Upgrade Advice

Penumbra

Distinguished
Sep 19, 2003
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18,510
Did a quick search before posting and couldn't find anything that really answered my question so hopefully something similar hasn't been asked before - apologies if it has.

The main points of my system (roughly 18months old now) are as follows:

Athlon XP 1700+
512 MB PC2100 RAM
64 MB GeForce Ti-200
40 GB Hard Disk
DVD-ROM & CD-RW Drives
SB Live Sound Card


Now my question is, would you consider it worth it, given my old and now fairly poorly specified system to upgrade the graphics card to something better say a Radeon 9800 Pro for example? Am I likely to gain much in the way of performance (thinking games here) by doing this alone? And finally do you think it's cost effective to upgrade the card or should I just wait until I have a bit more money saved up and can afford a completely new system?
 

TKS

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Mar 4, 2003
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You'll bottleneck the system with that XP 1700...unless you can mad overclock it...which the 1700's do very nicely. but you will bottleneck the 9800 Pro with that processor. I'd upgrade processors...of course, you didn't include your motherboard model and vendor...so I can't tell you what processor to upgrade to.

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Nvidia's marketing tip:
<font color=blue>The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. </font color=blue> <font color=red>Adolf Hitler</font color=red>
 

Penumbra

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Sep 19, 2003
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18,510
Thanks for replying.

I would be willing to consider upgrading the processor too, if the combination will extend the life of the system a reasonable amount.

Motherboard is Asus A7A266-E.

Having looked in the manual either it doesn't say what the fastest processor is it can support or at least I can't find the approptiate information needed to derive it if it is there.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
I agree with TKS to a point, your CPU will definitely be the bottleneck of your system if you get, say, a Radeon 9800.

On the other hand, your graphics card is your bottleneck right now, and the most gains you'd see is with a video card.

I'd get the best card you can afford... Radeon 9600 pro, or 9700/9800 if you have the cash... and you'll see a massive jump in performance. Everything but half-life 2 should be silky smooth on a 1700+ with a 9600 PRO.

Then you can always upgrade your processor later if you really need to, but I don't think the 1700+ is all that bad, actually.

Your motherboard will probably take at least a 2400+, even if it's a little older.

[EDIT]
Just thought I'd add that I've got an AthlonXP 2000+... which is only, like, 200 Mhz faster than the 1700+... and I noticed a MASSIVE diffference going from a Radeon 8500 (which is much better than a Geforce2 Ti 200) to a Radeon 9500 PRO (which isn't nearly as good as a Radeon 9800).

I can now run games at 1024*768 with 2xAA and 8x anistropic filtering SILKY SMOOTH.

It's like night and day. The 8500 was a great card mind you, but it just doesn't compare with the new 9500 PRO. Made a HUGE difference.
[/EDIT]

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Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3529
 

RRAMJET

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Aug 5, 2003
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Overclock that baby...and wait and see how HL2, stalker, doom etc run with your Ti200. If you dont like, get a 9800 Ati. I have a similar A7V266-E mobo and i think it will take 2400+ but your 1700+ should overclock to a similar speed to this which is fine for gaming. Also i'm waiting till HL2 comes out at the end of the year before i upgrade the vid card as there may be some new ones out then.

If he doesn't die, he'll get help!!!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by rramjet on 09/20/03 06:17 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

phial

Splendid
Oct 29, 2002
6,757
0
25,780
agree


the purchase that I would do in your case (because im in a very similar situation ^_^) is either a 9700pro or 9800nonp, because either of those would give you teh most performance increase in games

im probbly bonna pick up a 9700nonpro from ebay soon




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