Upgrade Advice for P4 / 2 Ghz?

gowens

Distinguished
Aug 25, 2003
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I have a 3 year old Dell 8200 with a P4 at 2 Ghz, 512 cache, 768MB of PC800 RDRAM, a 120 GB 7200/8mb Seagate Hard drive, and an AGP 4x slot with a GeForce 2 MX 400 64MB video card running Win XP Pro SP2.

Based on this config, what would be the best sub $200 upgrade to improve gaming performance? Would you agree that this machine should have a couple more years of life left for most applications/games?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by gowens on 07/18/05 06:00 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 

pauldh

Illustrious
You are not going to want to mess with your RAM, and who knows what CPU that motherboard can support. But one thing is for sure, you need to get a new video card. By far your weakest component is that GF2MX.

I would say $120 on a radeon 9800 pro would do you well. You could also spend $160 and get an AGP GF6600GT. Not sure if your power supply would handle the 6600GT or not.

In some games such as farcry and NFSU2 you will be CPU bottlenecked and not get the full performance out of the new cards. In others, the cards will make an even bigger difference. either way, compared to the GF2 MX, night and day difference in todays games.

Toms hardware just did a little $250 upgrade guide. Look on the homepage as they took an Athlon XP2000+ and upgraded the memory and video card, showing the improvements. Doom 3 had a huge boost. It would be a good read for you.

As far as lasting a couple years, that depends. I'd say it could probably meet minimum specs for almost any game coming out in the next two years, but resolution and detail levels will have to get dumbed way down to remain playable. Then again, (and no offense meant), if you have been happy with a GF2 MX up til now, you'll probably be happy with a 9800 pro GF6600GT for a couple more years. I'd say even though there is no guarantees for future titles, invest $120 in the 9800 pro and enjoy current games alot more. You need to dump the GF2MX.

Older game, <A HREF="http://www.ixbt.com/video2/over2k4-ut-1024.shtml" target="_new">but just look at</A> the GF2 MX compared to a 9800 pro in UT2003.


<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by pauldh on 07/18/05 10:09 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Let's see - 3yr old Dell. Prob has a 300W PSU with a 10-12A 12V rail. I think most mid-range cards today have the potential of pushing that PSU over the edge. If he has to upgrade the PSU, then he runs into the issue of whether or not that system has standard PSU wiring or the "Dell" version.

The first thing I would look at is the PSU. Amps for each rail and rated watts. If that is good, then I like either of your choices. I would hav eto lean towards the non HIS 9800 Pro. The extra bucks aren't worth the performance gain. I think the bottleneck would just shift to the CPU.

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pauldh

Illustrious
lol, sicko. Spelling Edited.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>
 

pauldh

Illustrious
Good thinking, gotta love Dell. :frown:


<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=658042" target="_new">3DMark05</A> <A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=3781954" target="_new">3DMark03</A>
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
You've asked the question in too many places. Go to hell...or sell the larger modules to buy some PC3200 like I said before.

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