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Worth upgrading dated system?

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Baxter   05-22-2008 at 06:53:40 PM

Hi i have an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ with 1 GB ram and an ATI X800XT graphics card would upgrading my ram to 2GB make a noticeable performance increase in games?

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Groo   05-22-2008 at 06:57:43 PM
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some, maby most, new game use 2 gigs is given the chance

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Baxter   05-22-2008 at 06:57:09 PM
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say for example wow i get pretty low fps when theres alot going on would it help there?

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Groo   05-22-2008 at 07:10:59 PM
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I'm guessing it would. your computer has to store a little bit of info for everythin around you. what probably happening is that it is using the paging file. that kills performance

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dirtmountain   05-22-2008 at 07:13:43 PM
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Yes, an additional 1 GB of RAM would help in WoW. Match what you already have.

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schwinger   05-22-2008 at 07:54:34 PM
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Ram will help for sure, but you may want to upgrade your video card if you have the budget and beefy enough power supply. ATI makes an agp version of the 3850 and it is currently the most powerful agp card. Nvidia also made the 7600gt which is a nice agp card too and is what I have in my older gaming rig that is similar to yours. Both of these cards require plug in power from the power supply. If you decide to get a card make sure your power supply is up to snuff. If not you would have to upgrade your supply and then it is getting more expensive. 1 gig of DDR about $50-80? ATI 3850 AGP about $175 and a power supply about 80-however much you want to spend. So about $305-335 including a new power supply or $225-255 if your power supply is up to snuff. It is also important to note what type of APG slot you have on your board. 4x or 8x etc. Posting your setup information would be helpful if you want more suggestions but ram in general is a good place to start for a bang for you buck upgrade. I personally have not been able to part with my old rig yet even though I built it's replacement. It still plays wow just fine and HL2 stuff for that matter.

Later,

da Schwinger

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Groo   05-22-2008 at 08:04:44 PM
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by the time your 50, you'll have quite a collection of old rusted out beaters in the driveway

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Baxter   05-22-2008 at 08:22:22 PM
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I have an Asus A7N8X-X nforce 2 which has an 8x agp slot, although im not looking for upgrading my graphics card atm since my psu is only 300W, thx for the advice so far.


Message edited by Baxter on 05-22-2008 at 08:30:58 PM
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dirtmountain   05-22-2008 at 08:45:10 PM
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A friends comp that i upgraded with a 7600GS and an extra 1 GB RAM (to 2GB RAM) has an Athlon 64 3300+ with some video settings on high, others on medium gets 20+ fps in Shatt and the same in raids. Reasonably smooth gameplay, no stutters or lock-ups. Your X800xt is a better video card. You should be ok at a reasonable price. She uses a 22 inch widescreen monitor.


Message edited by dirtmountain on 05-22-2008 at 08:47:48 PM
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frozenlead   05-22-2008 at 09:40:58 PM
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I had my desktop machine configured in my view config page using 1.5gb of ram for a while up until a few months ago when I threw in another 512. I was surprised how much my 3dmark scores went up - almost by 2k. Games ran a lot faster, and the pc seemed to move along quicker, too. I have an x1650xt OC in it, though, which is quite a bit more powerful than the x800. If you've got the money to spare, I'd say go for the ~$70 upgrade. Honestly, though, the 2800 is a very dated chip. Without OCing, my x1650xt is bottlenecked. You can get the ram to hold the hunger for now, but I wouldn't drop more money into that guy. An ati 3850 AGP is a waste, your PC will never be able to feed it. If you want to upgrade your GPU, which i recommend you don't, you need to OC your CPU by ~200MHz and buy nothing more powerful than a 2600pro or xt. And don't bother with nvidia for AGP. The cards don't compare to ati for the old bus. You'lll likely need a new PSU for the GPU upgrade, so check your specs before you decide. I was lucky to buy a big psu when I built my desktop, when it had a 9600xt in it.

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