To up grade or not

[splash]

Hello All> I have the GA8-HIXP MOBO WITH 256MB PC800
RDRAM P4 533 2.8 Pross.I'm not sure if I should keep this board and up grade the mem to 1066 or opt for the 875p mobo
ddr400.My board only supports 4x agp. the 875p supports 8x.
Is there really a big jump in graphics performance with 8x?
I know rdram is on the way out but I like the speed of rdram and the stability of the board. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Up grade ram or mobo with ddr400 Thank's I also have the radeon 9800pro 128 video card.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by splash on 10/06/03 00:13 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Pettytheft]

Upgrade to 512MB of PC1066. A 875 and DDR400 will get you a speed boost. But overall it's not worth the cost. AGP 8x is not showing a significant boost yet to make it worth the upgrade. It will cost you about $150 or so to get a pair of 256MB Rimms. The extra 256MB of ram will get you more of a speed boost than anything else. Many games out today take advantage of ram over 256MB.

 

[splash]

Thank's for the advice I was really racking my brain with this 8x interface on the new boards.I guess all I need is more mem. The reason I wanted to change was a real performance hit on some of the games I'm running, the frame rates I'm getting really stink.I have flightsim 2004 and getting choppy game play.All the drivers are up dated for my hardware and still it clamps down. Would you think if I get 1 gig of 1066 and set up a raid it would solve the frame rate issue? Windows xp is killing me with all the resorces it takes up. Good os but way to demanding.I thought the 9800pro would solve the frame rate issue.Thank you for all your help and I really appreciate you taking the time to help me on this matter. Mike

 

[pat]

well, I dont think that your system should suffer from xp. My Athlon xp 1700+ was very happy with XP. Especially if you have the 9800 pro. In your case, I would try first to reinstall Windows. Try with no more than 512 megs first. if you still have frame rate problems, then your problems is probably elswere. maybe a drivers/hardware conflict. Did you have a nvidia graphic card before the ATI? maybe a driver mix.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[splash]

Yep I formatted my drive with a clean install then put in all the drivers for the mobo and hardware. I still have the same problem with frame rates,I think it might be because I'm only running 256mb of pc800 mem. I'm gonna apt for more mem but before I do I want to make sure that it's a memory
shortage problem first.The ram I have now is not going to be wasted I have a p4t that I'm building that I could use the mem in.I'm not sure if I should go to the ddr systems
or stick with the rdram.The rdram burns a hole in the pockets big time and if I'm gonna spend boocoo bucks on something I would like it to work.I'm not sure if I should just go for the 875p with 8x but then I would have to up grade the pross to 800mghz fsb and ddr is a bit slower then rdram from what I see at the moment. I'm not sure what to do
I just would like a screaming system. this is my last upgrade according to the wife for a long time and I gotta get it wile the gettings good. Thank's for the reply.

 

[Pettytheft]

256 is around the bare minimum you want to run with XP. If your not playing any games 256 is fine but XP's footprint is fairly large. You can try disabling unneccesary services to free up a bit more memory. But in the end at least another 128MB of ram will be needed.

Good luck shopping.

 

[splash]

Yep thats what I thought I guess I'm gonna have to shell out some more hard earned cash to get this rod running right. rambus modules are so damb expensive,it pissis me off
480 beans for 1 gig if you buy 2 sticks of 512 pc 1066, It looks like I gotta work overtime.I hope this works or out comes the 2 sticks and in goes 2 sticks of dinamite "kaboom"
no more problems untill the next build.lol