4 MX420 64mb

If I were to upgrade either, I would get an ATI Radeon 9200 256mb, or an extra 1ghz for the processor.

Im leaning towards the graphics card atm, any advice would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance

PS. If this is the wrong forum for this kind of query, sorry, feel free to move it

Mutant_Fruit

A new GFX card would be limited by the CPU. In fact, you could probably get more milage out of your existing card if you had a faster CPU. But, ideally you'd upgrade both.

I had an athlon 850mhz, and that was limiting my Geforce3's performance. Since i upgraded my cpu to a XP1800+, BAM! I had much better framrates etc. In max payne 2 i was getting very smooth playback, as compared to the jerky playback i got with the 850mhz.

So i would definately recommend the cpu upgrade before a Graphics card upgrade.

leeroybrown

To upgrade the CPU properly you'll need to get a new Motherboard and if you buy a new board you'll need to buy new RAM. Catch 22

Woden

you can check out your motheboard manufacturer and see what is the highest frequency chip or chip type supported by your board and get back to us?

Thordon

you can check out your motheboard manufacturer and see what is the highest frequency chip or chip type supported by your board and get back to us?

Thats a problem, I have tried in vain to get info about my mobo, I cant find the manual that came with the PC (I know I should have kept better care of it), Ive tried running some apps that can detect mobo stats, but anything I have tried always brings up 'Unknown' on most fields, I tried opneing up the PC and taking is half apart searching for a model number _somewhere_ on the damn thing, with no luck, apparently its not always in the same place and is practically indistiguishable from all the other numbers printed all over it. About the only thing I know is that its an API brand motherboard.

If I do go for a new processor, it would probably just be easier to get a new mobo too, if I did that I'd want DDR, which as was said, will mean old RAM (almost 1 gig) gone, E100 for decent mobo, E150 for decent CPU, and then E100-200 for RAM, I cant afford all that.

My brother recently got a new 2.6ghz Celeron, the GFX card that came with it was crap, very low framerate, I gave him my old Geforce 2, it runs faster than mine now, so thats good evidence that my card is limited by my lack of cpu.

joePC

All I'll say is,

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe

AMD XP2500 @ XP3200

512 DDR PC3200 (Twinmos)

ATI Radeon 9600 128Mb

Total: about €380

But then the bottle neck is your Hard drive & that can have a hugh effect on preformance.

Ohh yea stay well clear of Celrons they stink no good for games @ all.

Thanks joePC

Mutant_Fruit

AMD XP2500 @ XP3200

As far as i know, this won't be happening any more. Aren't all the new processors locked, but in a way that makes it very hard to unlock.

If he wants a cheap upgrade, my advice is just get a cpu upgrade, that will last a few months. But he really needs new mobo, cpu, graphics and ram. But all that costs money.

unkel

He can't afford all that JoePC

Just buy a second hand gf4 ti 4200 for about €50 and you should see a massive gaming increase. Keep saving and do a full upgrade in a years time, e.g. to a basic athlon64 system

joePC

AMD XP2500 @ XP3200

The ASUS A7N8X unlocks the 2500 and even if it doesnt up the FSB to 190Mhz or so & its still 100% stable

11X190 = 2.1 Ghz

Thanks joePC

Thordon

Ok, I guess I was using the wrong apps, I just did some more surfing and found aida32, excellent app, well anyway, this is the chipset of my mobo, please tell me

with a 266MHz Front Side Bus running at speeds up to 1.33GHz.

does not mean I cannot go beyond 1.33ghz , if so I have no choice but to buy a new mobo if I want to upgrade the cpu.

Edit: Also dug up my manual, no mention of maximum processor limit, more of a 'how to use the keyboard' kind of a manual than a list of specifications

Woden

yeah i think that may be your processor limit and tbh honest your better off not upgrading your processor then and getting a new motherboard with ddr ram and all the works

your chipset supports durons and athlons, i think those are the athlons before the athlon xp came out that people are familiar with, you would probably still see a performance increase though from upgrading your graphics card to pretty much anything else.

i'd recommend something along the lines of a radeon 9600 non pro 128mb version

something like this

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=119625&cks=PRL

or this

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=120318&cks=PRL

that will probably do you until the new pci express thingy comes out and you won't be wanting an agp card anyway, and the whole new btx form factor and all that doesn't make a very nice time to be doing a major upgrade

Thordon

Ok, thanks for clarifying that, the only problem I would have with buying either of the cards listed is that my AGP is 2x/4x, both those cards ar 8x, does that make them incompatible, or simply slower, and if slower, by how much?

Thanks for all the help btw, been doing RAM and 3d card upgrades for a long time, but never so much as removed a mobo from a PC.

Woden

yes they are back compatible from 8x to 4x, i don't think current cards use up all the 8x thing i'll doubt it will make much if any difference, as some of the guys have mentioned you'll probably be cpu limited

RicardoSmith

It depends on the motherboard bios what chip it will take. I had a 1800xp in my KT133a board. I'd say if you can find out if it will take one of those. If it can then if I were you I'd buy a second hand 1800xp-2000xp that and second hand GF4ti4200 That would give you a decent boost for about €100-130.

BloodBath

From jescomputer.de

128MB HIS Excalibur Radeon 9200SEDVI RTL € 51,99
CPU AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Box € 71,44
MB ATX SA Gigabyte GA-7N400E-L nForce2 € 63,90
DDR PC333 512MB TwinMOS CL2,5 € 74,90

Total cost 262.23

Super budget upgrade.

BloodBath

tman

Originally posted by BloodBath
From jescomputer.de

128MB HIS Excalibur Radeon 9200SEDVI RTL € 51,99
CPU AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Box € 71,44
MB ATX SA Gigabyte GA-7N400E-L nForce2 € 63,90
DDR PC333 512MB TwinMOS CL2,5 € 74,90

Total cost 262.23

Super budget upgrade.

BloodBath

there's very little point in upgrading from a gf4mx to a 9200se tbh.
you'll get better performance in all of the current games. but it'll be struggling to run the lateset games at 640x480 6-12 months from now.

RicardoSmith

You might be interested in these results of CPU/GFX card upgrades I did.

3D Mark 2001(SE I think) (1024x768 32bit colour)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Axia 1ghz at 1ghz (133/100) + GF2Ti450 (451/250) = 3768
Axia 1ghz at 1.4ghz (140x10) + GF2Ti450 (451/250) = 4432
Axia 1ghz at 1.4ghz (140x10) + GF2Ti450 (481/275) = 4577
Axia 1ghz at 1ghz (133/100) + GF4Ti4200 (default) = 6578
Axia 1ghz at 1.3ghz (133x10) + GF4Ti4200 (default) = 7452
Axia 1ghz at 1.4ghz (140x10) + GF4Ti4200 (default) = 7696

P4 1.8a at 1.8ghz (100fsb) + R9000 Pro (default) = 6901
P4 1.8a at 2.4ghz (133fsb) + R9000 Pro (default) = 7440
P4 1.8a at 2.4ghz (133fsb) + GF4Ti4200 (default) = 9699

Woden

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
You might be interested in these results of CPU/GFX card upgrades I did.

3D Mark 2001(SE I think) (1024x768 32bit colour)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Axia 1ghz at 1ghz (133/100) + GF2Ti450 (451/250) = 3768

Axia 1ghz at 1ghz (133/100) + GF4Ti4200 (default) = 6578

nice set of benchmarks ricardo. i think these two sum it up for him, similar processor speed, a gf4mx is not much different from a 2mx which is a card that is not as good at the gf2 ti 450. so if you where to upgrade to a card such as the ati 9600 you should may probably see a doubling in your 3dmark score which should translate into some nice real world performance.

Thordon

Great, thanks for all the help , I decided on the ati 9600 256mb, its on its way, looking forward to it now