Radeon HD3850 with P4 531 3.0Ghz

Extremely CPU limited is all I have to say... But depending on what your coming from you might see a boost in performance still.

See if your motherboard supports anything in the C2D area and get yourself a E2160 and overclock it a bit. for $70-80 its a great processor upgrade and overclocks like a champ.

Got that proc from 1.8 - 3.15 on a zalman9700 and it runs pretty strong with a 7900GS.

processor: Intel P4 531 3.0GHz
motherboard/casing: Shuttle SB81P Intel 915G chipset
hard disk: Seagate 250GB SATA 7200.9
memory: 512mb kingston DDR400 x2pc

I just hope this last upgrade to ATI Radeon HD3850 would be ok
i currently have Nvidia 7600GT

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Could you not scrounge up a smidgen of $ and get these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

$211ish total. unless you need ram. then add like $40 for 2GB PC6400

That setup there would get you running without bottlenecking the GPU and allow you to enjoy most all the games out there at deceint speeds/details.

My p4 3.0 is overclocked to 3.3 and still bottlenecks my 7800GS AGP. So moving up a cpu is a much better upgrade then just keeping hte p4. Its ran its life a long time ago.


Currently your 7600GT was almost on par with my 7800gs.. Both good cards, but again your reaching the end of your cpu's abilities. I once upgraded a P3 933 from a GF2MX to a Geforce 3 TI 500. It got faster but only by like 20fps.. then when i got a p4 1.8 it unlocked the card and i was over 100fps faster in most of the games I played at the time.

The ATI card is a great card.. but its almost faster alone then your P4 lol. I would say get a slightly newer setup like this. and keep the 7600GT till you can afford both. The 7600GT will even get a speed boost with a new CPU.

I wouldn't bother with a 3850 in your system. Your kinda wasting your money.

Not 'extremely' CPU limited, but the CPU will hold you back in many cases.

The impact would be minimized at high resolutions like 1600x1200, though, but it's probably time to go dual-core if you have the $$.

Im guessing that he could max out everything on the card at lower res (24X AA and 16X AF at 1024X768 and have one sweet looking scene lol. but I could be wrong.)

Would be more like the opposite, the higher resaolution he runs, the more the graphic card becomes the bottleneck and the CPU impact is minimized.

guys got instead the Powercolor HD3870 PCS 512mb GDDR4 with Zerotherm cooler. it has built in sensor that automatically adjust fan speed. Will buy a new cpu this year got my eyes on Quad Intel or AMD whichever has best bang for buck in our country. Might as well budget it with $500.00-$700 right? I'll buy this 1st quarter motherboard and casing, then Processor 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter hard disk, 4th quarter will be memory and transfer my Video card. I got eyes for CrossfireX boards