I am a whithered old man...

[ArakkAttack]

...and I am so frail that I need your help one last time before I make my purchases.

Do you think I would be ok going with a AMD x2 Dual Core Athlon 64 4200+ Socket 939Pin,
or would it be more worthwhile for me to upgrade my whole mobo so that I can use the new Socket AM2 chips?

[GBBlackKnight]

Well, that's the exact same processor I have for my desktop PC and the game runs fine for me - although I do have two 7800 GTX in SLi, so that helps smooth things out for me a lot. I get around 40-60 fps on the DM maps and am about mid-range on the video quality settings at 1024x768. Plus I have 2GB of RAM...

[MysTikal]

IMO, I'd just scrap everything and go with a new mobo and a C2D. Theres a better bang for buck ratio with the C2D and the overclocking is fabulous.

[Jognt]

if you have the money and want to upgrade a lot, then go for a nice intel system! though in general i'd say spend as little as you can.. since PCIe-2.0 is coming, DDR3 is here, Intel will move from LGA-775 to a different socket in the future, AMD currently sucks (and will do so for a while after watching the roadmap XD)

if you HAVE to upgrade, either get a small upgrade, or get intel.

[ArakkAttack]

@GBBlackKnight;
Well I'm getting an 8800 640 MB so I should be ok with the Graphics card I think.

@Mystical;
Could you link me to a decent site where I could buy the core 2 duo? I always turn up with trash from google!

EDIT: Nevermind, found some. Which should I be looking at between the 1.86 Ghz range and the 2.66 Ghz range?
Bear in mind I don't want to spend too much money.

Also, should I get this, which motherboard would be the best value for money in order to support the new CPU?

[hal]

@GBBlackKnight;
Well I'm getting an 8800 640 MB so I should be ok with the Graphics card I think.

@Mystical;
Could you link me to a decent site where I could buy the core 2 duo? I always turn up with trash from google!

http://www.newegg.com/ Newegg is your friend

[ArakkAttack]

http://www.newegg.com/ Newegg is your friend

Yeah thanks, I found some decent ones . The problem is the numbers of GHZ don't really mean all that much to me, and I don't have unlimited funds.

[Senji]

I'd wait till November, thats when the new gcard lineup comes out - i heard the Nvidia's new G92 card will be just as powerful, if not more so than the current fastest GPU, the 8800 GTX. It will also feature 65nm architecture ( smaller ) so its much less expensive to manufacture and incidently cheaper for consumers to purchase.

On the other hand ATi has finally gotten their butts in gear and is about to launch their latest HD2950 which sports the same size architecture but report has it that it will be the next king of GPU this coming November.

And i'm not sure if anybody noticed but ALOT of killer *** games is coming out in November

[ArakkAttack]

Ok, perhaps I will wait until November for the GPU then! But still, looks like I'm gonna have to go with the new CPU before that.

if you have the money and want to upgrade a lot, then go for a nice intel system! though in general i'd say spend as little as you can.. since PCIe-2.0 is coming, DDR3 is here, Intel will move from LGA-775 to a different socket in the future, AMD currently sucks (and will do so for a while after watching the roadmap XD)

if you HAVE to upgrade, either get a small upgrade, or get intel.

How long will that take? Is it worth waiting for? Or should I just get a new Mobo and Intel processor now?

[innociv]

@GBBlackKnight;
Well I'm getting an 8800 640 MB so I should be ok with the Graphics card I think.

@Mystical;
Could you link me to a decent site where I could buy the core 2 duo? I always turn up with trash from google!

EDIT: Nevermind, found some. Which should I be looking at between the 1.86 Ghz range and the 2.66 Ghz range?
Bear in mind I don't want to spend too much money.

Also, should I get this, which motherboard would be the best value for money in order to support the new CPU?

get the 2.4ghz one or whatever. I T's $190.
The E6750.
Or get a Q6600 for $100 more. It's quad-core and will run ut3 better, but not alot of games support quad core.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115029 CPU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128050 Motherboard
You'll need DDR2 ram. Get some OCZ platinum.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227139 Here is 2gb for $50. Some of the best ram there is if not the best. So you could get 4gb for $100 like i did

I just bought these 3 things. :P
I had an athlon 64 3700+... this should be like 3x faster and cost me $430(after i mail in my rebates).
Don't get an AM2.. or spend more than $300 on a processor though because next year AMD is going to come out with true quad cores which will probly blow all the intels out of the water like they did before.
But then intel will release their true quad cores which will probly be faster than amd's
Right now the quad cores that are out are just 2 dual cores put together.

But yeah like the other guy said, alot of new stuff is coming next year. The g90 graphics cards should be here around march, and new processor architexture later next year. So spend as little as you can like I did.
I already have a geforce 7800 and was surprised how nicely the game looks and runs on it. But i think you could get an 8600 for like $200.
I'm keeping my 7800 untill the g90's come out

As far as the graphics card you're getting.. i'd say get something cheaper :P Ones that are like twice as good will come out next year.
Also anything more than 512mb of ram on the graphics card doesn't help with UT3 or any properly written game. 256 would do you just fine really.
Just get an old 7800gt or gtx or an 8600 and you'd be good unless you can't wait to pump those settings up high and have money to blow.
Personally I see buying a G80 card as a waste.. unless you're running a REALLY old card now maybe.

[Tarantella]

While its great spending other peoples money for them I would caution against any major investment till the final version of the game hits the shops . Not getting into any arguments over intel/amd or nvidia/ati I would say for the average joe running the game on a 17 inch screen at 1024x768 ;(please remind me that you can actually focus on the texture details in a fast moving game ), you need a midrange card with just a bit of grunt to the rest of the system.

If you look in the utdemocompat folder you'll see many of the current graphics cards sorted with a value of -1 to 5.Im not sure as to the actual meaning of the values but the top end cards are getting a 5 and the midrange cards are getting a 3.

My own opinion is that the graphics card is more important that the system as long as the system was built in the last 2 or 3 years.

[[s§s]Bison_Boy]

innociv - you said that UT3 runs better on a quad core - have you seen any tests that show this? AFIK no one has tested the demo on 2 vs 4 cores and Tom's implies that one should wait until they show you the money because most 4core apps right now get very little speed bump.

The test reviews of the UT3 demo on vid cards are out and seem to show pretty good performance on 8600 and up. BUT ATI JUST released new drivers on the same day as the demo which are "supposed" to even out some of the poor game performance. So far head to head testing show vid card more important than cpu.

[ArakkAttack]

get the 2.4ghz one or whatever. I T's $190.
The E6750.
Or get a Q6600 for $100 more. It's quad-core and will run ut3 better, but not alot of games support quad core.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115029 CPU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128050 Motherboard
You'll need DDR2 ram. Get some OCZ platinum.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227139 Here is 2gb for $50. Some of the best ram there is if not the best. So you could get 4gb for $100 like i did

I just bought these 3 things. :P
I had an athlon 64 3700+... this should be like 3x faster and cost me $430(after i mail in my rebates).
Don't get an AM2.. or spend more than $300 on a processor though because next year AMD is going to come out with true quad cores which will probly blow all the intels out of the water like they did before.
But then intel will release their true quad cores which will probly be faster than amd's
Right now the quad cores that are out are just 2 dual cores put together.

But yeah like the other guy said, alot of new stuff is coming next year. The g90 graphics cards should be here around march, and new processor architexture later next year. So spend as little as you can like I did.
I already have a geforce 7800 and was surprised how nicely the game looks and runs on it. But i think you could get an 8600 for like $200.
I'm keeping my 7800 untill the g90's come out

As far as the graphics card you're getting.. i'd say get something cheaper :P Ones that are like twice as good will come out next year.
Also anything more than 512mb of ram on the graphics card doesn't help with UT3 or any properly written game. 256 would do you just fine really.
Just get an old 7800gt or gtx or an 8600 and you'd be good unless you can't wait to pump those settings up high and have money to blow.
Personally I see buying a G80 card as a waste.. unless you're running a REALLY old card now maybe.

At the moment I have a GeForce 6800 256 MB card. Do you recon I should just stick another one in there SLI for now and then sell them and get a new one when the new ones come out then?

[innociv]

At the moment I have a 6800 256 MB card. Do you recon I should just stick another one in there SLI for now and then sell them and get a new one when the new ones come out then?

I'd say leave the 6800 256 mb in there if it's PCI-E. Wait for 9800 card
I don't think SLI'ing a 6800 would do much.. and that motherboard i link you to isn't SLI.
SLI is a waste of money imo. Best to just upgrade a card.
Only reason you SLI is to use two of the best-in-the-market cards, not use two old cards.

IF it's AGP it won't work in the new motherboard.

Just get the motherboard, processor, and ram that I listed. Install all that with your 6800card, run the game, see how it runs.
If it doesn't look as pretty as you'd like then get a 8600 or something.

It's your money. :x But big things are coming next year.

[ArakkAttack]

Ok, It is PCIe so I should be ok. Right, so it looks like the Processor, the Ram and the motherboard for me then. Hopefully I should be able to fit it all without problem. Do motherboards tend to take a "1 size fits all" approach when it comes to computer cases, or will I have to also invest in a new case O.o