Upgrade advice

P

perki3

New Member
About a year ago I decided to build a new system using older parts. Mainly I wanted to save my ye olde AGP card (XFX GeForce 6800xt 256mb). I got one of those AsRocks that takes AGP and a Q6600 Quad plus some 667 DDR2 OZC ram. I feel that I can get way more performance (gaming and regular stuff) if I upgrade. I have looked around and found some stuff that I like and most importantly is in my budget.
I found 2 possible setups.
First
MSI P43 Motherboard
2gb OCZ DDR2 (added to what I have already making 4gb total 4x1gb)
Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 512mb 256bit pcie 2.0
This totals for around $200

The second setup that I thought of a few seconds ago
MSI P45 Motherboard (takes 1066 ram instead)
4gb (2x2gb) Kingston Hyper X PC8500
and same Sapphire card
This totals around $280

The second setup looks on paper faster and all but I want to know what I will REALLY see? Is the extra (pretty much the 1066 ram) worth it?
Also
Am I going to see that much of a difference if I upgrade at all?

What do you think?

Thanks for looking!

Oh and I apologize in advance for my n00b like descriptions because, well, I'm a n00b.
 
Id say the second, but I recommend you spend more on a video card. Make sure that you have a mother board that has PCI-E 2.0, and get a card that is also PCI-E 2.0. You dont have to, but look at my set up. I bought it all without the card and it only cost me 550 or so. Then bought My card 2 weeks later. Im not sure of your financial situation, but I recommend getting decent everything then spend alot on your G card. You can even go cheap on your ram and only get like 2 gigs, because you really dont need anything good to game. Load times may be a bit slower, but get something nicer down the road when you can afford it.
 
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teamhex said:
Id say the second, but I recommend you spend more on a video card. Make sure that you have a mother board that has PCI-E 2.0, and get a card that is also PCI-E 2.0. You dont have to, but look at my set up. I bought it all without the card and it only cost me 550 or so. Then bought My card 2 weeks later. Im not sure of your financial situation, but I recommend getting decent everything then spend alot on your G card. You can even go cheap on your ram and only get like 2 gigs, because you really dont need anything good to game. Load times may be a bit slower, but get something nicer down the road when you can afford it.
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To my knowledge the mobo is pcie 2.0. What would you suggest for a graphics card then? My budget is "college student"(less than $300 at this point). Also a question about ram. What are the advantages of having 4gb as opposed to 2gb?
 
And how much better would the new system be compared to the old? Because the whole reason I am thinking about doing this is that sometimes the computer doesn't perform as fast as I like. XP has been out for years and years and I don't see much of a difference in day to day working between computers when xp first came out and now, this is including slowdowns (everything slows and task manager says nothing is slowing you down). Our old athlon 1.47 seems just as fast at loading programs and accessing files as my quad. I know programs have gotten more powerful but it seems that the rate at which things go or don't go has stayed about the same...
 
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If your Athlon 1.47Ghz is giving you the same load times, you could have some serious problems there - it all depends which PC's are running what programs and stuff.

I would go for the latter, but maybe 3GB RAM at max (Vista 32Bit only sees 3.3GB or something like that anyway). Between 2GB and 4GB? Well, how many programs do you want to use at once and what are they?

If you can, I'd go for a 3870 (not much more, but a bit of extra performance). Or a 3870X2 if you wait a while, then splash out a bit. Your choice really.
 
azwebs said:
If your Athlon 1.47Ghz is giving you the same load times, you could have some serious problems there - it all depends which PC's are running what programs and stuff.

I would go for the latter, but maybe 3GB RAM at max (Vista 32Bit only sees 3.3GB or something like that anyway). Between 2GB and 4GB? Well, how many programs do you want to use at once and what are they?

If you can, I'd go for a 3870 (not much more, but a bit of extra performance). Or a 3870X2 if you wait a while, then splash out a bit. Your choice really.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was just commenting/venting about how as the computers get faster the programs get more complex and the speed that we actually see sometimes isn't affected much... I don't usually don't run many programs at once but there are a few, mostly video processing, that just slow the crap out of everything...

I have used nVidia since I first started and was thinking to try ATI Which do yall say is the best bet? And whats up with the stream processors? nVidia only goes up to about half of what ATI goes up to. I'm thinking they just have different ways of defining things...
 
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To be honest, it seems like most people here go for nVidia - well, judging by this poll, anyway.

http://www.computerforum.com/4405-nvidia-ati.html

ATi cards are getting better with the 4870X2, as long as you turn up the fan a bit. The nVidia equivalent is also more expensive. The 3 way GTX280 SLi. It really depends on what you want your PC for - for instance, Crysis is optimized for nVidia, but I ran it on medium at 1366 x 768 with 25+ fps on a laptop with an HD3650 512MB.

EDIT: I know that threads a bit old, but I think it's still relevant.
 
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azwebs said:
To be honest, it seems like most people here go for nVidia - well, judging by this poll, anyway.

http://www.computerforum.com/4405-nvidia-ati.html

ATi cards are getting better with the 4870X2, as long as you turn up the fan a bit. The nVidia equivalent is also more expensive. The 3 way GTX280 SLi. It really depends on what you want your PC for - for instance, Crysis is optimized for nVidia, but I ran it on medium at 1366 x 768 with 25+ fps on a laptop with an HD3650 512MB.

EDIT: I know that threads a bit old, but I think it's still relevant.
Click to expand...

Did you realize when did that poll start?
Technology change very rapid.
2-3 years ago, All ppl say AMD CPU better then Intel. Now?
It just the same as ATI vs nVidia
 
Cool thanks for all the suggestions and information. I am currently waiting for funds to come available (pay off all school stuff not covered by loans) and we will see what happens...
 
So I ended up getting the P45 with 2gb of OCZ 1066 ram and a EVGA9800GT I have had more experience with the nvidia cards and the card came with Crysis for free! It all came to under 250 which is right about where I wanted it. Thank you for all your suggestions I took them all with serious consideration and they helped me focus in on what I wanted!
 
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