What would be the best choice ?

[Hudson1872]

Ive been to toms alot over the years, and you guys seem pretty knowledgable, so here it goes. Im EXTREMELY Stoked over Doom 3 going gold and in lue of it, I want to do a mini upgrade to my system. Right now I have a XP 2100+ w/ 768 ram and im running a GF TI 4600. I can go for either of these upgrades:

- ATI X800 Pro 256
- AMD 64 3200+, New MOBO, 2x 512 Ram

What would be better in my postion right now ? Eventually, im gonna get both upgrades, but can get one now and the other in mid october. I was thinking of going with the graphic card so at least I can play Doom 3 when it comes out. HELP ME OUT !! THanks !!!

 

[Coyote]

If you get the X800 pro you'll be limited by ur cpu. But I'd still get it first to enjoy a better gaming experience now. Then later when you can upgrade to the AMD 64 & mobo, you'll be able to enjoy the full potential of the vid card

Mobile XP 2600+ (11X200)
Abit NF7-S v 2.0
Maxtor 60GB ATA 133 7200RPM
512MB Corsair Twinx 3200LL
BBA 9800 Pro
Enermax Noisetaker 420 watts
Win98SE

 

[HardWareBoss]

Tuff choice. I would by the Cpu, ram ,mobo. But thats up to you. X800pro should be cheaper by Oct.

 

[xeenrecoil]

heya Hudson;

That is definately a tough choice, because the core upgrade is Huge it would help alot with everything including gaming.

The graphics card upgrade is equally as huge, however if it were me i would upgrade my computer core first, and wait for the price to drop a bit on the ATI X800 series, by then you may be able to afford the faster model in the series.

 

[endyen]

It's a definit no as far as I can tell. Would you really want an Agp mobo in Oct? Would you want to buy an agp graphics card in Oct?
Best option right now would be to pick up the radeon 9800pro with 128 MB of ram at <A HREF="http://shop.ati.com/tradeup.asp" target="_new">http://shop.ati.com/tradeup.asp</A> and save the rest of the money till Oct.

 

[Hudson1872]

hmm.. interesting.. I might actually just get the 9800 pro and wait till oct. for a full system upgrade. Do you guys think if im running that 9800 pro with my 2100+/768ram, doom 3 will run good ?

 

[davemar14]

It should run fairly well, with medium settings. The video card won't hold you back, it will be the 133 FSB on your 2100+. You could OC that CPU, but you better have DDR 333, and a good motherboard. (N-Force 2).

 

[endyen]

Doom was designed for the gforce 5800, the 9800pro should give great framerates at high quality (it's all guessing) but any bottleneck you have will be the cpu. What mobo do you have?

 

[ted_logun]

you mean the 6800 series

i recently got a 3.0ghzpresscot and was going to wait for a new graphics card series to come out because i hadn't heard all that good stuff about the fx series a few months ago, so i'm in a similar position to you and just waiting for the x800 or even a 6800 with ps3 to be a bit cheaper

 

[endyen]

This comment probably belongs in the graphics section, but oh well.
After the wonderfull way the FX 5xxx cards did shader 2, does anyone actually believe the 6800s will be able to use ps3?