Upgrade advice wanted (UK)

[Syke]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

At present my system is:

Athlon 900
Asus A7V M/B
PSU 300W
Win 98se
512 RAM
DirectX 9.0
Crucial Radeon 9200se

This works just fine for most of my needs, except games, mainly flight sims,
(FB, IL-2, Lock-on etc) I realize that the CPU is probably the bottleneck
at the moment, so I want to upgrade to get a reasonable performance
increase, so that when there's more than two or three aircraft around, I
don't get a slide show!

Could anybody suggest a M/B, CPU, video card combination which would suit
this set up without breaking the bank? I'm probably hoping to spend about
£150 -£200 and I don't really want to change the OS or the PSU.

Regards and thanks in advance

P J Macguire

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

i just upgraded my computer from a 5 yrs old Dell T600 to an AMD 3000+
system in order to get the maximum juice out of the flight and space
sim games i have, IL2, Flanker 2, EAW, F4, FreeSpace

here's my latest setup:
MSI K8N Neo Platinum Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 250Gb ATX AMD
Motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 754
Processor Model ADA3000AXBOX

Antec Life Style SONATA Piano Black 0.8mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower
Computer Case 380W Power Supply

eVGA 128-A8-N350 Geforce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card

crucial 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System
Memory Model CT6464Z40B.8T - OEM

i spent total around $600 for above setup, ordered everything from
newegg.com, works like a champ, worth every dollar...

 

[Rob]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

"Syke" <h.macguire@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:3f6q3hF69aavU1@individual.net...
> At present my system is:
>
> Athlon 900
> Asus A7V M/B
> PSU 300W
> Win 98se
> 512 RAM
> DirectX 9.0
> Crucial Radeon 9200se
>
> This works just fine for most of my needs, except games, mainly flight
> sims,
> (FB, IL-2, Lock-on etc) I realize that the CPU is probably the bottleneck
> at the moment, so I want to upgrade to get a reasonable performance
> increase, so that when there's more than two or three aircraft around, I
> don't get a slide show!
>
> Could anybody suggest a M/B, CPU, video card combination which would suit
> this set up without breaking the bank? I'm probably hoping to spend about
> £150 -£200 and I don't really want to change the OS or the PSU.
>
> Regards and thanks in advance
>
> P J Macguire
>
>

Seems you can get a P4 3.0 cpu for 100 and a good MB for 120. I only looked
at one site so you can probably find cheaper.
My best advice is simply get the quickest you can afford.
I would be a bit worried about your psu if you plan on getting a new vid
card in future.

 

[Joe]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

I dont have an ASUS motherboard but poking around the ASUS site it seems
like the fastest CPU your motherboard will take is an ATHLON 1400. In order
to take that CPU you must have bios 1008 which, if you dont have it you can
get that the ASUS site. It MIGHT be that your board could take a faster CPU
if you tweak it the right way but that is information you can best get over
at the ASUS newsgroup:

alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus

Any upgrade much more than that will likely require a new motherboard. Even
if you stay with 32bit gear any new motherboard you are likely to find will
take DDR memory and not the SDRAM you have so you will need new memory as
well.

One thing to keep in mind. Almost ny upgrades you buy for any 32bit system
is spending money on a dead-end. The entire industry is in the middle of a
transition from the old 32 bit to the new 64 bit. Video cards are moving
from AGP to PCIExpress. Take a look at the new 64bit boards. Anything you
buy now that will not fit on a 64bit board is something you will have to buy
again when you finally go 64bit.

 

[Joe]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim (More info?)

Here is something else you may want to look at.

Tom's Hardware atricle on:

"Tuning Extreme: Overclocking with the Asus A7V"

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20000928/