What would be best?

Graphics Cards, Sound Cards, Joysticks, Computers, etc. Ask or advise here!

What would be best?

Postby sonic » Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:39 pm

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
Last edited by sonic on Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
Specs
E6300, 3 gigs 800 Ram, 8800GT oc, 400gig Sata drive, Windows XP Pro 64 Bit..
sonic
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 835
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:52 pm

Re: What would be best?

Postby sonic » Sat Feb 03, 2007 12:39 am

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 ;D. So it would have to be something I can buy locally. Just asking your thoughts.
Last edited by sonic on Sat Feb 03, 2007 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Specs
E6300, 3 gigs 800 Ram, 8800GT oc, 400gig Sata drive, Windows XP Pro 64 Bit..
sonic
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 835
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:52 pm

Re: What would be best?

Postby ctjoyce » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:12 am

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
CTJoyce, Modding and voiding warranties since 2003
Sheila's Specs:ASUS Striker Extreme 680i, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.2Ghz, Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 2GB, 2x eVGA 7900GT KO,  Western Digital 80GB SATA & 250GB SATAIII
[b]Vesp
User avatar
ctjoyce
Major
Major
 
Posts: 3820
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:42 pm
Location: USA

Re: What would be best?

Postby Ashton Lawson » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:34 am

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). ;)
Image
FS Water Configurator+ has new modifications in the works, plus DirectX 10, Service Pack
1, and Radeon HD 3+ Series support.
Ashton Lawson
Major
Major
 
Posts: 1211
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:25 am
Location: Phuket, Thailand

Re: What would be best?

Postby Boca » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:47 am

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.    ;)
User avatar
Boca
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 622
Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2006 8:33 am
Location: Scotland

Re: What would be best?

Postby sonic » Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:49 pm

yea Somewere about a thousand slightly more maybe.
Specs
E6300, 3 gigs 800 Ram, 8800GT oc, 400gig Sata drive, Windows XP Pro 64 Bit..
sonic
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 835
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:52 pm

Re: What would be best?

Postby jimcooper1 » Sat Feb 03, 2007 3:50 pm

A GeForce 7900GS, 7900GT or 7950GT  -  probably $250-$350 if you're not buying on-line
jimcooper1
 

Re: What would be best?

Postby ctjoyce » Sat Feb 03, 2007 5:36 pm

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
CTJoyce, Modding and voiding warranties since 2003
Sheila's Specs:ASUS Striker Extreme 680i, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.2Ghz, Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 2GB, 2x eVGA 7900GT KO,  Western Digital 80GB SATA & 250GB SATAIII
[b]Vesp
User avatar
ctjoyce
Major
Major
 
Posts: 3820
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2005 4:42 pm
Location: USA

Re: What would be best?

Postby jimcooper1 » Sat Feb 03, 2007 7:03 pm

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.
Last edited by jimcooper1 on Sat Feb 03, 2007 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jimcooper1
 

Re: What would be best?

Postby sonic » Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:41 pm

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.  
Specs
E6300, 3 gigs 800 Ram, 8800GT oc, 400gig Sata drive, Windows XP Pro 64 Bit..
sonic
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 835
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:52 pm

Re: What would be best?

Postby congo » Sun Feb 04, 2007 12:29 am

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.
Last edited by congo on Sun Feb 04, 2007 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
ImageMainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24&
User avatar
congo
Major
Major
 
Posts: 3655
Joined: Fri Aug 16, 2002 12:13 am
Location: Australia

Re: What would be best?

Postby Ashton Lawson » Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:31 am

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. :D
Image
FS Water Configurator+ has new modifications in the works, plus DirectX 10, Service Pack
1, and Radeon HD 3+ Series support.
Ashton Lawson
Major
Major
 
Posts: 1211
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 5:25 am
Location: Phuket, Thailand

Re: What would be best?

Postby sonic » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:41 am

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.
Last edited by sonic on Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Specs
E6300, 3 gigs 800 Ram, 8800GT oc, 400gig Sata drive, Windows XP Pro 64 Bit..
sonic
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 835
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:52 pm

Re: What would be best?

Postby jimcooper1 » Sun Feb 04, 2007 12:20 pm

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
jimcooper1
 

Re: What would be best?

Postby sonic » Sun Feb 04, 2007 12:27 pm

would you go with the emachine or hp
Specs
E6300, 3 gigs 800 Ram, 8800GT oc, 400gig Sata drive, Windows XP Pro 64 Bit..
sonic
Captain
Captain
 
Posts: 835
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:52 pm

Next

Return to Hardware

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 507 guests