Upgrade Advice for P4 / 2 Ghz?

[gowens]

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 06:01 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[theholylancer]

um video card i think would be the first thing on my list i dunno what ya slot is so can;t help ya, usually its AGP for something around that year and wow are throse rumbus ram really good???? i mean 800 MHZ man imagine them with A64s for OCing... must have been expensive as hell too

 

[dunklegend]

You could get a new video card, just make sure that your computer has an AGP slot, some of the low end DELLs only have the onboard graphics or some PCI card.
But if I were in your place I would start saving for an AMD system.

<b><font color=blue>If you try to please everybody, nobody will like you<font color=blue></b>

 

[Starfishy]

Ha... I had to deal with this on my vacation. My wife's uncle had bought a dell that only had onboard graphics. Funny thing is that when I arrived he had already bought a new PCI-e graphics card. He asked me to install it, and I asked him for a crowbar.

 

[gowens]

That kills!

 

[theholylancer]

lol lol lol.... that gota hurt hopefully he can return it...

 

[theholylancer]

hmm i'd say <A HREF="http://www.anitec.ca/?mode=product_detail&pid=2918&mcid=24" target="_new">this</A> if ya are using canadian dollars or a eVGA e-GeForce 6600GT 128MB GDDR3 AGP8X w/DVI, TV-Out (Retail)if ya are using american dollar and if you plan that when you upgrade you will get a AGP slotted mobo (for cheap machines) or just get something like <A HREF="http://www.anitec.ca/?mode=product_detail&pid=4093&mcid=24" target="_new">this</A> if ya are not willing to shell out that much $$ on something that is not gona last long

 

[dunklegend]

LOL
That's funny but that kinda stuff needs something stronger than beer.
May I suggest TEQUILA

<b><font color=blue>If you try to please everybody, nobody will like you<font color=blue></b>

 

[endyen]

I hope <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=GO&Range=1&Category=38&bop=and&description=6600gt&srchInDesc=agp" target="_new">this</A> works for you.
Your cpu will become the bottlekneck, but you will be better off.

 

[Crashman]

Sell 512MB of the RAM and buy 1GB of PC3200 for about the same price as you'd get for your used RAM. Then sell your system with only 256MB of RAM and put the money towards a new one.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[dunklegend]

Crashman's advice is good.
Try that, and when you have some money we can give you some options to spend it.
Good Luck!

<b><font color=blue>If you try to please everybody, nobody will like you<font color=blue></b>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Okay, it seems like everyone's been saying either you're screwed or get a GF6600GT. Me, I say you're only partially screwed. Your proc and RAM are pretty much locked as is, and wouldn't be worth the ugprade anyway. Your best bet is the graphics.

<i>But</i> your power supply may very well crap out on a high end graphics upgrade. (Like a GF6600GT.) Now you can run a slightly safer risk of this by getting a cheap Radeon9800Pro.

Or you could even go as cheap as a GF4 4200 128MB DDR.

Either graphics card should be noticably better than a GF2MX.

Honestly, I wouldn't sweat it too much. Go too high with your graphics card and you'll run the risk of needing a new PSU as well. Besides, go too high and you're just making the CPU the bottleneck instead of the graphics card in your gaming anyway. So just save your money on something like a GF4 4200 and save up to replace that box in a year or two.

Would you agree that this machine should have a couple more years of life left for most applications/games?

If by most you mean most <i>existing</i> (IE. old) applications and games? Sure.

If you mean most that came out in the last year and will come out in the next years? Maybe, if you don't mind being limited to rendering at low resolutions with mid-to-low quality settings...

یί∫υєг ρђœŋίχ @ 193K
Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.

 

[Crashman]

But he could get more out of his RAM than his entire system is actually worth, if he's good at selling.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

This is true, but how likely are any of us mere mortals to find just the right buyer anytime soon?

Besides, in a year there will probably still be a market of people with really old systems like his and though a little harder to find a market for, his RAM may be worth even more then. Antiques are funny that way.

I'm just of the opinion that the easiest and most enjoyable route right now is to just pick up a GF4-4200 and enjoy that now. He can still save up and simultaneously research the right market to sell the RAM and the box seperately in a year from now, and then he'll be in a good position to make a good profit from the old and buy a totally new system with those profits and his savings.

But it's all his choice what to do of course.

یί∫υєг ρђœŋίχ @ 193K
Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.

 

[bluesquid]

I have the same exact Pc, but I have 1.5 mbs or rdram. And let me tell you it beats the crap outta "faster" pc's.
I have a question about my new visiontek x800xl. My sweet little pc wont boot with it in. How do I update the chipset?