Computer Upgrade

[ryanism]

im going from:

biostar mobo 266/333
athlon XP 2200+ 266/333
512 pc 2700 ddr
Radeon 9600XT AGP

to:
MSI RS480M2-IL Socket 939 ATI Radeon XPRESS 200
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz FSB
1GB DDR 400 timing 2-3-2-5

first off, they are both 1.8, so what the hell is the difference! Will I notice anything?

second, ANYONE RECOMEND A VIDEO CARD (my budget for one is 200 bucks : ) ) I dont really hardcore game, just a little world of warcraft here and there....

 

[Trifid]

There will be a hige difference in speed from those two processors. The 64bi's are hugely efficient due to the hypertransport.

How much is that motherboard, I'm not really following the ATI chipset, so I don't really know how good it is, but if you are paying $120 or so for it, than go with the DFI lanparty board.

Get 2 sticksof 512, so you can make use of dual channel with would give you 6.4gb's of bandwidth over 3.2gb's from having it in single channel.

The 6600gt is a great card, but the 6800 vanila will fit nicely in that budget and will pull away from the 6600gt when the games get more demanding - high res. and more AA and AF. Also you can unlock the pipelines with the 6800 (sucsess rate isn't huge) but you if you get lucky and get a good card, you could have a 6800gt with a little overclock - ignoring memory.

Are you overclocking?

 

[ryanism]

wow that was a fast reply, yea that MSI motherboard is 86.50 thanks to newegg! the CPU is 146.00 thanks to newegg! here is what i got exactly

CPU

Mobo

Ram

and i already bought it so i hope its all gonne be good!

 

[tooltgle]

for graphics card, buy an eVGA 6600GT AGP/PCI-E. At newegg they are both around 150 i beleive

 

[Rapishorrid]

I agree with tooltgle.

If you're not a 'hardcore' gamer and need something to make your games an enjoyable experience....the 6600gt is the way to go. It's as of now, the best bang for the buck in the graphics card realm. And as tooltgle said eVGA is probably the best brand of it to get.

 

[Nitestick]

adding to what trifid said. there will be a huge difference in performance. athlon64's perform far better than xp's and the boost in memory speed will also give a significant jump in performance

 

[ryanism]

because I get a discount through my employer from ATI, im thinking about getting the x700, pci express, will it be better than my current 9600xt agp?

 

[Trifid]

To answer your question, yes. To advise you, no. Nvidia has Pixel Shader Model 3 support, which the next gen games will require to run with Direct X 9. If you don't mind not having eye candy, keep the 9600xt and stay on low settings for a while until the X900, R250 is launched if you want to stay with ATI.


The X3/6/7/800 pro cards are all low end cards.