New system or upgrade current? Detailed.

[ultima_weaponx]

I currently have...
AMD 3000+ (socket 939)
Gigabyte K8NS Ultra-939
2gb (4x512) kingston hyper X PC3200
ATI X800 pro (AGP boo yea haha)
Antec 450watt
640gb WD Caviar Black -SATA (brand new)
And........ 22" Samsung 2ms LCD (226bw)

I only play World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2 and the rest is just general use.

I would LOVE to buy a second 22" monitor and have it run with the 22" I have now while in games and NOT LAG AT ALL. Right now if I open warcraft with a second monitor just displayig my desktop with msn my fps is cut down from 27 to 11 (low-medium settings).
So, what kind of upgrade should I do?

Is my current system upgradable to do what I want? What could I do with $600 CAD from http://www.memoryexpress.com ?
NewEgg canada seems to have **** prices which is why I do not use it. Memoryexpress has better ones and is 10 minutes from my home.

So. Upgrade or is a new system possible with this? And what is a good 22" monitor to pair with what I have now?

 

[xthekidx]

I would start over. You could keep the Case, HDD, monitor, and maybe the PSU depending on how old it is, but judging by the rest of your system I think you probably need a new one of those too.

What case do you have?

 

[xthekidx]

E8500-$245
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX20876(ME).aspx

Gigabyte P43 DS3L-$110
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX21735(ME).aspx

Saphire 4830-$150
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX22610(ME).aspx

Corsair 450vx-$90
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX18183(ME).aspx

Mushkin DDR2-800 4gb-$60
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX17274(ME).aspx

So that puts you close to $650 I think, If its too much you can go with the E8400 instead, or step down the GPU, but I recommend you keep it if you want to run dual monitors.

 

[Nik_I]

i'm going to agree with thekid. also, you could probably drop the new power supply if the one you have now is one of good quality. you'd be far happier with a new system rather than upgrading your current one. you would be limited to low-end athlon x2 cpu's, and DDR1 memory costs a fortune these days.

 

[captaincharisma]

he could also step down to an AMD CPU there always good for budget builds

 

[xthekidx]

Yeah but seeing as how he is still hanging onto an AGP GPU, I'm guessing he is the kind of guy who hangs onto a system for 3-4 years. Going with an Intel build will last longer than an AMD build.

 

[ultima_weaponx]

Yes indeed, I've had this system for 4-5 years now. Upgraded the video card once.

I am using a thermaltake Xaser 3 super tower. I've replaced the fans twice (once they tsart getting loud) so I think this tower will be sufficient to use again.

My power supply came with a friends Antec full tower 3 years ago or so. It is an Antec Truepower 450 i believe. It has sata connectors but I am unsure if it has PCI-E or not. I will take apart my tower tonight for a cleaning anyhow and check.

A few questions/comments on the hardware you've selected for me (thanks btw!)

1) and E8400 or E8500 sounds perfect! I will probably go with the E8400

2) The big difference between the Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L and a popular board like the EVGA 750i would be the SLi capabilities (which I don't care for), right? I beleive it has all the features I could ask for. If that's the case - great!

3) The Sapphire 4830 is roughly on par with the Nvidia 9800gt I take it? Would it be worth saving $60 or so to buy a 9800GTX?

4) if 450watts is good enough for a system like this, that's a pretty great price!

5) Would it be better to buy PC8500 for this board rather than PC6400 if the prices are extremely close?

Thanks again for the replies!

Also, does the Samsung 22" T220 seem like a good monitor pick for gaming/cost ratio when I have the cash?

 

[xthekidx]

2. yes
3. the 4830 is a little better than the 9800gtx, not as good as the gtx+. If you can find the 9800GTX for $60 cheaper then that would be a good option, in the US the 4830 is the better deal.

 

[ultima_weaponx]

Ah I worded the video card question poorly...

Would it be worth it to wait and save more money to buy the:
eVGA e-GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDTV-Out ($220.00)

Instead of the

Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDTV-Out ($150.00)

$70 price difference?

 

[xthekidx]

Well for the purposes you have stated in your OP, the 4830 will be sufficient. But if you were interested in saving up money for a better card, then the next card I would suggest you get is the 4850, its priced about the same as the 9800GTX+ and performs better in most benchmarks. If you will pick up some other games then you should consider upgrading the GPU, for those games you mentioned the 4830 will be enough.

 

[ultima_weaponx]

Thanks for the great information!
The 4830 sounds like the card for me!

Now, my final questions would just be:

5) Would it be better to buy PC8500 (DDR2 1066) memory for this board rather than PC6400? The prices seem very close but I think sometime people recomend 'slower' ram in different situations for reasons of matching fsb speeds or something like that...

6) and...
Samsung T220 http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX21123(ME).aspx
OR
LG Flatron W2242TQ-BF http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX21239(ME).aspx
The prices seem very close and the specs seem identical. However reviews seem few for the LG and all over the place for the Samsung

thanks again for speedy replies!

 

[xthekidx]

5. If you can find 1066mhz ram for the same price you might as well get it, most 1066mhz is just factory overclocked 800, and with the low voltages on the ram I sugegested you could probably overclock that ram if you wanted. The only difference in the chips is that when the 1066 ram was manufacturered and tested, it was sorted into the "ultra-high" quality memory bin, the 800 was sorted into the "high" quality memory bin, and from there the factory added heatsinks, rated and packaged the ram.

You won't really notice a huge difference, benchmarks show 1-2% performance increase getting faster ram, and the difference isn't noticable outside of synthetic benchmarks.

6 You could go with either one, those are pretty good prices for those monitors. I have the 19" version of the Samsung and its great, I have no complaints. Most people who complain about it is because the base is kinda hard to assemble, but as far as performance goes, its very good. The LG looks fine too, and is cheaper. Samsung has a little better rep as far as monitors go.