Future upgrade question

jones

At the moment i have a Dell 8300 Pentium 4, 3.4Ghz with Intel 875P chipset and 1 gig RAM and ATI 9800XT 256mb. i am looking to upgrade in the next year or so and am wondering what would i need to do.
Is 64-bit the way to go? pci-express, dual core?? there so many things coming out. should i just buy a new system when the time comes or can i upgrade my existing system (i'm aware dells arent great space wise for upgrading)

DonkeyRhubarb

Try to give a better idea of what you use your PC for, then I can better advise on an upgrade path.

uberpixie

jones wrote:

At the moment i have a Dell 8300 Pentium 4, 3.4Ghz with Intel 875P chipset and 1 gig RAM and ATI 9800XT 256mb. i am looking to upgrade in the next year or so and am wondering what would i need to do.
Is 64-bit the way to go? pci-express, dual core?? there so many things coming out. should i just buy a new system when the time comes or can i upgrade my existing system (i'm aware dells arent great space wise for upgrading)

"Intel Pentium D 820 is COMPATIBLE with Intel 955X, Intel 945P and Intel 945G"

Chances are you are pretty much stuck on the cpu you are on. Also there is no point getting a 64 bit chip, you have a dacent P4 and getting a 64bit cpu will not speed up your games.

As you have a 9800XT gfx card you are also stuck in AGP land and have a very limited selection and most of the dacent agp cards are going to be as rare as hens teeth in a few weeks.

Two choices

(1) Buy a X800XL / 6800GS / X800XT / X850XT / 6800GT in agp in the next few and sit on what you have.

Any of the above cards will get you another good year in gaming out of your rig.

overclockers.co.uk, while far from my favorite company, do still have a few dacent agp cards in stock, worth a look at.

(2) Sit it out for a while and buy a new system when your rig really feels the pinch in games.

gamer

Wait til 4.0ghz amd cpus are out at reasonable price ,then get pc with pci-express graphics card 128meg ram,get 64bit cpu,it might be handy for multithreading or audio video programs.Amd cpus are faster than pentium cpus.What are you into?, games , music ,post more detailed info here.Ithink amd is better for av multimedia pc,s.

DonkeyRhubarb

Though I would recommend AMD, you have a fairly good system as it is, maybe stick in a 7800GT and youll be flying. Theres no need to upgrade the rest of what you have just yet.

gamer

thats a fairly fast pc.no point in upgrading,maybe u get a faster agp grahics card,can u play games 40plus frames per second with high detail settings,if so leave it,wait another year,til theres 4.0ghz cpus amd avaidable.

Auvers

Have to agree with the previous posts, just have a look at the new DDR2-based Socket M2 Athlon 64 platform http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/13/amd_m2_platform_launch/ and you will see why it would be wise to buy a high end AGP card and hold out for these babies

gamer

with that pc u may as well wait til there are affordable 64bit amd 4.0ghz cpu pcs avaidable,its not worth upgrading by 300megahertz,wait another 12months.

K.O.Kiki

FFS gamer, Intel are NEVER going to bring out 4Ghz machines. NEVER!! NNEEVVEERR!!!!

Also, when are we gonna have a sticky to explain to Dell buyers that their clockspeed doesn't mean Jack compared to their FSB & L2-cache size?

TomCo

*dispels the megahertz myth*

DemonOfTheFall

Grab a 6800GT / X800XT / X850XT and you'll be happy with performance for another year. Then you can worry about a whole new system. As things are, your system is plenty fast apart from the graphics card.

gamer

In a years time u,ll get a fast amd pc with pci-express graphics that,ll play any game with high graphic settings,it may ,be 3400ghz, the exact no is not important, the point is in 2007 it will be worth upgrading and pci-e cards will be even cheaper than they are now,get a 128meg ram graphics card pci e ,after you get an amd pc.Get at least 512mb l2 cache cpu,with fast front side bus speed,as an aside i dont like the celeron cpu cos its l2cache is 128mb or less.I just go 4 cpus above 3.0ghz,because i,m not willing to pay 300e for the latest cpu,a few megahertz faster than last years model.

TerrorFirmer

gamer wrote:

In a years time u,ll get a fast amd pc with pci-express graphics that,ll play any game with high graphic settings,it may ,be 3400ghz, the exact no is not important, the point is in 2007 it will be worth upgrading and pci-e cards will be even cheaper than they are now,get a 128meg ram graphics card pci e ,after you get an amd pc.Get at least 512mb l2 cache cpu,with fast front side bus speed,as an aside i dont like the celeron cpu cos its l2cache is 128mb or less.I just go 4 cpus above 3.0ghz,because i,m not willing to pay 300e for the latest cpu,a few megahertz faster than last years model.

With all that money you save you might invest in a puncuation guide

TomCo

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/11/03

gamer wrote:

Get at least 512mb l2 cache cpu,with fast front side bus speed,as an aside i dont like the celeron cpu cos its l2cache is 128mb or less.I just go 4 cpus above 3.0ghz,because i,m not willing to pay 300e for the latest cpu,a few megahertz faster than last years model.

Ok, it may be the year 2007 but a cpu is not going to have a 512mb or a 128mb cache. ever.

What do you mean "go 4 cpus above 3.0Ghz" what does that mean? Plus AMD processors don't run at 3.0Ghz, not even the FX-57.

Have you checked the prices of the latest processors lately? If you can get an FX-57 or an P4 Extreme edition for €300, I want to know where you shop.

There is a clause in the charter about misleading advice, if I was following your advice I'd be looking for a 3.0Ghz AMD processor with at least 512mb cache and a 128mb pci-express card with a really confused look on my face.

Do a little research before posting because people's cash is at risk here.

ShiverinEskimo

gamer wrote:

64bit amd 4.0ghz cpu

There will never be 4.0GHz AMDs. 2.8 is the fastest stock AMD. Please read up before providing advice.

To the OP - I think you are better off just buying a decent graphics card (don't be afraid to check the for sale sections of boards.ie - plenty of people are upgrading theirs and selling off their old ones.

That will do you rightly until you have the money and the real need to do a complete overhaul.

TomCo

I'd say if you're happy with its current performance, sit tight.

Don't feel under pressure to upgrade due to the proliferation of 64bit and dual core tech, support for these is (as far as I know, someone can correct me on this) patchy at best.

As has been suggested many times, if you've got cash to burn and you're not pleased with your pc's performance in games get a new graphics card.

Make sure its an AGP one!

K.O.Kiki

gamer wrote:

it may ,be 3400ghz

And you'll have a veritable volcano on your desk:D

gamer wrote:

I just go 4 cpus above 3.0ghz

I can understand wanting to go quad-core, but even the mighty G5 could only go 4x2.5Ghz...

gamer wrote:

i,m not willing to pay 300e for the latest cpu,a few megahertz faster than last years model.

I get you wanting to not upgrade a few (1-200Mhz) when it can be achieved with overclocking; but last I checked, the "latest and greatest" CPU's usually are sold for closer to €1000...

Oh yeah, and gamer? Please, please please learn the difference between a comma and an apostrophe.

gamer

Sorry, ,i meant 3gigahertz in my last post ,my point is with a fast agp card installed your present pc is fast enough for any game out at present . I notice on komplett.ie there are amd cpus from 350euro upto 1,084euro, I suppose there are some people out there that will pay a premium for the latest fastest processor,or else they are being used in servers or by business users.I mean not economic to upgrade pc to increase speed by 15percent if you are just playing games or watching dvds in my humble opinion.

Dooom

It's actually kind of painful reading through gamer's posts.

jones

Thanks everyone for the posts!! basically i'd be using the pc for games, mp3, internet & general use. at the moment i have no problem at all with performance and my 9800XT is holding up well against the 'next gen' games out at the moment!! i'm thinking more long term and with the move to 64bit/pci express!! how much life time is there left on agp??

ShiverinEskimo

A good 6800 GT/Ultra will see you out of 2006 I reckon. So plenty in that respects but like everything in this most expensive of hobbies, eventually you'll be cringing when you read minimum requirements on the sides of game boxes.

My god, I just spent two grand and still have to reduce some settings in FEAR.

Stephen

How much life is there left in AGP? Pretty much none, it has one foot in the grave now, and will be dead and buried in a couple of months.
Like most others on this thread said, I'd slap in the fastest AGP graphics card you can get and let that tide you over for the year. Your system is at a dead end in other respects, unless you plan on buying a new motherboard, cpu, ram etc - i.e. you'd be building a whole new PC, and those new components probably wouldn't fit in the dell case or work with its power supply.
I built an athlon 64 3200+/socket 939 system last year. I know that AMD will be switching from socket 939 to M2 this year, so hopefully when that happens, the price of 939 chips should fall through the floor and I might pick up a nice X2 or FX a few months down the line. I'll probably then rebuild the whole system in 2007 with the latest toys.

gamer

Agp is almost dead,but in practice u cud play games at high settings probaly for the next 1 and half years IF u have a fast 128meg ram graphics card, by then there will be really fast amd pcs with pci-e cards,as ms would say its legacy technology like usb version 1.o .When u find new games are not running at high settings ,thats the time to upgrade.U can always run games at 800x600 16bit color to increase the frame rate/per second.Sounds like there will be a new amd cpu slot standard in 2007.

jones

my 9800XT is 256mb and its really doing well for itself everything on high for farcry/half life 2 and most settings on high for doom 3/ FEAR / Call of Duty 2...i'll probably try build my own system next year and prepare for the 64bit onslaught!! thats if i have the money

Stephen

Gamer, the new AMD socket (socket M2) is coming this year. Supposed to be out in spring sometime.
Also, the amount of RAM on a graphics card has bugger all to do with its performance these days. Its down to the GPU core used.

ShiverinEskimo

jones wrote:

thats if i have the money

Once you get the new PC bug you'll find the money if it kills you.

My original budget was 1200 - 2 grand later I'm wondering how I managed it.

Look at Wizzard, one day he woke up, next day he was driving to limerick with 2 grand for a PC!!

You'll get the bug and when you do, its game over for your wallet. Just remember to leave enough cash for games

K.O.Kiki

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

My god, I just spent two grand and still have to reduce some settings in FEAR.

Turn off the advanced shadows thingy (forgot what's it's called) -- it cripples any system as it's badly implemented.

ShiverinEskimo

Ah I know yea. Soft Shadows I think they call it. More or less need either SLi 7800 or a 512MB GTX to run it with that muck switched on.

DemonOfTheFall

After the rumoured 7800 GS there most likely won't be any new cards released for AGP. Slapping one of those into your PC if/when they come out would keep you going for a long time.

Gotta agree tho, a 9800XT is still quite a nice card to game on, especially HL2/CSS, does very well on those.