Simviation Forums

Just wondering what would be the best upgrade for around 1000 dollars can go over a little.
I have a

P4p800 asus board
P4 2.8 gig no HT
1 gig pc2100
ati 9600xt video
xp home edition

I no I need a new machine but funds want permit it right now I just want to play fs9 smoothly.
I only have AGP by the way

What about this one I know its a emachine but I have always had one and never had a problem,

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8208236&st=Keyword+or+Item+%23T5224&type=product&id=1167444938128


What pci E card would you suggest I could probably do better online but I have chosen not to have credit cards because Well I know me lol . So it would have to be something I can buy locally. Just asking your thoughts.

If you don't have a creadit card, you can get an American Express Travelers check card. It will allow you to make purchases online, but you can only spend what you put on the card.

For $100 there really isn't anything you can get that will give you a major boost in preformance. I would suggest a few things, but $100 isn't going to buy you a much better GPU, and a dual core isn't compatable with that motherboard.

If you were going to buy a new system, the best way to go would be to build youself with a copy of XP. Reason being that Vista sucks for gamers. You wsee about a 15% drop in frames.

Cheers
Cameron

vista not being good for gamers, due to the fact that vista uses the GPU a lot more, and because not that many games support DX10 yet.  In time, vista should reach the gaming standard.  but u should save up, to buy a new system in the future (SLI2,DX10,PCI-E2,etc.).

I'm not too much of an expert on hardware, but i know that time heals (and creates in this case).

If you don't have a creadit card, you can get an American Express Travelers check card. It will allow you to make purchases online, but you can only spend what you put on the card.

For $100 there really isn't anything you can get that will give you a major boost in preformance. I would suggest a few things, but $100 isn't going to buy you a much better GPU, and a dual core isn't compatable with that motherboard.

If you were going to buy a new system, the best way to go would be to build youself with a copy of XP. Reason being that Vista sucks for gamers. You wsee about a 15% drop in frames.

Cheers
Cameron

But he said one thousand dollars.    ;)

yea Somewere about a thousand slightly more maybe.

A GeForce 7900GS, 7900GT or 7950GT  -  probably $250-$350 if you're not buying on-line

vista not being good for gamers, due to the fact that vista uses the GPU a lot more, and because not that many games support DX10 yet.

Thank you for playing, but that answer is WRONG! The reason that Vista is slower is due totally to the lack of proper driver support. nVidia and ATi have yet to release drivers that are more than a mere "lets get this rig stable." They haven't released a preformance driver yet. We should be seeing one soon though.

For $1000 (sorry I dropped a Zero) you may as well rebuild. Reason being that your motherboard is really holding you back from truly preforming. For about  $860 depending on your power supply (that may need to be replaced too) you could get one heck of an upgrade. The parts you would be getting are

Gigabyte GA-P965G-DS3 motherboard
Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo
2GB OCZ or Corsair DDR2-667 RAM
Sapphire Tech X1950XT

Now if your PSU is less than 500 watts then you are going to need to tack $100 on there for a new PSU.

Cheers
Cameron

Cameron,

I don't think he wants to upgrade his present PC...he wants to buy that e-machines and upgrade the Graphics on that (ie disable the on-board and stick in a PCI-E card)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8208236&st=Keyword+or+Item+%23T5224&type=product&id=1167444938128

You are absolutely right that he SHOULD self-build from scratch..but if he doesn't have a credit card its hard to get the bits at reasonable cost from a retailer.

Well if rebuilding is the best way then thats what I'll do. I assume the list Cameron gave would out perform the emachine with a vid card added.  

Jim offered good advice but I think he overlooked the AGP requirement.

Your P4 is still a strong rig and should get a decent overclock if you try, a 7800GS or best AGP available would do nicely for a while, best bang for buck IMHO.

I run a very similar rig as a second machine, but it has my old 5900XT in it, I'd like to put a 7800GS in that, but I can't justify it for a backup rig, those AGP cards are poisonously expensive here.

vista not being good for gamers, due to the fact that vista uses the GPU a lot more, and because not that many games support DX10 yet.

Thank you for playing, but that answer is WRONG! The reason that Vista is slower is due totally to the lack of proper driver support. nVidia and ATi have yet to release drivers that are more than a mere "lets get this rig stable." They haven't released a preformance driver yet. We should be seeing one soon though.

For $1000 (sorry I dropped a Zero) you may as well rebuild. Reason being that your motherboard is really holding you back from truly preforming. For about  $860 depending on your power supply (that may need to be replaced too) you could get one heck of an upgrade. The parts you would be getting are

Gigabyte GA-P965G-DS3 motherboard
Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo
2GB OCZ or Corsair DDR2-667 RAM
Sapphire Tech X1950XT

Now if your PSU is less than 500 watts then you are going to need to tack $100 on there for a new PSU.

Cheers
Cameron

hmmm...

rather harsh dont u think.  well, we learn something everyday.

Ok how about this one I would have to throw in a pciE card.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8226341&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat103700050049&id=1166840609823

It has a 350 gig drive mine now only has 80 and I dont have a DVD rom or writer now either. what card would you put in it.

Ok how about this one I would have to throw in a pciE card.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8226341&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat103700050049&id=1166840609823

It has a 350 gig drive mine now only has 80 and I dont have a DVD rom or writer now either. what card would you put in it.

Well as your budget is $1000, I guess that leaves you about $300 for the card. So it woulsd probably be a nVidia GeForce 7950 GT or an ATI Radeon X1950XT.  
Probably worth putting in an extra 1GB RAM...but I don't have Vista so don't know how RAM hungry it is

Regards

Jim

would you go with the emachine or hp