Socket 939 PCI-E 6800 upgraded to ______?

[chronius]

I was wondering if anyone can recommend some upgrade options for my aging A8N SLI deluxe setup.

Currently I have a Leadtek 6800 with an AMD 3000+ processor 1 gig of ram.

I would like to know if there are any decent choices for me within the 300-400 $$$ range. I plan to upgrade my proc as well but I'm not sure what I should do first.

Sales person I was talking to said I should probably get a proc as the Socket 939 is on the way out, and I can always find a good PCI-E card.

Thoughts?

 

[cleeve]

Depends what you use the system for.

If it's gaming, sell your 6800 and get a nice X1950 XT for under $300. That'd give you the biggest gamning boost you could ask for.

As for the processor, it won't make that much difference in gaming if you have an A64 already. In the future, older CPUs will always be cheap to find on ebay...

 

[chronius]

So you think I should get a video card first?

Will that video card you mentioned work with a A8N SLI deluxe mobo, i think it has an Nforce 4 chipset

 

[Blacken]

IF your mobo has a PCIe slot, any PCIe videocard will run on it just as long as your PSU is up to snuff.

Yeah, I'd upgrade the vc as AMD will hault 939 in a few months. You'l always be able to transfer the videocard.

 

[AdamBomb42]

My suggestion is to go for 2 Gigs of ram first. Save the rest of your money for a DX10 card and overclock the crap out of your 3000 (figuratively speaking). Why buy a DX9 card when DX10 is right around the corner.

 

[chronius]

My suggestion is to go for 2 Gigs of ram first. Save the rest of your money for a DX10 card and overclock the crap out of your 3000 (figuratively speaking). Why buy a DX9 card when DX10 is right around the corner.

This does make sense. I'll see how much I cant pick RAM up for. i think i probably have ancient ram. anyone have anything they can recommend?

 

[cleeve]

This does not make sense.

There are only, like, 2 games on the planet that care if you have over 1gb of RAM.

More ram will give you absolutely no extra performance with that machine. Wasted money.

 

[ak47is1337]

This does not make sense.

There are only, like, 2 games on the planet that care if you have over 1gb of RAM.

More ram will give you absolutely no extra performance with that machine. Wasted money.

Uh, are you sure about that....? I mean, ram will mean faster load times for SURE. I sit and load the massive textures my X1950 craves for like 3 minutes whenever I play Company of Heroes :roll:

 

[Anoobis]

Cleeve's right. The biggest performance gain the OP will get for his dollar in gaming with that system is a new video card.

Why put more money into DDR400 RAM now when it will be useless to the OP come upgrade time? A good $300 PCI-E video card will be far more useful down the road a bit.

The sales person said new processor because he'll have to sell you new RAM (DDR2) and a new motherboard (AM2 or C2D) to go with it.

@ ak47is1337, where the hell have you been?

 

[kaotao]

Depends what you use the system for.

If it's gaming, sell your 6800 and get a nice X1950 XT for under $300. That'd give you the biggest gamning boost you could ask for.

As for the processor, it won't make that much difference in gaming if you have an A64 already. In the future, older CPUs will always be cheap to find on ebay...

Seconded. I also agree that you'll see a much bigger improvement by upgrading your GPU than you would by adding another gig of RAM.

 

[cleeve]

Uh, are you sure about that....? I mean, ram will mean faster load times for SURE.

Pretty sure...

Faster load times between levels with 2 Gb? Maybe.
But what good is shorter load times it if your videocard can't deliver playable framerates?

You're better off with a faster videocard and smoother gameplay with an extra few seconds of waiting between level loads, methinks...

 

[sirheck]

i agree. hell maybe even keep the 6800 card and wait for
the middle of the road ati and nv dx10 cards.

 

[sirheck]

Uh, are you sure about that....? I mean, ram will mean faster load times for SURE.

Pretty sure...

Faster load times between levels with 2 Gb? Maybe.
But what good is shorter load times it if your videocard can't deliver playable framerates?

You're better off with a faster videocard and smoother gameplay with an extra few seconds of waiting between level loads, methinks...

bf2 is the only game that i play that 2gigs works better.
and that is only for the (verifying clientdata).
and well the choppyness.

 

[Blacken]

Agree. Go with the gpu. Entering the game quicker than everyone else - yet groaning at 10fps? It would be viable if you had 512mb's.

 

[ak47is1337]

Cleeve's right. The biggest performance gain the OP will get for his dollar in gaming with that system is a new video card.

Why put more money into DDR400 RAM now when it will be useless to the OP come upgrade time? A good $300 PCI-E video card will be far more useful down the road a bit.

The sales person said new processor because he'll have to sell you new RAM (DDR2) and a new motherboard (AM2 or C2D) to go with it.

@ ak47is1337, where the hell have you been?

I never said the money would be better spent on RAM, I just stated that I do believe another gig of ram would make a difference.

 

[tbiggums]

But what would make more of a difference?

 

[sirheck]

But what would make more of a difference?

goign from 1 gig to 2gigs made a night and day difference for me.
and going from 2gigs back to 1gig sucks.

i did it to make 2 computers.

the 6800 is a good OLDER card i have 2 68gt,s.
use to have them in sli but split them up for the other computer.

my 68gt,s in sli score 10000 in 3dmark05 max.
if you look at cleeves sig youll see he has a single x1900
that scores the same.
that is just a video benchmark but it gives you an idea of the difference.

 

[tbiggums]

3dmark benchmarks and real life gaming are completely different.

 

[sirheck]

that is just a video benchmark but it gives you an idea of the difference

duh thats why i said this.

 

[tbiggums]

haha sorry im out of it today.

 

[sirheck]

yeah it kinda sucks i paid 300 frogskins for my first 68gt
over a year ago and 140frogskins for my second 68gt about 6 months
or more ago. and can get a 79 series gpu or an ati x1900 gpu
for under 200 frogskins that will perform as good or better than
the 68gt,s in sli.

 

[big_tuna]

go ahead and spend about $100 bucks now on a 7600 gt video card ,thats should work well for awhile and save for a future upgrade (dx 10)or new computer system

 

[sirheck]

go ahead and spend about $100 bucks now on a 7600 gt video card ,thats should work well for awhile and save for a future upgrade (dx 10)or new computer system

the bad thing about that is there wont be any performance
increase.

 

[tbiggums]

Or you can just go for the x1950xt like cleeve said.

 

[sirheck]

I was wondering if anyone can recommend some upgrade options for my aging A8N SLI deluxe setup.

Currently I have a Leadtek 6800 with an AMD 3000+ processor 1 gig of ram.

I would like to know if there are any decent choices for me within the 300-400 $$$ range. I plan to upgrade my proc as well but I'm not sure what I should do first.

Sales person I was talking to said I should probably get a proc as the Socket 939 is on the way out, and I can always find a good PCI-E card.

Thoughts?

one thing to think about is.
go for the gpu upgrade, but wait atleast 1 month maybe 2

for the cpu go for a dual core s939.

this should be around the 400$ range for both.

the initial test results for the amd 65nm cpu,s
suggest that they arent that much faster than
s939 or am2 cpu,s now.