I'm thinking about updating my rig for performance. I sort of want to be concious of 64 bit processing.

I'm running:

AMD Athlon 2800
1.81 GHz
512 MB RAM
Microsoft XP
Some crappy sound card
Radeon 9800 256 MB
114 GB HD

I don't want to spend more than I have to, and I only want to upgrade with 64 bit processing in mind. I also want to continue to be able to run games for the next 4 years or so on high settings. Space isn't a big issue for me, so unless I can find a really cheap 512 MB stick of ram, I'm not going to hussle real fast to get one until I need it. Currently all of my games run smoothly without. My graphics card SHOULD be just fine for the next few years to come. I don't care about sound. Basically, I'm wondering if I should get a new processor. I'm not too knowledgable on processor speeds, so any amount of assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I basically want to know if I should update now, or later, to keep up. And how much I have to spend. I don't even know if I can manage 500 bucks, so it's got to be something I NEED.

JediKirby

I'd say upgrade to a gig of memory at the least.. that would make a big difference I think, but the rest looks good.

Gig of memory.

AMD X2 (wait for them to come down in price)

Upgrade to a 7800GT

new motherboard of course, I suggest an A8N SLI-Deluxe.

Those components are NOT feasible to run anything on high I'd say...a year from now?

Your system is significantly faster than mine, and mine plays anything I throw at it..typically with 4x FSAA & 16x anis. filtering @ 1280x1024..but I don't have HL2, Doom3, etc.

Get some more RAM, and see what you can't run well...then consider upgrading something else.

Honestly, I think you're better off upgrading twice as often and staying a step or three behind cutting edge technology..you'll save money, and have a faster system more consistently (instead of having a kick-butt rig for 3 months, then so-so for 3 months..then bleh for 6 months, it'll be more spaced out..)..

Get an Athlon64, gig of ram, and a 6800GT.

None of you are mentioning price... which is important. And like I said, I won't get a gig of ram until I put a disk in the drive and it doesn't play the game correctly. I'm ok with forking the money over then, and ram purchases are always necissary, I'm quite aware of that.

JediKirby

Why not just save time and upgrade RAM now? The next generation of games will require more RAM than 512 to run perfectly.

A gig of PC3200 is 85-90 bucks at [url]www.newegg.com[/url] (arguably THE most reliable online store for the US), but unless you're willing to drop 700 on upgrades, it's really quite pointless to upgrade anything else.

Trust me, you want a gig of RAM. It has nothing to do with running the game from startup, it has to do with smoothness of framerate. It stopped the stuttering problems I had in HL2, it made the FEAR demo highly playable, etc.

I'm not too sure even if a brand new system will run new games at high settings -- my 1.6a @ 2.133 was pretty fast four years ago..and Radeon 9800 Pro cards (mine's roughly like yours..128mb non-pro flashed to pro) weren't around, IIRC. Battlefield2 isn't going to be happy at 1280x1024 @ high detail, I'm sure..

If you don't want to spend any more money on RAM since everything runs fine, why bother upgrading at all? Wait until stuff doesn't work properly, then upgrade. It'll be cheaper anyway..

[url]www.pricewatch.com[/url] > [url]www.newegg.com[/url]

Yeah if you like buying things cheaply without any guarantee they'll ever arrive. Hell even if they do arrive they probably won't work right, and a lot of sites don't have the RMA features newegg has. Newegg is reliable, fairly cheap (though not the cheapest) has the cheapest shipping by far, and has quick, tracked, delivery.

no you tool spend it on a chinese mail order bride

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Doubtful. Price Watch is a gamble. You're getting multiple things from multiple sources, with varying shipping rates and different shipping times. Not to mention various reliability. Ordering from one place is much easier and much less of a shipping hassle. Not to mention things are rarely more than a few dollars different in price.

There's a reason stores like Newegg and ZipZoomfly has such high reseller ratings.

You. Got. Lucky. My friend ordered a KEYBOARD off some random .com from pricewatch--never came in. The site never answered his emails, refunded his money, or anything. Newegg has live tech support, and a guaranteed RMA no matter what the cause (you could break it with your own two hands) within 7 days.

My entire PC was built from scratch using items bought off of pricewatch. Got every single one of em. All of them work perfectly. It would have cost a few hundred more if I bought it all on newegg. You. Lose.

Alright children..stop fighting now..

Anyway..Pricewatch itself is just a price engine, so nobody can blame anything on pricewatch. Newegg's service cannot be beat, IMHO. However, you can oftentimes find a better deal -- use Pricewatch if you like.

Personally, I will not buy from any unknown retailer listed on pricewatch unless I've checked [url=www.resellerratings.com]ResellerRatings[/url] and am satisfied with their reviews.

$0.02

Oh for christ's sake. Half the time pricewatch points you to newegg.

The only thing I hate about newegg is it takes them damned near a week to process an order.

You can put a rush on it for $3 if it's that annoying.

I agree that getting a gig of faster RAM is all you really need to do at this time.

They process it the same day if you order it before 12 AM. I've never had processing take more than 2 days (though that IS still quite a long time)

I usually have same-day or next day shipping, then I get my order two days later..but I'm on the east coast, so it gives them a few extra hours to send it out. :p

That's so weird. It seriously took them over 5 days to process my order.

Oh well, at least it's not the norm.

On what time/day of the week did you order? One time I ordered on Thursday night. Processed mostly on Friday, however Fedex does not operate on Saturday or sunday and Monday was 4th of July so it did not ship for almost a week and did not arrive for 8 days.

Order on Monday morning with no holidays and you'll have it wednesday or thursday.

Your processor and video card are fine. Knowing what speed your RAM is would help (you should upgrade to 1 GB; I am a proponent of "all you need is 512" but that's much less true on WinXP and with newer games).

64 bit processing likely won't be a real issue for 5 years. It's already existed (everyone knows there's a 64 bit industrial use version of Windows XP right?) for a while now and hasn't mattered. If you are really that concerned about it, you're gonna need a new motherboard and processor... and new RAM... and since everyone's jumping on the stupid PCI-Express bandwagon you'll need a new video card. So, if you're gonna do a major upgrade, you're gonna wind up just building a whole new computer sans peripherals and hard drive.

If you're just after a little performance boost, defragging your hard drive (I always recommend Norton Speed Disk) and pruning (and defragging, after the main defrag) your registry wouldn't hurt if you haven't in a while. I just went through my network and defragged and cleaned up registries this past week and it's been a second renaissance for my little network's performance. Also I hadn't defragged most of my computers in 3+ years.

[url]www.broadbandreports.com[/url] can give you some pointers on optimizing your internet connection, which, depending on if you have particularly bad settings, could help performance a little too.

QM

P.S. - I think it's weird how many of you order electronics online and have them shipped to you. How often do you have parts dead on arrival?

P.P.S. - Don't overclock; not worth it.

Here is a free upgrade: Overclock.

[QUOTE=Quib Mask]Your processor and video card are fine. Knowing what speed your RAM is would help (you should upgrade to 1 GB; I am proponent of "all you need is 512" but that's much less true on WinXP and with newer games).

64 bit processing likely won't be a real issue for 5 years. It's already existed (everyone knows there's a 64 bit industrial use version of Windows XP right?). If you are really that concerned about it, you're gonna need a new motherboard and processor... and new RAM... and since everyone's jumping on the stupid PCI-Express bandwagon you'll need a new video card. So, if you're gonna do a major upgrade, you're gonna wind up just building a whole new computer sans peripherals and hard drive.

If you're just after a little performance boost, defragging your hard drive (I always recommend Norton Speed Disk) and pruning (and defragging, after the main defrag) your registry wouldn't hurt if you haven't in a while. I just went through my network and defragged and cleaned up registries this past week and it's been a second renaissance for my little network's performance. Also I hadn't defragged most of my computers in 3+ years.

[url]www.broadbandreports.com[/url] can give you some pointers on optimizing your internet connection, which, depending on if you have particularly bad settings, could help performance a little too.

QM

P.S. - I think it's weird how many of you order electronics online and have them shipped to you. How often do you have parts dead on arrival?[/QUOTE]

512 is not anywhere near all you need. Defragging your harddrive probably won't do much, but formatting will. Also, I reccommend never touching a norton program as long as you live.

I've never had any parts DOA, but with newegg you can send it back and get a free replacement if it is indeed DOA

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]512 is not anywhere near all you need. Defragging your harddrive probably won't do much, but formatting will. Also, I reccommend never touching a norton program as long as you live.

I've never had any parts DOA, but with newegg you can send it back and get a free replacement if it is indeed DOA[/QUOTE]
Maybe you've never experienced a good performance increase from a defrag because you use Window's pathetic defragger. Honestly, Norton's System Tools are amazing (Speed Disk, Hard Disk Doctor, etc.), their anti-virus is borderline malware. If he did a good job during Windows installation and driver set up, a format/reinstall will do nothing that a little registry pruning won't do.

QM

Yes because your ONE TIME experience means that Pricewatch vendors are INFALLIBLE. You're no better than the average idiot who boycotts a company for life because of ONE bad experience. I see it on forums all the time especially. Someone gets a video card that dies in two months. Replacement would be free, but they will NEVER buy from that company again.

man, graphics are good enough now. why can't they stop improving so we can all stop having to update our systems?

Also it continues to amaze me how you guys can argue about stuff like this.

How so? When you're about to drop 500 dollars on a component, I think there's much room for debate about which component you should pick.

no they're not !!!! ! :p .................... !

You obviously haven't seen the Nvidia vs. ATI flamewars over at hardforums.

Id say 2 gigs of ram even though that will be a lot of money and a better vid card and higher processor. Face it, if you want to run games with high settings for the next 4 years your gonna want some way better stuff. It will be more than 500 dollars for sure. Even a nice vid card like yours wont last that long.

[url=www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=356]I haven't yet..[/url]

I order all my electronics online. It's so much cheaper. The nearst PC components shop from me is a £5 train journey away and it's only a PC world (overpriced, full of employees who know nothing). Never had anything DOA yet, but I did have some RAM which died 6 months after I bought it and they replaced it free of charge Most online stores have a returns policy for stuff like that.

I've seen a couple, and that's the stuff I'm talking about. It's worse than Democrat vs. Republican. I mean, DISCUSSING or SUGGESTING hardware is one thing, but some certain people take it to another level. This rant isn't really directed at anything in this thread, because it's suprisingly civil compared to the others. It's mostly the fault of one or two posters, but come on: many people here have a legitimate interest in hardware, but can't you talk about it without arguing or debating, especially as it's mostly about personal preference anyway? I mean sure, some tests and statistics may show that one brand is better than the other performance-wise, but that's true of cars too, and most people don't go around buying Ferrarris instead of Saturns because Ferrarris have better performance. In conclusion, I'm not sure why I wasted time writing this, because I don't have much of a point anyhow.

Don't get 2 gigs of RAM. Get a gig stick for now at PC3200 and wait for another one down the line, unless you wanna spend 200 on a set. And really, it's not worth it since you need a better CPU and video card for it to make any difference, and as I've explained that upgrade right there is about 1000 dollars, if not 1200

Well, I've already got 512, I'm just going to get another 512, [I've been meaning to reformat for a while] and clean up my system some. I think I'm going to put this and my crappy old PC on the same network and store some files on its HD.

JediKirby

Well it's also the SPEED of the RAM that's important. Is it PC3200, or PC2100, or PC2700? Also, do you have 2 sticks of 512 or 1 stick of 512? These things are important.

I know I have 1 stick of 512, but I've got no idea how to check what speed it is.