PC upgrading

[zAlbee]

Not only that, but the brightness and contrast change so much with the tilt of your screen (or head). I use photoshop a lot, so this makes LCD's worthless for me.

 

[Jakob]

Wow, you've all proven that you've bought crappy lcd monitors, nice job

 

[Doomulation]

Yer well, high quality lcd monitors costs like hell. LCD still costs bad, they're not worth it.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

It's still the GPU holding him back though. A now cheap 9800 Pro would literally more than quadruple his FPS (almost three times the bandwidth + double pipes) and have DX9 features + better anti-aliasing quality, while an upgrade from a 2400+ to a 2600+ (what he is suggesting) is hardly going to make any difference, and that upgrade would be a waste of cash in my opinion.

When building a system, you should try to find the weakness and balance your system. It's no use having one component much faster than the others, since it will hold you back and your FPS will suffer. I second the Athlon64 opinion, although in his case he already has a fast enough processor while his other components are much worse.

The motherboard option is marginally better than the Via, but not by all that much. Might as well save up the money and get the Slot 939 system that you really want, RJARRRPCGP, and start afresh, and sell your old system to raise the funds (this is what I do).

Well, where I am, Radeon 9800 Pros, if any still cost at least around $200 dollars. I was hoping that the price would go down. It appears that they want to sell them for the same price they did last year!!! The stores appear to not want them to depreciate. LOL.

Also, it's a bad idea to sell my current Athlon system, because if the new hardware don't even work at all or is unstable, because of issues that only occur with later systems, then I won't have a proper working PC!!!

 

[AlphaWolf]

Wow, you've all proven that you've bought crappy lcd monitors, nice job

No, actually two of mine are nice in that they are fully visible from almost every angle. The problem is that the pixel fill rate on any LCD monitor cannot be any faster than 15ms. That really does not do justice for games, especially the more intense FPS games.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Yer well, high quality lcd monitors costs like hell. LCD still costs bad, they're not worth it.

But, here are the pros of LCD, AFAIK:

Lower wattage per size

The standard 60 hz refresh rate is sufficient. (don't require a high refresh rate frequency for a flicker-free image.)

 

[Doomulation]

Too expensive for the ordinary user still, though. When they come down in price I might concider one for myself.

 

[Clements]

Well, where I am, Radeon 9800 Pros, if any still cost at least around $200 dollars. I was hoping that the price would go down. It appears that they want to sell them for the same price they did last year!!! The stores appear to not want them to depreciate. LOL.

I wish I could get a 9800 Pro for $200 (£100). The cheapest in the UK I have seen is £145 ($270). On Pricewatch, you can actually get a 128MB 9800 Pro for $136, which is a world away from the figure you suggested.

That is a similar price to the processor you are buying. On Pricewatch, a XP2600M is $145 which is twice as expensive as a regular XP2600, and more expensive than that 9800 Pro.

Also, it's a bad idea to sell my current Athlon system, because if the new hardware don't even work at all or is unstable, because of issues that only occur with later systems, then I won't have a proper working PC!!!

I sell mine after I bought the newer parts and have them in working order. I have no physical space in my home for two desktop computers, thus my suggestion if you can't afford it and money is an issue. I wanted a high spec machine, so I sacrified all my old hardware which I didn't really need or had space for. I'm considering to do the same in order to purchase a £210+ 6800.

 

[revl8er]

Looking at your specs now I would go for a new gfx card. Like it was said earlier, the new processor wouldn't help too much and really don't need a lcd monitor. More ram would also be good to have.

 

[Stezo2k]

I wish I could get a 9800 Pro for $200 (£100). The cheapest in the UK I have seen is £145 ($270)

You should try buying 2nd hand then, got mine for £65 from neobay imported from the usa including postage damn, i love the power of the pound

 

[sheik124]

The problem is that the pixel fill rate on any LCD monitor cannot be any faster than 15ms.

never heard of pixel fill rate, but if you mean LCD refresh rate, they have MANY 12ms LCD panels in existance, just check newegg.com, u'll probably find 2 or 3 there alone.
and who says LCDs are bad? my samsung 193p is one of the best monitors i have ever seen, and it certainly isn't a bad gaming monitor, when it arrived in the mail, i asked my friends with *shudder* dell 15" LCDs, "whats ghosting?", like passive said, you've all proven you've bought horrible LCDs
RJARRRPCGP, save up some money and hold out a bit, none of those upgrades (besides the video card) are worth it, the CPU will give you a 1 or 2 FPS increase, if any, the motherboard although better, is certainly not worth it. just wait a little while, and when u are ready to buy, sell your old system bit by bit on ebay, then get yourself a nice nForce 4 Socket 939 setup, with a GeForce 6600 to go with it

 

[zAlbee]

i haven't bought any flatpanels. I'm judging by the mass of identical 17" Samsung LCDs on campus. I've forgotten the model number, but I'll check next time. They're nice, but any variation of brightness in the slightest is not good enough for me. CRT is 100% constant.

 

[-Shadow-]

My 17 inch TFT has got a reaction time of 13ms. Any game i've played didn't produce any streaks with that Monitor. The brightness is nearly constant at any angle you look at it. Good quality for Supermarket, eh? IMO, TFT's are already suitable for gaming.

 

[okstorms]

I don't think it's a good idea to buy a new CPU or Motherboard unless you can afford both, get something you can move into a new system when you can afford a Athlon 64 system.

 

[Eagle]

1 GB is getting to be the standard nowadays. Games are becoming larger when running and therefore systems need it. I would highly reccomend 1gb of memory, but then again, I wouldn't get memory till you decide not to get a motherboard. If you get a new mobo you can get dual channel ddr memory to go with it and get a Athlon 64 socket on it and then upgrade the processor as well. Yep, your best bet is to save your money till you can memory, proccesor and mobo at the same time.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

I decided to RMA my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard, because I required a fix up.

I was on a mission some days ago:

1. Ended up getting a GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB (Why did the package say 128 MB?)
(Got the information on the sticker wrong at the store I bought it from, but the 64MB version is reportedly faster than the 128 MB version)
(Also gotten the last one in the store!!! LOL)

2. Got an LG 52x32x52 CD-RW drive (The other one I have appears to be faulty)

 

[DarthDazDC]

If you are thinking of buying memory at 1gb, buy two 512MB 400mhz, the difference between buyin this and buyin a 1gb ddr memory is that it runs the memory faster, so get the 2x 512mb ddr 400 if ur thinkin about it.

 

[Stezo2k]

If you are thinking of buying memory at 1gb, buy two 512MB 400mhz, the difference between buyin this and buyin a 1gb ddr memory is that it runs the memory faster, so get the 2x 512mb ddr 400 if ur thinkin about it.

Agreed, also try to go for dual channel too. Well glad I did, PC flys since i've been using dual channel