Greetings to the forum once again.
So, I want to upgrade so that I can play HL2 and Far Cry and Doom 3 and all, because my current gaming system can't do it too well. (to the tune of playing at 640x480 and still having choppy graphics.) Of these two possible upgrade scenarios, which do you guys think would be better for playing games on? (and note the fine points at the end please)
Option 1:
XP Mobile 2500, OC'd maybe up to 2.4ghz
1GB pc3200 ram
nv 6800 GT
plain ol' 200GB hard drive.
Total <b>UPGRADE</b> cost, $255.
Option 2:
Dual 3.06 Xeons, the old 533 FSB kind (i.e. PC2700 ram not 3200!)
Quadro FX 4000
2GB PC2700 ECC RAM
sweet RAID setup, with 4x Raptor RAID-0 and a 558GB Raid-5.
Total <b>UPGRADE</b> cost, $190 - $200.
By now everybody will be saying "holy crap those prices are impossible" - I have two systems, one for games and one for pro graphics, and my roommate wants me to build him a $1,000 or less pro graphics machine and I want to upgrade my game machine. So, either I sell him my entire game machine and my old Quadro4 and use that money to buy a QuadroFX 4000, or I build his computer separately from new parts and buy a 6800 GT and a new motherboard so that I can OC my XP Mobile a bit more. I've got it all laid out in Excel, and those are actual prices. I also have an A64 price scenario that pans out to around $580, so that's not an option unless it's the only way to get games performance.
What I wonder about is, I don't want to end up with this awesome Quadro 4000, and end up being limited by the output of my 3.06ghz, 133MHZ FSB Xeons. Granted there are two of them, but most games will not benefit from dual proc power, so it just might be better for me to OC my XP Mobile a bit more instead. My main concern is that my game system currently has that XP-Mobile running at 2.18ghz (limited by mobo) and a Radeon 9800 Pro, and it SUCKS in Far Cry, Doom 3, and even Morrowind with fan packs. I think it might be processor speed, so I don't want that to happen with my new graphics card. I also have no idea how the Quadro FX 4000's performance compares to the Geforce 6800 line, or which card it's supposed to be similar to.
So what do you guys think? If I assume my Xeons will be about like having a 3GHz P4, will I end up having low FPS because of them? And, do you think that Quadro FX 4000 would perform in games at least as well as the 6800 GT? Or do I basically have to get a new Athlon 64 to get good games performance, because those CPUs are going to limit me?
So, I want to upgrade so that I can play HL2 and Far Cry and Doom 3 and all, because my current gaming system can't do it too well. (to the tune of playing at 640x480 and still having choppy graphics.) Of these two possible upgrade scenarios, which do you guys think would be better for playing games on? (and note the fine points at the end please)
Option 1:
XP Mobile 2500, OC'd maybe up to 2.4ghz
1GB pc3200 ram
nv 6800 GT
plain ol' 200GB hard drive.
Total <b>UPGRADE</b> cost, $255.
Option 2:
Dual 3.06 Xeons, the old 533 FSB kind (i.e. PC2700 ram not 3200!)
Quadro FX 4000
2GB PC2700 ECC RAM
sweet RAID setup, with 4x Raptor RAID-0 and a 558GB Raid-5.
Total <b>UPGRADE</b> cost, $190 - $200.
By now everybody will be saying "holy crap those prices are impossible" - I have two systems, one for games and one for pro graphics, and my roommate wants me to build him a $1,000 or less pro graphics machine and I want to upgrade my game machine. So, either I sell him my entire game machine and my old Quadro4 and use that money to buy a QuadroFX 4000, or I build his computer separately from new parts and buy a 6800 GT and a new motherboard so that I can OC my XP Mobile a bit more. I've got it all laid out in Excel, and those are actual prices. I also have an A64 price scenario that pans out to around $580, so that's not an option unless it's the only way to get games performance.
What I wonder about is, I don't want to end up with this awesome Quadro 4000, and end up being limited by the output of my 3.06ghz, 133MHZ FSB Xeons. Granted there are two of them, but most games will not benefit from dual proc power, so it just might be better for me to OC my XP Mobile a bit more instead. My main concern is that my game system currently has that XP-Mobile running at 2.18ghz (limited by mobo) and a Radeon 9800 Pro, and it SUCKS in Far Cry, Doom 3, and even Morrowind with fan packs. I think it might be processor speed, so I don't want that to happen with my new graphics card. I also have no idea how the Quadro FX 4000's performance compares to the Geforce 6800 line, or which card it's supposed to be similar to.
So what do you guys think? If I assume my Xeons will be about like having a 3GHz P4, will I end up having low FPS because of them? And, do you think that Quadro FX 4000 would perform in games at least as well as the 6800 GT? Or do I basically have to get a new Athlon 64 to get good games performance, because those CPUs are going to limit me?