How to Spend Money on Component Upgrades

[Vorian]

I currently have system that I built around April last year (I couldn't wait for Core 2 Duo) with an Athlon 64 FX-60, Asus A8N32-SLI mobo, 2GB Corasir RAM, Antec P180 Case, Antec 550w NeoHE PS, ATI x1900xtx, 2x Western Digital WD4000KD 400GB RAID 0 HDs, Plextor PX-760A, Creative X-Fi Platinum. I'm wondering if an upgrade to either an 8800GTX, 8800GTS or HD2900XT would be worth it for me. Any thoughts??? How much of a bottleneck is my CPU???

Thanks,

Michael
---Abort, Retry, Fail???

 

[randomizer]

It's smart to look at upgrading a 2yr old hard drive since often when a dual core computer is making you wait a few seconds here and there, it turns out the cpu is waiting on the hard drive (more often than you'd guess). Since most modern mainstream 7200 harddrives are much faster than 2 yr old drives, it's an easy way to up the overall system responsiveness and reduce many irritating delays a worthwhile amount. Will it speed up all things, no. Will it speed up many things nicely? yes

I disagree, I upgraded to 2Gb RAM and my system is FAR MORE responsive than any upgrade from my 3yr+ old 160Gb PATA hard drive could achieve.

 

[runswindows95]

I have to agree with randomizer on the RAM vs HDD debate. If I had to upgrade one over the other, I would definitely go with more RAM.

 

[randomizer]

Admittedly 160Gb is getting a little small, but I would not need any more than 250Gb in a long time.

 

[ouroboros]

The last major overhaul I did was about 3yrs back, going from my old Socket-A 3200+ to a 939 4400+. Due to the mainboard I went with, (Dual SATA Asrock) I was still able to use my X850 AIW until I got my 8800GTS. Then I simply ported it back over to the 3200+ pc, which is now being used to run W98b so I can still play the old XP incompatable games.

As to the hard drive issue, I'm running a 160GB SATA and still have a bit more than 100GB free on it. I only have maybe 10 games on my system, including EQ2 and 15GB of music. I have no problems running Oblivion, NWN2, EQ2 or late game Civ4 with this setup. There's no real need for bleeding edge parts for great gaming.

 

[thomasxstewart]

Since this is Once Only Shot, JuST to meet "STEP UP" means from NT5 old XP to NT6, OR ALL THINGS GOOD. Thats means 690/790 chipset or X38 ONLY at present time & READ ALL FINE PRINT CONTACT MFG & DON'T FOOL YOURSELf. Vista is not enough, IT MUST BE VISTA ULTIMATE.

Signed😛HYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART VON DRASHEK M.D.

 

[halbhh]

I disagree, I upgraded to 2Gb RAM and my system is FAR MORE responsive than any upgrade from my 3yr+ old 160Gb PATA hard drive could achieve.

Not sure who you're responding to, but I'd agree with the elementary observation that 2GB of Ram is a priority. Myself, having a fair amount of experience with 1GB and then upgrading, I can say for me a modern hard drive made a bigger difference until I ran a certain mem hog program (on 1GB on WinXP) -- this depends on what software (or game) you are running.

 

[halbhh]

How exactly are the hardrives MUCH faster, a bit maybe but not much...

No need to guess. Check out THG's hard drive charts. A good 2 yr old hard drive would be one of the slowest in the current chart. Average read speed is a good metric.

 

[julius]

so so foolish... i love how the very article they link to, on their own site, disproves the drivel they themselves are spewing. would anyone care to find me an instance in that article where, at max resolution, the intel had a significant lead over the amd with a 8800gtx? the point at which amd bottlenecked the card was when the frame rates were very high, and wouldn't make any impact on playability whatsover.

 

[asdasd123123]

Personally I don't see why they're suggesting a Seagate harddrive..

Maybe toms don't change harddrives often enough, but through my company at least 90% of the computers that arrive it's a damn Seagate in there.

If it's another brand, often the builder placed the harddrive standing.
Makes you wonder if the average dell/compaq etc. system builders have more than 50 IQ. Or there's obvious traces of "angry kid by the computer"-syndrome

 

[caamsa]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/23/how_to_spend_money_on_component_upgrades/index.html

The time for an upgrade may be now. Next-generation platforms are still a year away, and in the meantime, upgrading certain components can help to limber up your two-year old system for another year.

Ahhh would have been nice to see more gaming benchmarks. Hmmm the single core base system did quite well and would make one wonder why they would even need to upgrade at this point. Well from just a gaming perspective that is what I got out of it.

I have 4 machines. Two with dual core Athlons a X2 6000+ a X2 3800+ and two single core machines a 3200+ and a 3800+ they all perform quite well in gaming. Hell the 3200+ has a vanilla 6800 video card and it will let me play most games at 1280 buy 1024. I have to turn some of the eye candy down but that aint bad at all.

 

[tmc]

Take into account a 4-year old system:
a64 x 3200+, 2x512 ddr (400)
250gb maxtor (pre seagate), visiontek (ati) 9600@256mb...
but: here's the kicker: socket 754 and agp bus loaded..
Not a good upgrade path here.. So in this area I think it's better to hunker down with low-end system performance and the new system AM3, socket 940, or whatever intel has up their socket sleeve to come out.

Then I shall be wow'd by system performance jumps with an x6400 amd or quad 6800 native (do I get to do an Indian dance, woo, woo, woo, woo?)

The upgrade paths laid out on a 2-year old sytem are more clear cut (socket 939 and 775 are gold vs 754 copper).
I already invested in a 400gb external usb drive to offload my "surplus" data. When you do a system rebuild, especially the $350 upgrade, it should go without saying that you should wipe your hard drive and reinstall windows.. your applications and benchmarks will thank you for this.. imagine what junk you've acquired in the system registry, orphaned install files and whatnot.

I have faith that processor prices will come down, memory and hard drive prices are good, but I'm still concerned with the "bang for the buck" when it comes to VIDEO CARDS.. the two main companies ATI (amd puppet) and GeForce (independent for the time being) are just not "getting it" when it comes to aggressive price cuts... This more than anything is keeping me out of the upgrade "market" as it were.. the other half of the equation is/was system bus/socket upgrade paths were changing like toilet paper, this is not good for the up-grader. My money does not grow on trees the way the gasoline stations think, thus I intend to stick it out almost possibly until some hardware dies, or technology/price redux gets further in-line with the "need for speed" ability to run mainstream software (2008, and beyond).

Part of the "allure" of next generation systems are:
1. Increased multi-tasking abilities (vista, speed-boost, & hybrid hard drives) Made for multi-core high (2gb+system memory, etc)
2. Smart multi-core computing can save power when not in use...
3. Time savings (when doing tasks such as encoding/ loading applications, etc.
4. Software that takes advantage of the new hardware, little do we know it, but applications are being written to be memory hogs because the people who write the software EXPECT you to have the latest and greatest... so, the handwriting is on the wall, upgrade or your system will C.R.A.W.L.

 

[HDDFreak]

This is a good article, but did I miss all the real life gaming benchmarks, I only saw one for quake 4

 

[TonyL222]

VERY timely article for me. I came here to ask for upgrade suggestions. My two year old "Kick ***" gaming system is very similar to the reference system in the article, except I have a FX-57 cpu, A8N-SLI Premium mb, 2GB ram, and two GeForece 7800 GT OC vid cards w/256mb ea in SLI. I've got plenty of HD space.

My upgrade question is primarily about the video cards. Would a single 8600 or 8800 with 256mb match or exceed these SLI 7800S?

Which would give me more bang for the buck - upgrade to a dual core cpu and one 8600/8800 vid card, or keep the FX-57 and get two 8 series cards for SLI? Which card(s) would you recommend. Total budget would be, say $500.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Plyro109]

Well, According to the VGA charts, one $280 8800GTS 320Mb would outperform your SLI setup. Going SLI with the 8600s will be such a mild performance up that you probobly wouldn't notice it. Also, the 8800s in SLI will exceed your budget, so I wouldn't go with that route. Maybe just a single 8800GTS and then a processor upgrade, will boost system performance enough to be really noticeable.

 

[TonyL222]

...Maybe just a single 8800GTS and then a processor upgrade, will boost system performance enough to be really noticeable.

THANKS!!!! Sounds like a plan.

 

[zipdrive]

I've got a question to you guys.
My current system is made up from:
Athlon xp 3700+
Gigabyte NF4 SLI MoBo
2x512 MB DDR
NV 7800GT card
some SATA drive (120 GB)

My question is:
Will I see a significant performance boost (in windows apps and games) if I upgrade to an X2 4200+ (or 4800+) and add another Gig of RAM now (and get a new graphics card in a year or so),
OR
Should I wait until Q12008 and get a new core duo system with 2GB RAM , new HDD and a 8800GTS?

Please consider that this is a gaming rig which currently plays all games out at nearly the highest quality at 1280x1024.

Thanks in advance.

 

[TonyL222]

A followup question:

Would I see a positive performance difference with a dual core Athlon 64 X2 4200+ - 2 x 2.2 GHz (which can be had for around $120) over my current FX-57 (1 x 2.8 GHz which can easily be OC to over 3 GHz)? Again, my mobo is socket 939.

PS - Sorry if these questions and answers are intuitively obvious to the tech heads here. Thanks for you patience with this novice.

 

[jmetal]

I was basically in the same situation.

A8N-SLI Motherboard
Athlon 64 3500 CPU
6600 GT w/128MB
560 WATT Power supply
2 GIG RAM
160 GIG RAID

I upgraded to
AMD X2 4200 CPU $99
NVIDIA 8800 GPU w/320MB RAM $310
and a new 22' LCD monitor

and got similar numbers in 3D mark etc.

2 things;

Make sure your mobo drivers AND BIOS are up-to-date, also you will want to run the AMD dual-core fix.

and very importantly upgrade to the latest version of nVidia NTune.

Using a Standard profile my 3D mark score in around 7500. But using nTune to find the best profile my score jumped to over 10000. That translated to 10fps in CoH at 1680x1050. Also I can run Bioshock with everthing on high at 1680x1050 and run 40-60fps.

Needless to say I am very happy with the upgrade.