Upgrading PC...Need Advice

divinebright

Hey guys gonna upgrade my PC a little this christmas & im kinda out of the whole computer hardware loop since i bought my current Dell Dimension 8300 so any help is much appreciated. Anywho I basically want to upgrade the PC to a standard that I can play all of todays newest games on high(ish) settings..(so at least ill have that feeling of being able to throw anything'n'everything at my PC for a coupla months ). As mentioned its a 2 yr. old 3.0Ghz Dimension 8300 with 512MB RAM. Was doin a bit of research & was thinking of upgrading to 2GB RAM ala -->(http://www.crucial.com/eu/store/mpartspecs.asp?mtbpoid=B96AAD7BA5CA7304) ..giving me 2.5GB alltogether.
Was gonna invest in this little ditty here too (looks good for o/clocking a fair bit!?...GFX has to be AGP too btw) --> (http://www.hisdigital.com/html/product_ov.php?id=256&view=yes) ..costs 175Euro on Komplett for 512MB option.
I guess my main questions are is it worth it upgrading to this spec..am i gonna get the most out of it with my setup and if anyone else has any other suggestions/solutions &/or ideas where i might get the stuff cheaper.
Sorry for such a long post..thx in advance...
Rowan.

*edit* Also will i require a new/higher power supply, my current ones 250W?

Ruu_Old

AGP is pretty much being replaced with PCI Express. I'm not entirely sure if graphics card you suggested will play the latest games to the highest spec or not, maybe someone else can help you with that. You will need that 2GB of RAM if you are going to play the newest games.
A higher wattage power supply might be necessary to power that graphics card.

L31mr0d

My advice. Sell it and start over with a self built PC. If you only want it for games then you can build it for just that. However budget for an 8 series nvidia, 2gigs of ram and a decent dual core cpu on a dx10 compatible mobo. That should have you set for the next maybe 4 months j/k you'll be grand with that for at least 8mths or so with everything on high, except maybe AA & AF

There really isn't anything you can do to your present rig to try and get it up to par. I'd recommend downloading the FEAR and Quake 4 demo and trying to run it on that machine. It was those 2 demos alone last year that forced me to realise my computer was out of date as they would barely load at lowest settings on my old PC which had a little better spec then what you are using now. Now whats forcing me to realise I need another update are the likes of Oblivion and GRAW

divinebright

Hey cheers for the quick feedback..although your advice is painful to read L31mr0d i know its realistic but sadly the depth of my pockets is even more realistic. I'm not a hardcore gamer so I guess ill have to lower my expectations a little. I mean if i WERE to upgrade my PC to around what im talking about would it run todays games decently!? Also in terms of the graphics card if i were to spend a little more on it...maybe in or around 250 (is that possible for an AGP card!?) would it be worth it and where/which one would i get...even second hand!?

L31mr0d

lets just say, I had to update to a 7900GT 512mb PCIe, Dual core Opty and 2gigs of RAM to run GRAW, FEAR and BF2 at acceptable levels for myself... and these are now "old" games.

If you want to play older games such as HL2, CoD2, MOH:PA, at better graphics levels then i'd upgrade your AGP and increase your RAM, but if you want to play new games i'd begin calculating what you can sell your present system for (if you post your full spec i'll give you a rough estimate on what to set the asking for on adverts.ie, alternatively post it here) then add to this what you had budgeted to spend on upgrades and you will have a rough total budget.

Once you have this we can give you suggestions on an upgrade which will at least get you onto the right track for future upgrades.

TerrorFirmer

It's not quite that bad. Another gig of ram and a 7600GT and you'll be flying for another while.

I have a P4 as well with 1.5gigs of ram and a 7600gt, running fear and quake IV at 1280x800 maxed out at about 50fps...

Fanny Cradock

Yeah, I'd agree with Havok. The 7600gt is a very capable card and a decent stopgap until you can buy a new machine in a year or so. I bought one off Komplete for €170, and I notice they do an AGP version for the same price. Someone may be able to provide a URL to benchmarking tests, but I would be confident that the 7600gt would convincingly out preform the X1650pro.

TerrorFirmer

http://www.techspot.com/review/24-radeon-x1650pro-vs-geforce-7600gs/page3.html

The 7600GT was also quite successful in F.E.A.R as it defeated the new X1650 Pro by 34% at 1280x1024.

7600Gt clearly a better choice, and save a fiver or so

divinebright

Hey guys cheers for all the advice...this board really kicks ass actually! Anywho L31mr0d I know what your saying but a new system just isn't an option for me right now..I might get onto you again when getting rid of my current one..cheers for the offer though! With regard the graphics cards Havok & Fanny I was just about to go and order the Club3D 7600GT AGP when I noticed Komplett didn't mention anythin about the mem. clock speed...i looked it up on their website << http://www.club-3d.nl/productshow_vga.php?ordercode=CGN-G766 >> and noticed it only runs @ 1100MHz as opposed to all the other brands which run at 1400. I'm no expert but as far as i know the Core and Mem speeds are the most important factors when considering a gfx card no!? It's gonna cost me another 35Euro to get another brand so do you reckon it's worth it!?
Oh & one more thing is there any real point in upgrading to 2(.5 incl. current)GB RAM or will 1 extra gig suffice !? Thanks again for any help...

TerrorFirmer

I think 1.5gig is fine - as above, I'm still using a P4 and 1.5Gb of ram and with a minor gfx upgrade every six months I've kept on top of new games at very high settings, in fact if I wasn't getting a new computer around christmas time I'd still be alright with my trusty P4 for another good while yet.

Fanny Cradock

I would think that the difference in the speeds would be nothing to get overly concerned about. From what I've been told the difference between the two would be barely noticeable. I'd go with the cheaper of the two. However, you may want to research this or get a second opinion.

DublinEvents

One reason why the 7600GT is faster is coz it's doing inferior anisotropic filtering. Even if you turn your image quality to HIGH in the Nvidia control panel, it will continue to do inferior AF. There's no fix for it. Infact, Nvidia is now telling you to buy the Geforce 8 series because those do high quality AF. If you prefer quality over speed, then my suggestion would be to get the X1650XT. It's a little slower than the 7600GT but it has superior AF and most would swear by its gamma corrected antialiasing quality too. Or you can spend a little more and just get the X1950 Pro.

Cassiel

How's your memory configured? If its one stick of 512mb then get yourself another stick of 512mb, 1Gb in total is all you are going to need, anything more is a waste, put that money into your graphics card. Those two sticks should mean your memory is configured to dual channel, which is nice. After that, get the most powerful graphics card you can afford, anything over a 7600gt is likely to need a new powersupply. You are always going to be limited by the graphics card with your system with resolutions of 1280x1024 and above.(with high quality settings turned on). Just read that Sapphire is releasing a x1950pro for AGP. with an msrp of $250, now that would be worth getting.

[deleted: crazy talk about 7800gs]

divinebright wrote:

Hey guys cheers for all the advice...this board really kicks ass actually! Anywho L31mr0d I know what your saying but a new system just isn't an option for me right now..I might get onto you again when getting rid of my current one..cheers for the offer though! With regard the graphics cards Havok & Fanny I was just about to go and order the Club3D 7600GT AGP when I noticed Komplett didn't mention anythin about the mem. clock speed...i looked it up on their website << http://www.club-3d.nl/productshow_vga.php?ordercode=CGN-G766 >> and noticed it only runs @ 1100MHz as opposed to all the other brands which run at 1400. I'm no expert but as far as i know the Core and Mem speeds are the most important factors when considering a gfx card no!? It's gonna cost me another 35Euro to get another brand so do you reckon it's worth it!?
Oh & one more thing is there any real point in upgrading to 2(.5 incl. current)GB RAM or will 1 extra gig suffice !? Thanks again for any help...

Fanny Cradock

DublinEvents wrote:

t's a little slower than the 7600GT but it has superior AF and most would swear by its gamma corrected antialiasing quality too. Or you can spend a little more and just get the X1950 Pro.

I'm pretty sure that the X1650XT (not to be confused with theX1650 Pro) would be the faster of the two cards:

http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=598

However, the difference between the two is fairly marginal - sometimes only a frame or two, and I can't find a decent priced X1650XT AGP anywhere. Maybe DublinEvents can provide a link.

As for the X1950 Pro, yeah, it's great. The problem is that the AGP version costs £190 (Note it's still on pre order), which, when factoring in P&P, would take you up to nearly €300. That's almost half way to buying a new system.

I would advise getting the 7600GT off Komplett and using the money you save to buy an extra stick of RAM - 512Mb. You really need a 1Gb of RAM for decent gaming. Some games like BF2 perform better (so I've been told) with memory above a Gb, but as Cassiel said, use the money on a graphics card. For both you would probably be looking at something in the region of €240 (€170 - Card and maybe €70 - RAM), not including P&P. If you spend on the above it will significantly enhance your current system and you wont know yourself.