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will upgrading the video card help?

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mearguy71   11-30-2008 at 05:41:58 AM

I am trying to improve performance on a PC I will only use on the weekends for Warhammer Online so I do not want to put alot of money into this machine. I just want to know if I will see an increase in performance by upgrading my video card despite the fact that the system is old. Going off the benchmarks on this site it is atleast twice as fast as the old card but not sure if my other PC specs will prevent any noticeable difference.

from x1950 GT to a HD 3850 : AGP slot

System Specs (please dont laugh).

AMD Athlon XP 2600 1.91 GHZ
2 gig ram (pc 3200 I think)
7200 RPM Hard Drive

nothing is OCd.

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roofus   11-30-2008 at 05:48:48 AM
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i dont think your CPU will come close to letting a 3850 perform as it should. that isnt to say you wont see an improvement but it wont be running to its potential. hopefully someone replies that has tried it because im not real sure you will see alot of gain here mearguy.

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mearguy71   11-30-2008 at 05:52:07 AM
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Im not sure what type of chip the AMD processor is but is there a processor upgrade that will fit without replacing the MB?

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Lucuis   11-30-2008 at 05:52:38 AM
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Will it help? Yes

Will it be worth your money? Probably not.

The Processor is just too slow, even for it's generation of graphics cards to power.

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dirtmountain   11-30-2008 at 06:08:27 AM
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You also have to take into account that the AGP 3850 also requires a pretty powerful power supply, 400w-450w is recommended. Unless you already have that powerful of a PSU in your system, you would have to upgrade it at the same time.

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Cronus2099   11-30-2008 at 06:29:39 AM
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Jesus, an Athlon XP 2600, that's like Socket A. I just retired my wife's XP 2500 last week and I had a FX 5200 in there. No way would I even think of running anything higher than a ATI 9800 pro or a Geforce 6800 GT in there, much less a 3850.

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fayamon   11-30-2008 at 06:54:03 AM
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I own that setup (Amd Mobile 462 @ 2.32 Ghz -210 fsb) x1950 pro 2 gb gigh end and so on. I tried a 3850 from a friend and let me tell you you won t see a big difference because the cpu is definitely bottleneckin u. Sorry for you but it's time to mo ve up :S

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