Desperately seeking expert upgrade advise

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Degr8

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I thought I had a good rig untill I started playing BF2142.

My current setup:
Asus A8v (revision 2.0) (latest Bios)
AMD xp 64 3500+ 939 (venice core)
Ati x850 xt Platinum Edition 256mb AGP
2 gig's of Corsair DDR PC3200
Orion xp400 power supply

Not sure which way to go:

I could upgrade my cpu to AMD X2 4800+, but is this going to make a huge difference with the rest of my setup?

Or should I put that money towards a new AM2 mobo with pci express?
The problem is if I upgrade my board than I have to replace everything. My graphics card (which I love, but it's AGP), my ram (which I just puchased a month ago) and my cpu. All this is going to be really expensive.

Please help, Thanks!!!!!
 
I would get the S939 upgrade.. might want to check into a new PSU, I had one of those Orions in my old NZXt case.. it blew in a month.

or get Intel C2D/Asus Mobo/2gigs of ddr2/and a 7900GT.. in that case you would need to get a new Powersupply also.
 
I would suggest getting a core 2 duo set-up if you are going to do a big upgrade like that.
ds3 motherboard
e-6300
2gb of g. skill ram
7900gs

Total: about $650
 
thanks for the advice guys.

I have a feeling if I just upgrade my cpu it not going to make too much of a difference (because of my graphics card) and I'm going to need to upgrade again in a few months.
 
There's no AMD XP 64, just the Athlon 64 and the AthlonXP. Yours is the Athlon 64 (because of the Venice Core).

And yeah, CPU won't really do much for your games. You need a better videocard, and trust me, you do not want to buy another AGP one. If you're looking to be at all sensible with your money, then you're looking at a new system.

By the way, you DO have a good (decent) system. A 6600GT can play BF2142 (1280x1024, Med settings), a X850XTPE should surely be able to max it out? IIRC, a 6800GS was all that was needed to max out BF2, and BF2142 is better optimized, so your videocard shouldn't really be having any problems with the same.

As pointed out above, perhaps your PSU is lacking? Bad PSUs can often cause problems, and your PSU might not be feeding enough juice to the video card. Just a thought.
 
You guys might be right about my psu. And if you are you made my day!!!!! You just might have saved me from droping at least $1,000 on a new rig.

I'm on my way to Fry's right now to pick up a new psu.

thanks for your help.
 
Don't pick up another bad one. Pick one that has 400W-500W and is from a reputable maker like Antec, Forton (also sometimes labeled as FSP Group), OCZ, Hiper, SeaSonic, Enermax, or Silverstone. I think Forton is your best bet for a high-Amperage, low-price PSU.

If you can, check to see how many Amps it has on its +12v rails (there will probably be more than one +12v rail). You want atleast 25A (combined) on the +12v rails for your system. You can usually find the Amperage on the side on the PSU, on a chart. Remember; +12v rail(s). Not -12v or any other.
 
I'm back.

TriEclipse I took your advice and puchased the Antec TruePower Trio 430.

Specs
http://www.antec.com/specs/TP3_430_spe.html

That must have been a part of the problem. My system is running much...much cooler now. Maybe my Zalman 9500 was not getting anough juice.

However I'm still having some of the same issues. I've run just about every test I can think of from Memtest to Hot CPU Tester. All passed.

I ran PCMark and compard to other similiar systems mine is scored one of the lowest. Something is not right and for the life of me I can't place my finger on it.

TriEclipse, your right my GPU should have no problem running this game. Maybee I need to get the ZALMAN VF700-CU 2 Ball VGA COOLER for my GPU.
 
What score do you get by running 3DMark05 and 06? These programs are somewhat hefty downloads, btw.
 
I'll run the 3Mark 05 right now and post it.

But for the PC Mark 05 my score was:
3456 Total
3170 cpu
3592 mem
4732 Graphics
3973 HDD
 
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