CPU/Mobo Budget Vs Gaming

A

andy_anu

Contributor
Hi People !! :)
Atlast I plan to upgrade from my ol' AMD 2200+! As my bro has ruined (READ AS XTRA-OVERCLOCKED) the Mobo n procce !!!:hap5: Well, I have a budjet of 35K. And these are the things which I had planned on :-
1. Motherboard - ASUS K8N - 5.6K
2. Processor - 3400+ - 11.8K
3. RAM 1GB Transcend - 7.1K
4. Monitor 17", Keyboard, Optical Mouse, DVD Rom, FDD n Cab with Powersafe 400W PSU. (All in Black ! :cool2: )- TOTAL - 11k.

Then saddly I realised tat I had reached my budjet n wont really b able to play ne games on dis PC as i wud have to stick to my old MX440 !!! It wud b like a Ferrari with Maruti 800's wheels :S (with all due respect to M800 owners).
The other option I came up with is that I underpower the engine by putting in a 2800+ tat is available for 5.2K i suppose n goin in for 512MB RAM instead for 1 GB. Saving all in all around 10 K.

But do u guys think a 2800+ with 512Mb RAM has enough power to run games at decent resolutions for da next 6 months atleast ??? How much hundreds should i expect in return for my ol'' XFX 8x 64MB MX440 ?? N if 2800+ has enough meat which graphics card should i be lookin for within 10 to 11K bracket ???

Thanks in advance... All advises n suggestions welcome...
 
512MB ram is not enough,period,768mb is enough for now and may not be enough for future,even 1Gb ram may not be enough in an year or so.
During HL2 ,all high my peak charges have gone to around 720mb!
And I have 768mb ram( for reference.)B4 adding the extra 256mb ,HL2 was simply unplayable at high settings.
 
A 6600gt will need atleast 768mb to run HL2 and D3,all high.U can get 768 mb now saving about 1.3k-1.5k but 512mb is seriously not enough.
 
The Asus K8N and A64 3400+ really dont make a good pair...i'd say u rather go for the A64 2800+ and use the money saved to buy a good graphics card.
As it is most games today require more of graphics card power than pure cpu power.
 
Why don't they make a good pair even
i am plaaning the same combination.
Asus K8N = Asus K8N e dlz(is it not so?) in performance and more features aren't required by many of us.
 
well 512MB RAM with perfect tuning in bios will play HL2, DOOM3 at 1024x768 4XAA and 8XAF 100% stutter free.
This was with 6800GT.
Its just now that i got 1GB. And I am yet to see any serious difference in performance.
So those who say 512MB is not enough, well i disagree. I know more is alwasy better. but you can do away with 512MB for some time.
Just play with memory timings in bios and find the best suitable settings for you.
I have benchmarked both HL2 and DOOM3 and the results are 100% same as before.
Even toms and AT and Xbit did some benchmarks on doom3 with 256,512,1G RAM and even 512MB showed exact same results as 1GB.
 
Amd 3000 754 performs better than Amd 3000 939

Amd 3400 64 clawhammer > 3200 939/754
>3000 939/754
>2800 754
Sometimes better and some times not to amd 3500 939 in performance.

Overall good deal
I won't need to upgrade my cpu with out the mb after 2yrs.
 
overclocked 3000 939 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 3400+ 754 PERIOD.

BTW 939 has better upgrade scope than 754. the best option is now to go for a 939 rather than 754
 
How much performance would I lose if go with amd 3200 939 newcastle than amd 3400 newcastle 754,for which should I go

Which board performs better :Asus A8V dlx or Asus K8N in pure performance in games?
 
If you consider stock performance, the 3400+ nuke will pummel the 3000+ winnie in most benchmarks other than spec which depend highly on memory bandwidth. However when overclocked, the 3400+ will top out at around 2.5GHz. With the right mobo and cooling, 2.6GHz out of the winnie is rather easy. Then the winnie edges out the nuke. If you are not intent on upgrading for a long time and don't need pci-e and also dont intend overclocking, get the nuke. If you have oc'ing in mind or absolutely need pci-e, get the winnie.

edit: btw heard from bottle, A8V sucks at oc'ing.
 
The need for >512mb is very real on any Win XP system.Games run fine with around 400-500mb of ram dedicated to them.In WinXP thats impossible(with only 512mb of ram).Add to that the fact that some apps like av etc. always use some ram and thats why the results at xbitlabs ,performed after a clean install of win xp can't be considered as applicable to a common system.Anyway a 256mb stick of decent DDR 400 costs 1.4k-1.6k so it simply can't hurt to have more.
(Back in 2001 I paid the same amount for a 64mb stick of PC100 SD-RAM.LOL.)
 
would recommend you to get the 3400+ since it will be easy to set up and perform well at stock speeds
if you have the patience to overclock then get the winchester though it may test your patience.
 
So basically....

I go for 6600gt ? XFX ??? Does ne one know for shure whether XFX got 64bit or 128bit memory arch ??
939/754 - which setup is best for GAMING, I think Hardboy is going thrugh da same agony !!!
And i go for a normal 17" n add a additional 256MB..
 
Consider this...

AMD ATHLON 64 3000+
MSI RX480M2 (ATI Xpress 200p chipset) Combo should be around 15K and should perform on par with nFORCE 4 Ultra Chipsets...
XFX 6600GT PCI Xpress 11.5K
512 MB RAM 3.2K

Skip the DVD Drive and additional Ram as you can always ugrade them later...
 
Also do not compromise on the moniter as it is one of the investments which would not be upgraded and would be used for each and every time you use your comp... Do buy a flat one...
 
One way to avoid needing too much ram is fixing agp aperture to 32mb or 64mb.Any higher degrades performance and causes stuttering.On HL2 the effect on going from a 256mb aperture(massive stuttering with even my relatively high 768mb of ram) to almost no stuttering(may b a very slight pause at level load,nothing much...)when set to 32mb.
My theory is that 128mb-256mb found on modern video cards in enough for the textures used in games(doom3 was supposed to work in high mode only on 256mb cards but we know now that the 128mb GF6600gt cuts it like butter) and having a high agp aperture causes a large amount of system memory(some of which will inevitably be swap space) to be dedicated for texture storage causing stuttering.
Here is data for an X800XT from a similar topic on hwbbs:
3dmark 05 - 32 mb agp apeture size - 6234

3dmark 05 - 64 mb agp apeture size - 6429

3dmark 05 - 128 mb agp apeture size - 6133

3dmark 05 - 128 mb agp apeture size - 6052

3dmark 05 - 256 mb agp apeture size - 5967
There is a minute +ve difference(3%) in going from 32mb to 64mb and then a steady downhill slope.
 
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