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[--DANNY--]

QUOTE(deftonesmx17 @ Aug 15 2005, 09:41 AM)

Just because you are a PC enthusiast, doesnt mean everyone else that wants to play PC games should be. He just wants a cheap system that will play games on the default auto-detected graphical settings.

FINALLY! Someone who understands what I want! THANK YOU!  

[SniperKilla]

QUOTE(deftonesmx17 @ Aug 15 2005, 11:41 AM)

More like 1024x768x32 @ High Settings.

[deftonesmx17]

QUOTE(--DANNY-- @ Aug 15 2005, 11:58 AM)

FINALLY! Someone who understands what I want! THANK YOU! 

[SniperKilla]

well the cpu could very well limit it.. but if it does or by how much .. we wouldent know... if it does or dosent.. the performance would certainly be better then a 9600XT..

and if you think $30 is a waste for a far superiour card.. that is going to help him play games faster.. and continue to play games for alot longer in the future then the 9600XT.. if you dont think that is worth $30... then i dont know what to say.. you seem to be beyond help..

[deftonesmx17]

QUOTE(Sniperkilla)

well the cpu could very well limit it.. but if it does or by how much .. we wouldent know... if it does or dosent.. the performance would certainly be better then a 9600XT..

Actually, we do know

The CPU will limit it very much. He has an AMD Athlon XP 1800+

All scores were taken with a Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB

http://www.firingsqu...out/default.asp

QUOTE(Sniperkilla)

and if you think $30 is a waste for a far superiour card.. that is going to help him play games faster.. and continue to play games for alot longer in the future then the 9600XT.. if you dont think that is worth $30... then i dont know what to say.. you seem to be beyond help..

If it will perform the same due to CPU limiting, then it will be a waste. There will be no advantage from the 9600 to the 9800 on an Athlon XP 1800+
I know this for a fact. The 9800XT I have now was a friends before he built a new PC. His old PC was an AMD Athlon XP 2600+, Radeon 9800XT, SoundBlaster Audigy xgamer, 1GB pc2700 DDR333.
My old PC was an AMD Athlon XP 2500+, Radeon 9500 Pro, SoundBlaster Audigy, 1GB pc2700 DDR333.
The difference was my Athlon XP 2500 was overclocked to a 3200 with 400Mhz FSB. His Athlon XP 2600 was at stock speeds with 333Mhz FSB.
I would get better framrates in all games with my 9500 Pro then he would get with his 9800XT........due to his being CPU limited..........

P.S. How many times are you going to spell wouldn't wrong? The word is not wouldent........there is no e.  

[SniperKilla]

ha what the fuck.. thats a 6800 ultra which is triple the performance of the 9800 pro.. of course its going to hit the bottlenecks there easily.. why not just take a 7800GTX and show its results with those processors too.. maybe it will be reflective upon the 9800pro performance... /me rolls eyes

[deftonesmx17]

QUOTE(SniperKilla @ Aug 16 2005, 01:38 PM)

ha what the fuck.. thats a 6800 ultra which is triple the performance of the 9800 pro...of course its going to hit the bottlenecks there easily.. why not just take a 7800GTX and show its results with those processors too.. maybe it will be reflective upon the 9800  Pro performance... /me rolls eyes

Hmmmm so the Geforce 6800 Ultra is triple the performance of the 9800 Pro?
The 9800 Pro gets 83.2fps, the 6800 Ultra gets 89fps. In case you don't know your math, thats only about a 7% increase. Then again, the only reason it is happening is because the game is CPU limited. The reason I posted what I did, was to show that with the same GFX card, the lower the CPU, the worse the performance will be. Now once again, in HL2 the 6800 Ultra only gets 5.8fps more than a 9800 Pro because the game is CPU limited.

Do you need more proof of CPU limiting? Well, here you go

1. This link is an AMD Athlon XP @ 1.6Ghz with a Radeon 9600. Overall Score 11648
http://service.futur...are?2k1=7140608

2. This Link is an AMD Athlon XP @ 1.58Ghz with a Radeon 9800. Overall score 12551
http://service.futur...are?2k1=8348013

3. This is my old AMD Athlon XP @ 2.18Ghz with a Radeon 9500. Overall score 13521
http://service.futur...are?2k1=8163635

4. This is the highest ranked 9800Pro with an AMD Athlon XP from 1.5-1.6Ghz. Overall score 14174 my 9500 was only 650 marks less, I bet the 9800 was CPU limited
http://service.futur...are?2k1=8152015

[SniperKilla]

[--DANNY--]

Well... the whole status of everything just majorly changed...

I just got $400... so I'm looking to spend about $240 tops on pc ish...

So what could I get to make my pc A LOT better?

I've been looking at This video card, and this stick of ram...
But now that my budget has been raised, could someone help me out with exactly what I should get to increase my overall pc performace and video gaming abilities?

Or should I just stick with that cheap ish and save some money?

Thanks,
-Danny

[lebriznon]

save up and get a new pc altogether. upgrading what you have now isnt really worth it...
if youre satisfied with what you have, and just want halflife 2, well any card in the r9600 series will do it fine, and you can most likely get one really cheap.  I play it with my 9600pro and 9600se and its perfectly acceptable.
but i would still save up even more and get a new pc altogether.  more worthwile in the long run.

i was going to get a 6600GT to replace it for myself, but i decided i'd just wait and get a new pc in 2 years or so.  right now its a p4 2.6GHz 1GB ddr400 with a 9600pro.  I'm not a big gamer, and im sure this will easily last me several more years.

forget the benchmarks, and all the arguments that have passed.  These guys are debating theoretical advantages you wont really notice.  In practice, and in playing the game, you dont need to use anything as expensive as the cards in the graphs. those are for the more tech-savvy lol.  I'd even say its a waste to buy one of those given your current pc.

edit: grammar

[--DANNY--]

Ya well... I'm not looking out for in the long run... I care about right now and only right now. I just want to be able to handle pc games better and have a faster computer...

So I'd say that I need ram and a video card... what should i get that's under like 200 total that would fix that?

[lebriznon]

well if you really wanna cheap out, newegg has a refurb radeon9600 for like $40.  Spend a few more bucks and get a 9600pro for $71.   That'll work for sure, with practically every game now at medium settings.  with a bit of tweaking i got doom3 to run quite well on that at 1024x768 medium details.  You'd want 512, or even 1GB ram maybe.  a 256MB stick is like $23.

$200 is a pretty big budget.  Just check how many ram slots you have left, and get 1GB. The advantage over just 512 with your cpu isnt noticeable, or even really there, but its worth it.  and get a cheap video card with 128MB.  dont really need 256 for these lowenders.  Not sure if you've checked this yet either, but make sure you have an agp slot for the new video card lol.

[--DANNY--]

QUOTE(lebriznon @ Aug 21 2005, 12:46 PM)

well if you really wanna cheap out, newegg has a refurb radeon9600 for like $40.  Spend a few more bucks and get a 9600pro for $71.   That'll work for sure, with practically every game now at medium settings.  with a bit of tweaking i got doom3 to run quite well on that at 1024x768 medium details.  You'd want 512, or even 1GB ram maybe.  a 256MB stick is like $23.

$200 is a pretty big budget.  Just check how many ram slots you have left, and get 1GB. The advantage over just 512 with your cpu isnt noticeable, or even really there, but its worth it.  and get a cheap video card with 128MB.  dont really need 256 for these lowenders.  Not sure if you've checked this yet either, but make sure you have an agp slot for the new video card lol.

Haha, ya I've checked everything. I do have an AGP 8x slot, and I only have 2 DIMM slots for ram So I'm thinking of getting either this 512 stick, or this 1 GB stick that comes with a heatspreader, so that's a bonus, or this 1 GB stick that is slightly cheaper...

As for a Video Card, I'm looking at either this 9600xt 256, or this 9600xt 128.

Any help with the choices would be great.
Just remember, I only have 2 DIMM slots, and they can only support up to DDR pc2700 184 pin. And I already have a decent stick of 256.
My processor is an AMD Athlon XP 1800+  1.55 GHz. And I have an AGP 8x slot and plenty of pci slots.

Thanks in advance,
-Danny

[lebriznon]

well either will do.  128MB more on a 9600 card wont make much of a difference if any.  i dunno. tough call between those two.  i trust sapphire more since they make the most ATI cards. But the other does have more memory...

your call. doesnt really matter.  ive never bought from newegg personally (they dont ship here...) but i think they have a decent exchange/refund policy no? so u cant go wrong.

as for ram, the 512stick is fine.  you'll have 768MB after that which is plenty.

[--DANNY--]

QUOTE(lebriznon @ Aug 22 2005, 01:05 AM)

whoa. the 256MB card is cheaper 

That's exactly what had me, lol. So I'm thinking about going with the 128 because it's probably higher quality.

QUOTE(lebriznon @ Aug 22 2005, 01:05 AM)

well either will do.  128MB more on a 9600 card wont make much of a difference if any.  i dunno. tough call between those two.  i trust sapphire more since they make the most ATI cards. But the other does have more memory...

Ya, I didn't think it'd make much of a difference on a 9600xt. And ya, Saphire does tend to be a lot better of a manufacturer.
Although I just had a friend ask me if I knew anyone who wanted to buy a pc, it has like a 2.2 GHz processor, 512 ram, 40 + 60 gb hd's, and a 256mb 9600xt. So I think I might just buy like... half of what he has, because he only wants $400 for everything all together...

QUOTE(lebriznon @ Aug 22 2005, 01:05 AM)

your call. doesnt really matter.  ive never bought from newegg personally (they dont ship here...) but i think they have a decent exchange/refund policy no? so u cant go wrong.

Ya, NewEgg kicks serious ass, EXTREMELY fast delivery and a GREAT return policy. You can talk to a representative 1 on 1, and even if it works and everything, you can just want to return it after a month because a better deal came out, and they'd be happy to have you ship it back in return for a different one! I love NewEgg!

QUOTE(lebriznon @ Aug 22 2005, 01:05 AM)

as for ram, the 512stick is fine.  you'll have 768MB after that which is plenty.

Ya that's what I though, and a GB probably wouldn't even be fully used with my processor. But then again... I do tend to do a LOT of video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro 7.0, and it takes fucking forever to completely encode and save the videos...

Thanks for the advice!
-Danny