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| Thread ID: 29823 | 2003-02-04 01:31:00 | Upgrade | norrol (2154) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 118166 | 2003-02-04 01:31:00 | My computer has a Solteck motherboard,Athlon 1.33 chip,512 sdram,and a G force mx2 video card. I wonder if the following upgrade costing $750 approx will give me much improvement. Chaintech motherboard special edition Apogee, Athlon 2100 chip, 512 ddr ram, G force mx 440 video card.I use my unit for mainly games internet use and editing digital video. Reguards Ron | norrol (2154) | ||
| 118167 | 2003-02-04 01:44:00 | Well, The DDR Ram is certainly faster which is good for digital video. The CPU would be nice in that video would encode much faster. The GF4 MX 440 is a great card that I find does 1024x768 res in games like Unreal Tournament 2003 at a good 100fps. If you have the money, then the upgrade would certainly make life easier for ya! |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 118168 | 2003-02-04 02:26:00 | Well as tweake would say. Geforce MX4's suck But, as you say it will give you a considerable performance boost. For another $80 you could find your self an ATI Radeon 8000 pro which is heaps better than the MX4 |
roofus (483) | ||
| 118169 | 2003-02-04 03:29:00 | Geforce 4MX's suck big time and should never be considered for gaming. If you intend to play any of the new games such as UT2k3 then you should consider a card with 128mbb RAM. ATI make some very nice cards such as the 8500LE (which comes with 128mb RAM) or the 9000pro(also avaliable with 128mb RAM) both will be superior to any Geforce 4MX. But still neither of these cards are perfect. If you are serious about gaming then it is well worth the investment in a good name brand ATI Radeon 9500pro or Geforce 4Ti. Personally i prefer the ATI Radeon 9500pro as it has very nice 2d quality aswell and in some cases out preforms the Ti4600. But whateva card u decide to buy make sure its a good name brand and has 128mb RAM. Now i come to your selection of motherboard, personally i have no problems with Chaintech but they haven't yet proven themselves. You'd be better off spending the extra money of a reliable name brand board. You haven't posted the specifications of the board nor stated your requirements, but i will still make a reckonmendation. From wot you say it sounds if you are slighty older(sorry if i offend i sorta mean family man as you say family computer) and not a hardware tweaker. So features such as RAID and a good overclocking BIOS wouldn't be a requirement. Recently i saw the Gigabyte GA-7VAX for $247.50. A friend has this board and it preforms very well. It doesn't tonnes of flashy features, but is a barebones board that will allow for future upgrades. It is SKt A, VIA KT400 chipet, 3DIMMS, ATA133(but no raid), 5PCI slots and 8xAGP. (note: the board doesn't have the best overclockin options) When upgrading it just isn't worth the hassle of buying cheap parts they WILL break down and cause you problems. I say it to everyone i know and i'll say it again, spend that little bit more to ensure quality and your upgrade/new build will go so much easier. |
Pete O'Neil (250) | ||
| 118170 | 2003-02-04 03:31:00 | opps... i dont know where the whole family thing came from musta been imagining it. | Pete O'Neil (250) | ||
| 118171 | 2003-02-04 04:24:00 | why pay $240 for a gigabyte - 7VAX when you can get a 7VA for $190 - $200 | roofus (483) | ||
| 118172 | 2003-02-04 08:29:00 | If you just upgrade your Graphics card you will notice a huge improvement in 3D gaming speed it pays to wait for as long as possible before doing a massive upgrade. the cpu ram you have is fast enough for 95 % of most users |
kiwibeat (304) | ||
| 118173 | 2003-02-04 09:18:00 | Hi Pete thanks for the info very much appreciated. Just in passing I wish I was a family man but I am 62 so just a young at heart gammer Reguards Ron | norrol (2154) | ||
| 118174 | 2003-02-04 10:17:00 | Well, You guys can say that the GF4 really bites, but in reality, is it gonna be a huge difference if you get 150fps or 120fps??? When you start getting over 60, the difference is lower and lower. 60Fps is the PCW minimal I think (Remembers reading an artile on anti-aliasing where I think it was scott said that :-)) for a game to be playable, over that and it aint too bad. UT2K3 - I get well over the 60fps rate at 1024x768 on 32Bit with all other settings at max detail. If you get less then there must be something you're doing wrong, or that Ive tweaked that's made a HUGE difference without realising it. There will always be bigger and better, and for FPS performance, the Raedon 9700Pro card is better than the 9500 AFAIK too. The cyber cafe that I sometimes go to uses GF2 mx400 cards and they play fine at 800x600 in Day of Defeat, havent tried 1024x768. It NEVER has gone jerky on me though, perfect every time and that's a GF2 and its an MX400! MAJOR difference between cards. The RAM being DDR will be excellent for that video editing, with faster transfer rates, you get upto a 35% increase in some areas due to using it (No rock-solid places where Ive seen these stats come to mind sorry...) The mobo... Well, provided its not going to fail on ya any time soon, it should be fine. Apparently the mobo that I bought was a 'real' budget in performance and quality, yet I have had NO troubles what-so-ever with it, except the memory speeds, which is only because Athlon's get defaulted to a lower speed than my processor actually was. Speaking with Scott Bartley, he said when he got an AMD PC, it had him too... :-) Pete - I know that it is sometimes better to spend the little extra cash, but you get to the stage where it's of little difference. If this dude has found a bargain deal like this, then why say "Oh but for an extra $20 than what your mobo would cost on its own, you can get a high-quality one" when its not part of this package deal? Overclocking > You're right. Ive never done it and doubt I'll need to. For the minimal extra speed that's gained nowadays, why bother when you could ruin your hardware, so I agree that overclocking features are not really needed. I dont know (personally) of any PC geek friends who've overclocked a PC since the P75 came out! Processor speeds already do more than satisfy most end-user needs, there are bigger bottlenecks in a PC that need to be eliminated IMHO before too much more happens in the CPU area. Hmm... Starting to get a little late... I feel like some cola ;-) Cheers Chilling_Silence Disclaimer: I hope I didnt come across as being rude or arrogant, as I did not mean too :-) |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 118175 | 2003-02-04 10:19:00 | > Chilling_Silence > > > Disclaimer: I hope I didnt come across as being > rude or arrogant, as I did not mean too :-) Now thats weird.. the showed up in the preview, and I was hoping that when I hit Post Message that it wouldnt still be there... It now seems to have disappeared when replying though??!?!?!?! *Thinks Pf1 is still recovering from sickness* |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
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