upgrade or buy new...

[sk8z27]

ok, since were still on the subject, i'm thinking about purchasing this machine.  it's an aspire e350 with an athlon 64 3500xp, 512mb ram, 160g hd, dvd rw.  i can get it for $359.00 and thinking about the geforce 7600 gs or gt.  i'm not sure on the power supply, but i've got a 500w on my current machine i can swap out.  i'm sure it's going to be better then my older athlon 2600xp with the 9800pro graphics card, but how much better?  will i be able to max out the settings on fs9 or pretty close?  i've got no idea on aspires and if i do go this route what other mods would you suggest?  maybe another 512mb ram chip?  i'm basically getting this machine with the card for around $550.00.

[Brett_Henderson]

I'll poke my lmited, humble knowledge in here...

Buying a brand new computer today, that isn't dual core, is not a good idea. Buying a single core CPU with only 512kb of L2 cache is a VERY bad idea (that's why it's so inexpensive).

I don't think a GF 7600 would be much of a step up from an ATI 9800. It would be a sensible replacement, but not a real upgrade. A 7800 would be a better choice. 7900 even better yet.

A year and a half or so ago.. I went from a Athlon 2500 to a 3200

[sk8z27]

ya, but i'm going from the standard socket a 2200 xp with a system bus speed of 166 or 333(not sure what i'm running, it's been so long), and single channel ram(mb does not support duel channel), but hoping that this new one will be an improvement.  plus as long as i can fly vatsim with fs9, i'm not too hot to trot on fsx.

[Brett_Henderson]

That's a good point..

[sk8z27]

btw, is your a store bought or home built, i'm trying to get some info on acer, but you know what at $359, i'm not too worried about it.  oh yeah, it's an agp, so can't use that.

[ctjoyce]

Go to staples, and pick up a HP a1612n.

AMD 4200+x2
1GB DDR2 533
250GB HDD
nVidia 6150 w/ PCI-Ex16

$850 w/ LCD. We sell one without the LCD for like $700, but our store dosn't stock it, so I dont know the price. If you have to go store bought thats a much better option than the Acer that your looking at, as it already has most of the parts you need, and a PCi-E slot so you're not stuck in the stone age.

We also have a a1640 from HP that has a Core 2 E6300 and 2GB DDR2 533, 250GB HDD, and a PCI-E slot for $850 again a much better buy.

Don't go the cheap route, spending less than $800 on a rig means you are not gaming, your just doing homework and surfing the web, and if you want any dream of playing FSX and having it look like a sim and not a slide show, you need to spend at least $1K.

Cheers
Cameron

[Brett_Henderson]

btw, is your a store bought or home built, i'm trying to get some info on acer, but you know what at $359, i'm not too worried about it.  oh yeah, it's an agp, so can't use that.

I built it. I've only bought 3 computers in the last 25 years (TRS80, 8088 IBM, and a 666mghz eMachine). I built may last 4 (XP2000/MX440  ,  XP2500/9800pro ,  Athlon64 3200/9800pro, and this Athlon64 3700/EVGA7800GT )

The gang here at SimV really walked me through that last purchase and the over-clock..

On that note...  you can build a 3700 / 7900  machine  (CPU, RAM, MB and VC) for about $550. If you can get away with using your current case/PS and drives.. Congo, and Cameron (and maybe even me) will help where we can.

[sk8z27]

ok, did a little bit more research and this is what i ended up with.  a gatewaygt4016, amd athlon 64 w/1mb cache, 1g ram, 200g hd, dvd/rw, with pcix slot, for $409- a $25 gift cert. at circuit city, they didn't have any good graphics cards so went to best buy and got the geforce 7900 gs for $199.  they also had the 7600gs with 512mb of ram, but was told the 7900 blows it away even with 256 of ram.  so spent about $650 for this system.  well, i think i got a decent deal, only time will tell when i get flight sim going.  thanks for all the help guys.

[sk8z27]

just installed fs9, pmdg b737, and flew one flight at ord.

[congo]

What mobo ID, cpu model and 7900GS model did you get?

[sk8z27]

http://support.gateway.com/s/pc/r/10088 ... 2sp3.shtml

those are the specs, and the video card is a 256mb geforce 7900gs.

[Brett_Henderson]

Pssssst..   (Congo's gonna  see if you can squeeze a few more FPS out of it)  

[sk8z27]

hahahaha.,.............just bumped it up to 30 with no problems.

[congo]

Well, if you can find out what mainboard Gateway lumbered you with, maybe we can get 40 if the bios is decent, but you'll need to ID that board. (You may need to look at it).

[sk8z27]

i believe the cpu is the san diego core, 1mb L2 cache 3700.  took all the specs and that's what i speculate.  the motherboard is i believe a company called fic, never heard of them.  ran with all sliders maxed out and it started to lag just a bit at 30fps, but nothing bad, periodically jump to 18 or 19.