Help Extend the life of my Rig

[Evil Homer]

Here are my specs:
Gigabyte K8NS Socket 939 motherboard
Athlon 64 +3000 1.8 Ghz CPU
2GB of DDR RAM
Geoforce 660GT
Plextor Premium CDR
WDC 120GB HDD
Audigy 2 soundcard
Thermaltake 480 PSU
Windows XP Service Pack 2

I'm on a budget and would like to keep this rig for another two years. What would you upgrade to keep her running? (The videocard I know ) Or is she good enough for 2007 as is? My budget is roughly $700 Thanks for any suggestions and thoughts...

[Molgan]

Depends a little on what game types you are going to play.

[The5thviruz]

Upgrade the graphics card.

[Piglet]

Graphics card then CPU. The rest of it looks fine.

[graou]

I believe we can not tell until we run the demo. There is a possibility that this rig might run 2k7 kinda smooth in low settings. I m just speculating though. My suggestion is to buy nothing for the time being. Patience is the keyword here

[Sero]

I believe we can not tell until we run the demo. There is a possibility that this rig might run 2k7 kinda smooth in low settings. I m just speculating though. My suggestion is to buy nothing for the time being. Patience is the keyword here

Agreed, assuming the upgrade will be made with ut2k7 in mind. You can get far with educated guesses, and pointing out the bottlenecks are the obvious replies, but with a release date possibly very far from now, it's impossible to say with what hardware you could play on lowest settings just as is the case with maxed out settings.

[chiefwhosm]

Possibly the harddrive depending on how full it is / how much you can get rud of to squeeze ut2007 on

[ViperGrendal]

I stepped up from a 3000+ (2ghz) to a 3400+(2.4ghz), both socket754. There's a noticable difference. You have a 939, so a dual core would be a better choice probably. I also upgraded to a 6800GS from a 9800pro for $160. If you have PCI-e then you can go with a bigger video card for less.

I agree that you should wait a while. The only reason I upgraded anything is I was building a couple budget machines and used the old parts that I replaced with the upgrades and put them in the budget boxes.

[Oddside]

Here are my specs:
Gigabyte K8NS Socket 939 motherboard
Athlon 64 +3000 1.8 Ghz CPU
2GB of DDR RAM
Geoforce 660GT
Plextor Premium CDR
WDC 120GB HDD
Audigy 2 soundcard
Thermaltake 480 PSU
Windows XP Service Pack 2

I'm on a budget and would like to keep this rig for another two years. What would you upgrade to keep her running? (The videocard I know ) Or is she good enough for 2007 as is? My budget is roughly $700 Thanks for any suggestions and thoughts...

Your motherboard supports up to an Athlon 64 3700, that's 2.2GHz (on newegg for $102). Choice of graphics card is limited since it needs to be AGP. So, erm to last two years it needs to be fast, the fastest being something like the 7800GS, which again newegg have for $269.99. All together that's just over half your budget. The rest of the system seems ok. These are just suggestions, there may well be something better/cheaper available. It may even be possible to get a new motherboard, with CPU & graphics card to match for $700.

[Chromatik]

Get a new Motherboard so you can go PCI Express. It will end up being a much better price - performance ratio. I would look at the ASRock 939 Dual SATA2 Motherboard if you want to keep your 6600 temporarily. That’s what I'm running right now and it's great as it has AGP 8X and PCI Express (True 16x). Just to be clear I researched 939 Motherboards for 2 Months before I purchased this and it had overall better ratings and experiences then some of the $250+ SLI boards out there. It is upgradeable to Socket AM2 with DDR2 for a true upgrade path with no performance hit (It has a separately purchased add in board, weird I know). I am currently running an AGP GeForce 6800 Ultra and an AMD X2 4800+ in this exact board and it owns. When the DX10 card comes out I'll be ready to go PCI Express. Newegg is showing out of stock right now but it’s worth it to find it elsewhere. I paid about $54 for the board at the time. ASRock is the Budget offshoot of ASUS. If you do get this board don't use the drivers from the CD, get the ULi Integrated 2.20 Drivers from Nvidia's site.

Motherboard
http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm

You can pick up an AMD X2 4400+ 939 for $235 now that will eat the 3700+ alive (keep in mind UT2007 and many next gen titles will have multi core support):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103546

Then Pick up a new Video card now or later since you have both interfaces as an option, I might look at the GeForce 7950GT that was just announced today as it sits in between the 7900GTX and 7900GT in performance and should cost about $300. Or wait a few months until the DX10 cards come out so you can be set for UT2007. Even if you did all of this today you are still within your $700 budget.

This is what I would do but it depends in the end what you are comfortable with. Either way good luck with your upgrading. One last note, depending on which version of XP you have and how many times you have installed it you may have activation issues reinstalling Windows XP once you do switch motherboards, just FYI.

Cheers

[p2xelgen]

I think you should hold on for a bit, I'm sure when epic release the date for UT2007 they will give us an idea of the type of rig it will run best on...

Q
Intel or AMD

[The5thviruz]

I think you should hold on for a bit, I'm sure when epic release the date for UT2007 they will give us an idea of the type of rig it will run best on...

Q
Intel or AMD

Looking at AMD at the moment, I'd say Intel.

[=XM=]

Keep in mind that Unreal Engine games have traditionally benefitted more from better CPUs than better GPUs. Epic will include options to lower graphics details anyway which helps both, but I would upgrade the CPU before the GPU personally. Atm Intel for the first time in more than 5 years has a slight edge over AMD, but I doubt this will last long into next year.

[Hanji]

Hey Evil Homer, the ram is enuf for anything in the future for now, you will only need to replace the CPU FIRST, then save money for a real DX10 card thats coming out a few months later, I would recommend an Socket-939 AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, OR if you have the $$$ a X2 4800, its dirt cheap now.(Assuming you live in US.) Most likely, you also need a new PSU when DX10 cards come out, don't change your GFX card yet for the next few month......

[TheDeviot]

If you're on a shoestring budget you could get the Athlon64 X2 3800+ for well under $200. That would get you Dual Core tech, affordably. That's what I did this past July. I went up from a A64 939 3500+ of course it was a bit more then. . Next year when Vista, and DX10 cards are out I'll upgrade from my Nvidia 6600GT to something better. I can tell you after playing Quake IV you won't want to go back to a single core processor.
Good Luck!

[da ghost]

don't upgrade anything until the game comes out and we have specs.

[nighty]

Just overclock the freakin' CPU.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.ph...5&redirect=yes

It sounds like you have a 3000+ Venice core at 1.8GHz, and they are well known to clock up to 2.6GHz+ on stock voltage and cooling (depending on your motherboard). i.e., no expense to you at all, just a much faster computer. And Dual-Core means squat for most of the games I've ever seen so far in terms of improved performance.

BTW, I run my 3000+ Venice @ 2250MHz and stock voltage, OEM heatsink, low temps. I'm limited by my crappy motherboard which won't let me push it above 250HTT speed.

[Body_Counter]

your rig looks nice... however a sweet new ATI graphX card might make it even nicer :P

noone knows exactly how long it will take till vista and the fitting new dx 10 hardware will be available at normal prices...
it might be still a year till then... or maybe even longer?

a new graphX card will let you enjoy your rig even more, no matter what you play (ok, the experience of playing minesweeper or solitair should not change much) :P

also a new soundcard might improve your hearing experience - i saw many people saying that the new soundblasters own an audigy 2 big time... didnt try it myself though...