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new computer or upgrade old?
    #9000383 -

my old computer was really nice but now its starting to stagger.  id like to play games like crysis but at the same time its pretty crappy to have to buy all new stuff.  anyways here's my current gear

amd 64 3000+  1.81 ghz
motherboard A8N-SLI prem  which does have pci express but im not sure which version
nvidia 6800 GT
2gb ddr2 i think

so the thing is im basicly looking at just a darn video card upgrade and that would be great...except im not sure if that will be enough?

im worried about needing mutlicores, and ddr3 or w/e

it sux that they change slot design/core design...forcing people to upgrade entire systems....sux so bad.


--------------------
We were sent to hell for eternity :hellfire: Ø:omgawesome:h®
We play on earth to pass the time :foreheadslap:

Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #9000412 -

fps may be low on higher res

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: deranger]
    #9000532 -

upgrade the video card and then format and reload your OS. you should be fine.


--------------------
:hotidea::hotidea::hotidea:

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: Groomies]
    #9001527 -

Realistically you're going to need a new processor and graphics card for games like Crysis. One slow part in a computer can slow everything else down, so a graphics card is only going to do so much before it's limited by the CPU.

Don't worry about DDR3 memory though, right now there's almost no performance difference between that and DDR2.

The best value right now is an Intel Core2 (the E8500 or Q6600) and a Radeon 4850 or 4870.


--------------------


Life: Main event at the MGM Grand. Murphy's fighting Occam, and you're in the stands.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #9017944 -

Assuming you do not have a proprietary computer (Sony, Compaq, E-Machine, etc..), it's always best to upgrade. If you have a machine that can continually be upgraded you never have to worry about buying an entire system. In my opinion, you'd be a fool to buy an entire system if you have the basic components to build your own.

As far as what you have already, I would personally step up to a multi-core processor and make sure you have a motherboard/RAM that supports 800MHZ or higher front side bus. This seems to be the standard nowadays and a lot of programs are now taking advantage of multi-core processors and faster front side bus speed. You could get a hyper threaded processor too, but why not step it up?

RAM seems a little on the slow side, depending on what applications you run. I run a quad core processor and DDR2-4GB of RAM at 800MHZ and still feel that I need more. I do a ton of photo and video processing, so more is always better.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: Wronguy]
    #9018780 -

> RAM seems a little on the slow side

That board is rated for DDR-400.  Unless it supports overclocking, putting faster memory in is going to be a waste of money.  (Oh, he doesn't talk about speed; I assume you mean capacity. )

From the cheesy specs page:

Quote:
Memory: 4 x DIMM, Max. 1 GB, DDR 400/333/266 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture



--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: Seuss]
    #9022716 -

I meant capacity and speed, hence my recommendation for upgrading the motherboard too.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: Seuss]
    #9045297 -

Seuss said:
> RAM seems a little on the slow side

That board is rated for DDR-400.  Unless it supports overclocking, putting faster memory in is going to be a waste of money.  (Oh, he doesn't talk about speed; I assume you mean capacity. )

From the cheesy specs page:

Quote:
Memory: 4 x DIMM, Max. 1 GB, DDR 400/333/266 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture





Thats an Asus board, they ALL support overclocking.

If you want to play the newer(est) games with the gfx cranked up, you need to upgrade from the ground up. Always begin with your Mobo, its the most important component in your system because it will allow (or disallow) the installation of all of your other high end components. (gfx card, ram, additional fans, etc.)

For comparison, my rig: (built mid-year 2007)
Asus Crosshair MoBo
Thermaltake Toughpower 700 watt PS
AMD Athlon X2 3000+ (3ghz)
2GB Ocz Performance DDR2 800mhz Ram
BFG Geforce 8800 GTS SLI 640MB
250GB WD Sata HD 7200 RPM (which I just upgraded to a WD Raptor 150GB 10k RPM)

With some tweaking, Ive achieved 12k scores on 3D Mark 06.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: cerebral gortex]
    #9045434 -

cerebral gortex said:
Seuss said:
> RAM seems a little on the slow side

That board is rated for DDR-400.  Unless it supports overclocking, putting faster memory in is going to be a waste of money.  (Oh, he doesn't talk about speed; I assume you mean capacity. )

From the cheesy specs page:

Quote:
Memory: 4 x DIMM, Max. 1 GB, DDR 400/333/266 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture





Thats an Asus board, they ALL support overclocking.

If you want to play the newer(est) games with the gfx cranked up, you need to upgrade from the ground up. Always begin with your Mobo, its the most important component in your system because it will allow (or disallow) the installation of all of your other high end components. (gfx card, ram, additional fans, etc.)

For comparison, my rig: (built mid-year 2007)
Asus Crosshair MoBo
Thermaltake Toughpower 700 watt PS
AMD Athlon X2 3000+ (3ghz)
2GB Ocz Performance DDR2 800mhz Ram
BFG Geforce 8800 GTS SLI 640MB
250GB WD Sata HD 7200 RPM (which I just upgraded to a WD Raptor 150GB 10k RPM)

With some tweaking, Ive achieved 12k scores on 3D Mark 06.


good advice on the mobo.  but 12k with SLI 640MB cards...must be your processor slowing it down some.  I hit 14070 on 3D Mark 06 with a single 8800 GTS 512MB and everything stock, but i also have a quad core xeon...

If you decide to build a new computer, don't go too crazy, as some people on other boards will try to convince you to spend a couple thousand, which is overkill.  You can build a kick ass comp for <= $1000.

peace

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: supra]
    #9046338 -

yah i spent close to $1000 on my current computer and i think even that was overkill considering it hasn't really lasted me that long.  think i was only able to run BF2 on max settings barely and after that it was all downhill, its really no wonder pc gaming is dieing, and having to get new motherboard/ram is so so shitty because thats really where i spent the most money...thinking id be able to upgrade if i did

im really having a hard time deciding on a motherboard, things seemed alot simplier the last time i built one.  they have boards with 3 freakin pcie slots!!  what sux the most is these boards only come with 2 pci slots on average....which really hinders my options as sound card is an automatic....which leaves me with just one slot

which begs the question, last time i did a build..for sli you have this crossbar thing you connect to the cards, with these new boards the slots are much farther apart, do they not use those crossbars anymore?

this is one of the few boards that ive found with 3 pci slots but it doesn't look like you could fit a card in there with a graphics card...



not really sure how DFI is these days anyway, i read in the reviews the bios sux


--------------------
We were sent to hell for eternity :hellfire: Ø:omgawesome:h®
We play on earth to pass the time :foreheadslap:

Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.

Edited by makaveli8x8 (10/08/08 03:53 AM)

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #9046444 -

> which begs the question, last time i did a build..for sli you have this crossbar thing you connect to the cards, with these new boards the slots are much farther apart, do they not use those crossbars anymore?

They use the PCI express bus in place of the "crossbar".  Because of this, you need to pay very close attention to the specs of the bus speed on EACH of the PCIe ports.  On the older chip sets, such as the P35, there are only 20 "lanes" available.  They tend to give 16 to the first port, and 4 to the second... The board will claim x16, but if you use multiple cards, the second card will be severely throttled.  With the newer chip sets, such as the P45, both ports will be PCI Express 2.0 each having 16 lanes available, typically.

> what sux the most is these boards only come with 2 pci slots on average

I'm curious why you need so many slots?

> which really hinders my options as sound card is an automatic

Most of the newer boards have better on-board sound than many sound cards.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: Seuss]
    #9046479 -

well i mentioned one slot for the sound card, i havn't tried any of the newer sound cards but always in the past ive found that soundblaster aways provided a very noticable improvement, and altho the drivers suc, the software that comes with them is usually handy for tweaking speaker placement

the other card i currently have is for a tv tuner which i use alot, and then i also like to put pci slot fans in to help blow some extra air out from down there, but if there's not a slot then there might not be room for it, like in my current setup i have a fan right next to my graphics card so it has 2x the cooling

and then there's future products or w/e, for example ram hard drives, the ones ive seen use pci slots i believe...i dunno i just always like to have spares:shrug:


--------------------
We were sent to hell for eternity :hellfire: Ø:omgawesome:h®
We play on earth to pass the time :foreheadslap:

Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #9049263 -

DFI boards are great.  If you are going off of newegg reviews, don't.  Most newegg reviewers don't know jack shit about hardware.  Down side of DFI is the bios, just because it has so many options, but more options usually means mroe control, but also means more to fuck up.  I have a DFI p35 board and like it very much. 

I researched SLI as well, and found that it is not really worth the money for the improvement you get.  You get up to about 80% speed increase in games designed to utilize it, but only about 30% on average.  All this for spending 100% more on graphics cards, just buy one bad ass card, and replace it when you need to, and sell the old one.

And suess is right about the sound card, there really isn't much need for them anymore, unless you do studio work or something.  My board, which is a lower end dfi, has 5.1 Intel HD Audio controller on it, and it sounds great to me, though i only use it for minimal listening, i have a real stereo to listen to music...

I don't game heavily, but the last computer i built, the one before I own now, lasted me 5 years and i spent about that on it, with an AMD 2800+, used it up to 6 months ago.  Sure, sometimes you may not be able to play the newest game at max graphics, but graphics don't make the game fun, the gameplay does...so don't get so hung up on it.

ps...right now, intel > amd, it goes back and fourth, but intel is making the faster chips right now.

peace

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: supra]
    #9052039 -

> right now, intel > amd

Right now Intel is much better than AMD and I don't see it going back for quite a while.  In the past Intel got lazy and AMD snuck up on them... Intel is determined not to let it happen again, from what I can tell.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: Seuss]
    #9052059 -

think im still leaning towards amd just for the fact that i hate intel and/or microsoft.  i didn't know it until a few days ago but apparently amd partnered with ati?  that seems like a pretty smart move

ive been reading into nvidia's gpu's tho and i guess they can be used to speed up applications, sort of like a really fast cpu?  i also read something about nvidia's drivers let you use a third graphics card just for physic's which speeds things up alot "supposedly"

couldn't really find any info that suggests ati's cards do anything like this tho :frown:

it seems like nvidia's got the better cards out right now?  in the past it seemed like ati's cards produced better graphics and effects, i remember in bf2 the glass on the heli's was blue like a reflection from the ocean it looked pretty sweet, then i switched to nvidia and the game got patched at the same time so i lost that effect in there somewhere:shrug:


--------------------
We were sent to hell for eternity :hellfire: Ø:omgawesome:h®
We play on earth to pass the time :foreheadslap:

Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #9052133 -

> amd partnered with ati?  that seems like a pretty smart move

Unfortunately.  Since they partnered, the ATI drivers have started to suck badly.  I used to like ATI, but no more.  I believe the hardware is still good, but without a stable device driver, who cares.

> it seems like nvidia's got the better cards out right now?

In the past, I've told people ATI for directx and nVidia for opengl.  These days, I mainly recommend nVidia... though I'm not real happy with nVidia covering up the design flaw in their g86 chipset (and possibly their g84 as well).

> for the fact that i hate intel

Intel was on my bad side for a while there... they got comfortable with their monopoly at our expense.  As I said earlier, AMD snuck up on them during this time, and people switched sides to AMD.  Intel got a rude awakening and has really improved... to the point that I am not sure if AMD will ever be able to catch up again, unless Intel goes back to their old ways.  For a new processor, I would recommend Intel (though this has not always been the case).


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: supra]
    #9053763 -

supra said:
cerebral gortex said:
Seuss said:
> RAM seems a little on the slow side

That board is rated for DDR-400.  Unless it supports overclocking, putting faster memory in is going to be a waste of money.  (Oh, he doesn't talk about speed; I assume you mean capacity. )

From the cheesy specs page:

Quote:
Memory: 4 x DIMM, Max. 1 GB, DDR 400/333/266 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture





Thats an Asus board, they ALL support overclocking.

If you want to play the newer(est) games with the gfx cranked up, you need to upgrade from the ground up. Always begin with your Mobo, its the most important component in your system because it will allow (or disallow) the installation of all of your other high end components. (gfx card, ram, additional fans, etc.)

For comparison, my rig: (built mid-year 2007)
Asus Crosshair MoBo
Thermaltake Toughpower 700 watt PS
AMD Athlon X2 3000+ (3ghz)
2GB Ocz Performance DDR2 800mhz Ram
BFG Geforce 8800 GTS SLI 640MB
250GB WD Sata HD 7200 RPM (which I just upgraded to a WD Raptor 150GB 10k RPM)

With some tweaking, Ive achieved 12k scores on 3D Mark 06.


good advice on the mobo.  but 12k with SLI 640MB cards...must be your processor slowing it down some.  I hit 14070 on 3D Mark 06 with a single 8800 GTS 512MB and everything stock, but i also have a quad core xeon...

If you decide to build a new computer, don't go too crazy, as some people on other boards will try to convince you to spend a couple thousand, which is overkill.  You can build a kick ass comp for <= $1000.

peace


The bottleneck is definitly my processor in regards to my 3dmark scores.

Problem with AMD processors right now is that their current architecture doesnt allow them to build anything faster than what is already on the market due to heat problems.
Intel doesnt have that problem with their current architecture, therefore Intel > AMD.

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Re: new computer or upgrade old? [Re: makaveli8x8]
    #9055484 -

makaveli8x8 said:
think im still leaning towards amd just for the fact that i hate intel and/or microsoft.  i didn't know it until a few days ago but apparently amd partnered with ati?  that seems like a pretty smart move

ive been reading into nvidia's gpu's tho and i guess they can be used to speed up applications, sort of like a really fast cpu?  i also read something about nvidia's drivers let you use a third graphics card just for physic's which speeds things up alot "supposedly"

couldn't really find any info that suggests ati's cards do anything like this tho :frown:

it seems like nvidia's got the better cards out right now?  in the past it seemed like ati's cards produced better graphics and effects, i remember in bf2 the glass on the heli's was blue like a reflection from the ocean it looked pretty sweet, then i switched to nvidia and the game got patched at the same time so i lost that effect in there somewhere:shrug:


What linux distro do you run if you do?  Also, I have a friend that is a die hard amd fanboy.  Fanboyism (lol) is bad though, since it blinds you from the better performers.  Intel is bounds better, i was going to get an AMD when i first decided on my new build, after doing some research, that quickly changed.  Im a fanboy of getting the best performance for the price out of my pc.

The thing with nvidias cards you are talking about is called physix, its pretty neat, but right now, way under utilized, so no point in it yet.  Again, siding on cost:performance ratio, i feel multiple graphics cards are not where its at, just buy one really good one IMO.  while sli and crossfire are neat, they are a massive money waster for the purchaser, and a massive money maker for the graphics card companies.  I also purchased an nvidia card this time around, instead of ATI, mainly because i could again get a better performer in the same price range.  From what i heard though, the ATI 4850 and 4870 are some pretty nice cards, but so is the nVidia gt280...I got an 8800GTS with G92 core, and i couldn't be happier.

peace

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