What to upgrade Grafic Card or CPU?

[Kekojones]

have a question...Im thinking of upgrading my machine...

I have a 900MHZ AMD with 312 RAm and a Geforce2 GTS.

Thing is I only have 200 bucks so what do I do?

1)Upgrade my Grafic Card to a G4Ti200 or radeon 9500 Pro?
2)Upgrade my CPU to 1.5 MHZ?

sry to use this post for this but thing is that I've decided to do the Upgrade after seeing the Splinter Cells'Demo on my machine

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Erf...well, if you get the Radeon 9500 pro, that's almost all of the $200. If you're motherboard is Socket A (not the slot A), you can upgrade safely to an Athlon 1.4Ghz Thunderbird. Maybe even an AXP with a bios flash. I'd reccomend splitting the money between an Athlon XP 1700+ tbredA and a Geforce4 ti4200.

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...

 

[Lamoni]

If your motherboard is a Socket A, I would flash the BIOS, and get an Athlon XP 2100+ I would leave the video card. The GF2 GTS is still fine for most games at 1024x768 resolution with 2x AntiAliasing or less.

That will put you about $80.00 under budget. I would just save the $80.00 and put it towards your next upgrade which should be your video card.

If your motherboard is a Slot A, then I would save up a little more and get an nForce2 and an AXP 2000+ with 256 MB of RAM (one dimm) for around $300.00

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Lamoni on 12/19/02 12:21 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Rob423]

OR!~!! You can buy an Insane Asus n8x mobo and for xmas get a new CPU ...lol

This Community is like a Second Family!!

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Dude, look at his system. In most games, the Geforce2 is holding him back. He'd see big gains just moving up to a Geforce3/Radeon 8500

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...

 

[halkebul]

I'd reccomend splitting the money between an Athlon XP 1700+ tbredA and a Geforce4 ti4200.

Ditto!


<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[Lamoni]

In most games, the Geforce2 is holding him back.

In most games? Take a look at the <A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/vgacharts-02.html" target="_new">benchmarks</A> in the higher end systems (The GF2 Ti is very similar to the GTS) It always got over 30 FPS and they were all at 1024x768 w/ 32 bit color. True it doesn't perform near as well as the much newer cards, but I am arguing that it is still adequate and there would be a much more noticeable difference in upgrading the CPU. I upgraded my GeForce2 GTS to my GF4 Ti4200 and I didn't notice any difference unless I used very high resolutions with 2x AA.

I know that upgrading the video card would be an improvement, but not as much as the cpu. So I still recommend saving the money left over and using it toward a video card upgrade when you have about $200.00 to spend on it by itself. If you got a real good card now, the cpu would hold you back too much.

 

[ChipDeath]

I personally Prefer >60FPS - 30FPS is <i>playable</i> but is visibly not <i>quite</i> smooth enough (for me anyway).

I would still say he'll be happier if he upgrades to a higher end GFX card than if he upgraded just the CPU.

---
:tongue:

 

[Kekojones]

Thanks to all for your sugestions....

About my motherboard is an IWILL KK266Plus.

I intent to spend $250 US dollars more in about 4 months but in the meanwhile I want to make me a present to be able to play Rainbow Six ,Splinter Cell and C&C Generals at decent framerates.....

So I want to buy what improves most my FPS first

 

[hartski]

If I were him I'd be satisfied with AXP 1800+/1700+ and Radeon 8500, even the LE 64MB. I play Asheron's Call 2 and that game has lotsa visual goodies and really stresses your vidcard. The settings for the visuals are LOWEST, LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, VERY HIGH. The Asheron's Call 2 Configurator chose HIGH for my R8500 LE, that's pretty awesome. My friend however who has GF2GTS 64MB has been set to MEDIUM to LOW, kinda a bummer. HIGH and VERY HIGH settings aren't all different when it comes to visual quality so the R8500 LE did a good job

My system was:
AXP 1800+
R8500 LE
768mb PC2100 DDR RAM
Friend's system:
P4 1.8A GHz
GF2 GTS 64MB
512mb PC800 RDRAM

So I say upgrade both CPU and vidcard, should last you a year unless you wanna play with a fast system with visual goodies such as FSAA and Aniso on I say save up more for a better upgrade.

 

[phsstpok]

I think I can help.

Last year, at this time, I upgraded from a Duron @1 Ghz to a Tbird @1.5 Ghz. My 3DMark scores went from 3400 to 4200. A few months later I upgraded the video card from a Geforce 2 to an ATI 8500. I then got 7400 3DMarks. When I overclock the 8500 I get 8300 3DMarks.

To sum it up. Upgrade the processor from Duron to Tbird, and from 1 Ghz to 1.5 Ghz, gain = 25% (w/ GF2). Upgrade from GF2 to Radeon 8500, gain = 71% (98% when video card is overclocked). Upgrading both processor + video card + video overclocking got me a total gain of 144% (3400 3DMarks to 8300 3DMarks).

Video card gets you more gain. If you have to choose get it first. What card you get depends on your budget.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[LtBlue14]

3DMark IS a video card tester, so a better video card SHOULD yield more benefit than a better processor. that said, i agree with you that a video card would help him more, and i really like the idea of the 1700+ WITH the ti 4200, but if he's going to be upgrading again in a few months, he'll probably just be replacing one of those parts again...
i say radeon 9500pro so that you can upgrade other stuff (processor PLUS ram) in the spring

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<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq&notfound=1&code=1" target="_new">mubla otohp eht ni ecaf ruoy teg</A>

 

[phsstpok]

I'll go along a with 9500PRO. It should give a nice boost now with plenty more performance to offer later when a new CPU/motherboard is added to the mix.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[phsstpok]

I have some more benchies. Maybe it will help. Maybe it won't (but it surprised me).

I just downclocked my system to be inline with yours. It's now at 900 Mhz (9 * 100), memory is also at 100 Mhz and running conservative timings.

3DMark2001 (8500 @250/550) = 5214 (how does this compare with your GF2?)
3DMark2001 (@300/650) = 5384 (definitely CPU limited here)
UT2003 FlyBy (1024x768) = 62 FPS (vs. 101 FPS @1.5 Ghz)
UT2003 BotMatch = 22 FPS (vs 37 FPS @ 1.5 Ghz)

Recap

GF2 + Duron 1.0 ghz - 3400 3DMarks
GF2 + Athlon 1.5 ghz - 4200 3DMarks
8500 + Athlon 1.5 ghz - 7200 (8300 w/ OC) 3DMarks, 101 FPS Flyby, 37 FPS Botmatch
8500 + Athlon 900 Mhz - 5214 3DMarks, 62 FPS Flyby, 22 FPS Botmatch.

It still looks like a video card upgrade is the better choice based on my small example. However, an Athlon 900 definitely gives up a lot of performance vs a Athlon @ 1.5 ghz when something faster than a Geforce2 is used.


<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

2)Upgrade my CPU to 1.5 MHZ?

1.5mhz? lol well geeze ... i'm sure you can go to any school anf find a 286 8mhz and maybe give them 10 bucks for it!

lol! ;p

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by xxsk8er101xx on 12/20/02 11:32 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ub3r_n00b]

i'm sure you can go to any school anf find a 286 8ghz and maybe give them 10 bucks for it!

sweet baby jebus! 8Ghz for 10 bucks?! I want that!! :tongue:


<font color=red> Remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question... just stupid people. </font color=red>

 

[Quetzacoatl]

yeah...right

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...

 

[Lamoni]

I want to make me a present to be able to play Rainbow Six ,Splinter Cell and C&C Generals at decent framerates.....

A videocard will help your games more than a CPU. I also prefer to get over 60 FPS. I was considering the overall performance of your system. If all you use it for is for games, I think that a video card would be better. I was just thinking that to stay within your budget, I would have gotten a little better CPU, then waited a little longer and gotten a better video card. I really like having boot times decrease and having other programs load and run faster that aren't dependant on your video card.

combining the GF4 Ti4200 with an AXP 1700+ would be a very nice upgrade and you could play your games fine at good frame rates. The other option is to get a 2100+ now and a Radeon 9500 pro later for not that much more money in the long run.

I just want to say that I was happy with my GeForce2 GTS... and you can always lower the resolution to 800x600 to get good frame rates with those games. I am happier with my GeForce4 Ti4200, but I think I would have been even happier with a Radeon 9500 Pro (they weren't out when I upgraded though)

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

lol! that was suppose to be mhz lol ... thats funny ...

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>