I took a long hiatus from PC gaming, meaning my hardware suffered obsolescence accordingly. The game I'm playing now is just about all my system can handle, and only at 1024x768 at 16 bits, with less than maximum detail. (And this is a game where you want 1600x1200 or higher to be able to spot specks in the sky from many miles away, high FPS for precision manoeuvres, etc.) I also want to move on to higher-end games in the next year.
My current system is a Pentium 4 at 1.8 GHz (Socket 478, pretty sure), GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP card, 512 megs DDR1, and an ATA hard drive.
I want to end up with a good motherboard, a Core 2 Duo CPU (I'm eyeing the E6600), two gigs of DDR2 RAM, a good PCI-E graphics card, and some quiet and efficient coolers as needed (either for heat or for excessive noise, with overclocking only as a bonus feature).
I'll also be buying a large LCD at some point and would like digital video out, but I assume that's standard with any good video card. And I'd like to get optical surround sound at some point, but that's a topic for another day. (I mention it just in case someone knows of a good deal on, say, a motherboard with good onboard optical sound.)
(Note that my knowledge of the hardware market has become just as obsolete as my system. I'm working on that, but I'd appreciate any and all input, especially if I've got something wrong. I won't prefix everything with "as far as I know" only for the sake of brevity, but please feel free to assume that I don't know what the heck I'm talking about and that I need some helpful guidance.
)
So! My questions:
1. What's holding me back the most? Until I dropped the graphics settings, things got choppy around landing time (lots of objects on the ground) and during major air operations (lots of planes dropping lots of munitions). I personally suspect both the CPU and graphics card are the bottleneck at various points.
2. What's a good incremental upgrade path? I want to get something upgraded in the next month or so, but money is a limiting factor. I'm not looking for exact parts here (although that helps), just the most effective and least wasteful way to get from point A to point B -- without having to wait until I can buy my way to point B outright.
Way I see it, I've got a few options:
The ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/377/1/)
Initial cost: ASRock motherboard (temp, $60) + CPU ($300) = $360.
Incremental cost: Video card ($??), DDR2 RAM (2x $100?), better motherboard ($100?).
Waste: ASRock motherboard ($60).
This would let me go Core 2 Duo immediately, without having to purchase a new video card or RAM. And once I've replaced the video and RAM, I could ditch the motherboard in favour of a high-end one and get full PCI-E performance (since the ASRock board is limited to 4x) and overclocking capability (if I want it).
The down side is, if the graphics really are the primary bottleneck, I'm stuck until I shell out the cash for the new card. Also, the newegg.com reviews for the ASRock board suggest that quality control might not be quite up to spec; there were several DOAs.
Socket 478 motherboard, cheap video
Initial cost: S478 motherboard ($130?) + cheap video card ($40 and up) + DDR2 RAM ($100) = $270.
Incremental cost: C2D motherboard ($100?), CPU ($300), better video card ($??), more DDR2 RAM ($100).
Waste: S478 motherboard ($130?) + cheap video card ($40+) = $170+.
Here the CPU remains the same, but I get room to expand at my own pace, and a minor video upgrade. Or at least, I think I get a minor video upgrade. Today's cheapo PCI-E video card is pretty much guaranteed to outperform my Ti200, right?
The downside is twofold. One, I'm stuck with a slower CPU for longer. Two, I waste money on a Socket 478 motherboard, and Socket 478 with 16x PCI-E is not cheap. ($130 was the lowest price I could find on newegg.com, which is more than many Socket T boards.)
Good Socket T motherboard, good CPU, cheap video
Initial cost: Motherboard ($100?) + CPU ($300) + cheap video card ($40+) + DDR2 RAM ($100) = $540+.
Incremental cost: Better video card ($??), more DDR2 RAM ($100).
Waste: Cheap video card ($40 and up) = $40+.
The least wasteful of all, assuming I stick with a very cheap video card. As long as the video card doesn't perform worse than my current card, then everything is upgraded to some degree.
The downside, of course, is the initial cost. Assuming (say) an MSI P965 motherboard (the "winner" of the Tom's 2006-11-13 motherboard "shootout", now about $100), an E6600 CPU (about $300), a bottom-of-the-line $40 video card, and the first chip of DDR2 RAM ($100 and up for DDR2 800), I'm at $540 and up already.
A variant on this option would be to substitute a cheap Socket T CPU for the C2D. There are Celeron D's for Socket T as low as $50. This would raise waste to $90 but drop initial cost down to a respectable $290, and I'm still giving the video and CPU a boost until I go high-end. So this is a fairly attractive option as it stands.
Any thoughts? Is there a fourth option? Are any prices bogus? Am I spending (or expecting to spend) too little on the motherboard? Am I overestimating the performance of a $40 PCI-E video card? Am I completely off-base?
TIA.
My current system is a Pentium 4 at 1.8 GHz (Socket 478, pretty sure), GeForce 3 Ti200 AGP card, 512 megs DDR1, and an ATA hard drive.
I want to end up with a good motherboard, a Core 2 Duo CPU (I'm eyeing the E6600), two gigs of DDR2 RAM, a good PCI-E graphics card, and some quiet and efficient coolers as needed (either for heat or for excessive noise, with overclocking only as a bonus feature).
I'll also be buying a large LCD at some point and would like digital video out, but I assume that's standard with any good video card. And I'd like to get optical surround sound at some point, but that's a topic for another day. (I mention it just in case someone knows of a good deal on, say, a motherboard with good onboard optical sound.)
(Note that my knowledge of the hardware market has become just as obsolete as my system. I'm working on that, but I'd appreciate any and all input, especially if I've got something wrong. I won't prefix everything with "as far as I know" only for the sake of brevity, but please feel free to assume that I don't know what the heck I'm talking about and that I need some helpful guidance.
)So! My questions:
1. What's holding me back the most? Until I dropped the graphics settings, things got choppy around landing time (lots of objects on the ground) and during major air operations (lots of planes dropping lots of munitions). I personally suspect both the CPU and graphics card are the bottleneck at various points.
2. What's a good incremental upgrade path? I want to get something upgraded in the next month or so, but money is a limiting factor. I'm not looking for exact parts here (although that helps), just the most effective and least wasteful way to get from point A to point B -- without having to wait until I can buy my way to point B outright.
Way I see it, I've got a few options:
The ASRock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/377/1/)
Initial cost: ASRock motherboard (temp, $60) + CPU ($300) = $360.
Incremental cost: Video card ($??), DDR2 RAM (2x $100?), better motherboard ($100?).
Waste: ASRock motherboard ($60).
This would let me go Core 2 Duo immediately, without having to purchase a new video card or RAM. And once I've replaced the video and RAM, I could ditch the motherboard in favour of a high-end one and get full PCI-E performance (since the ASRock board is limited to 4x) and overclocking capability (if I want it).
The down side is, if the graphics really are the primary bottleneck, I'm stuck until I shell out the cash for the new card. Also, the newegg.com reviews for the ASRock board suggest that quality control might not be quite up to spec; there were several DOAs.
Socket 478 motherboard, cheap video
Initial cost: S478 motherboard ($130?) + cheap video card ($40 and up) + DDR2 RAM ($100) = $270.
Incremental cost: C2D motherboard ($100?), CPU ($300), better video card ($??), more DDR2 RAM ($100).
Waste: S478 motherboard ($130?) + cheap video card ($40+) = $170+.
Here the CPU remains the same, but I get room to expand at my own pace, and a minor video upgrade. Or at least, I think I get a minor video upgrade. Today's cheapo PCI-E video card is pretty much guaranteed to outperform my Ti200, right?
The downside is twofold. One, I'm stuck with a slower CPU for longer. Two, I waste money on a Socket 478 motherboard, and Socket 478 with 16x PCI-E is not cheap. ($130 was the lowest price I could find on newegg.com, which is more than many Socket T boards.)
Good Socket T motherboard, good CPU, cheap video
Initial cost: Motherboard ($100?) + CPU ($300) + cheap video card ($40+) + DDR2 RAM ($100) = $540+.
Incremental cost: Better video card ($??), more DDR2 RAM ($100).
Waste: Cheap video card ($40 and up) = $40+.
The least wasteful of all, assuming I stick with a very cheap video card. As long as the video card doesn't perform worse than my current card, then everything is upgraded to some degree.
The downside, of course, is the initial cost. Assuming (say) an MSI P965 motherboard (the "winner" of the Tom's 2006-11-13 motherboard "shootout", now about $100), an E6600 CPU (about $300), a bottom-of-the-line $40 video card, and the first chip of DDR2 RAM ($100 and up for DDR2 800), I'm at $540 and up already.
A variant on this option would be to substitute a cheap Socket T CPU for the C2D. There are Celeron D's for Socket T as low as $50. This would raise waste to $90 but drop initial cost down to a respectable $290, and I'm still giving the video and CPU a boost until I go high-end. So this is a fairly attractive option as it stands.
Any thoughts? Is there a fourth option? Are any prices bogus? Am I spending (or expecting to spend) too little on the motherboard? Am I overestimating the performance of a $40 PCI-E video card? Am I completely off-base?
TIA.
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