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#1
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upgrading 2 year old system for HL2
My system was purchased at an optimum price-point in early 2001.
WinXP Pro SP2 Athlon 1800xp+ Asus A7V333 mainboard 512mb ram (ddr 333mhz) Radeon 7500 64mb 40gb WD harddrive, 5400rpm EIDE SB Audigy Gamer soundcard other junk My current thinking is I'll try to swap in a used Athlon 2600xp+ 266 FSB into the motherboard, upsize my harddrive to 80gb+ 7200rpm, and buy a new ATI video card. Some questions: One: Cards I'm looking at in my price range here in Canada: Sapphire 9600 Pro Advantage 256, Sapphire 9800 SE, or PowerColor Radeon 9600XT Ultra 128MB. I've heard the 9600 Pro Advantage is nothing more than an upsized 9600 LE and is not worth the investment, whereas i might be able to unlock from 4 to 8 with a 9800 SE. I'm unfamiliar with Powercolor, but on Tomshardware alot of benchmarks are roughly equivalent between 9600XT and the 9800SE. - Which card of the three will give me the best HL2 experience? I think the 9800SE, but will that be sufficient? Two: I want to run HL2 on a medium setting. Any stuttering or 640x480 I have no desire to play. - Is upgrading my video card -- perhaps higher than 9800 SE if necessary -- sufficient to play HL2? Or am I deluding myself regarding my 1800+ rig? Is upgrading to a 2400/2600 Athlon xp important? If I need a whole system replacement, i'll probably just wait another year and get my feet wet late. But if I can upgrade my system for $300-400 canadian between now and Christmas I'll do so. I see my video card as the obvious weak point, but have concerns about the processor too. Thanks for your comments in advance. |
#2
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David J Burns:
If I need a whole system replacement, i'll probably just wait another year and get my feet wet late. But if I can upgrade my system for $300-400 canadian between now and Christmas I'll do so. I see my video card as the obvious weak point, but have concerns about the processor too. I would wait until HL2 is released. There should be some better deals available right before Christmas, maybe right after. -- Mac Cool |
#3
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Taking a moment's reflection, David J Burns mused:
| | My current thinking is I'll try to swap in a used Athlon 2600xp+ 266 | FSB into the motherboard, upsize my harddrive to 80gb+ 7200rpm, and | buy a new ATI video card. Bear in mind that I ran Doom 3 at 1024x768 at High settings with everything on except shadows on an AMD 1900+, nVidia GF4 Ti4400 (around an ATi 9600 equiv.), and 1 GB memory (266 DDR) with no issues at all. Doom 3 ran and looked great! It also runs Counter-Strike: Source (built on the HL2 engine) grand as well. Of course, I have since added an ATi 9800 Pro. So, you might want to think about just upgrading your video card. I cannot imagine that D3 and HL2 will have too much difference in spec with regard to hardware requirements. |
#4
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I have the Powercolor Ultra 9600XT (default 500/680mhz) and absolutely love
it.. You might want to look into overclocking that cpu, may save yourself some dollars there.. Buy an aftermarket cpu cooler and clock up the cpu, some people are getting the XP1800+ up to XP3000+ speeds here in AU, but you wouldnt need to go that far, just bump it up a bit.. Some info on overclocking can be found he http://forums.overclockers.com.au/index.php? I would buy the 9600XT Ultra (make sure it is the ultra Part# R96T-TC3) and add another hard-drive and bump up that cpu if it was me.... Firthy "David J Burns" wrote in message m... My system was purchased at an optimum price-point in early 2001. WinXP Pro SP2 Athlon 1800xp+ Asus A7V333 mainboard 512mb ram (ddr 333mhz) Radeon 7500 64mb 40gb WD harddrive, 5400rpm EIDE SB Audigy Gamer soundcard other junk My current thinking is I'll try to swap in a used Athlon 2600xp+ 266 FSB into the motherboard, upsize my harddrive to 80gb+ 7200rpm, and buy a new ATI video card. Some questions: One: Cards I'm looking at in my price range here in Canada: Sapphire 9600 Pro Advantage 256, Sapphire 9800 SE, or PowerColor Radeon 9600XT Ultra 128MB. I've heard the 9600 Pro Advantage is nothing more than an upsized 9600 LE and is not worth the investment, whereas i might be able to unlock from 4 to 8 with a 9800 SE. I'm unfamiliar with Powercolor, but on Tomshardware alot of benchmarks are roughly equivalent between 9600XT and the 9800SE. - Which card of the three will give me the best HL2 experience? I think the 9800SE, but will that be sufficient? Two: I want to run HL2 on a medium setting. Any stuttering or 640x480 I have no desire to play. - Is upgrading my video card -- perhaps higher than 9800 SE if necessary -- sufficient to play HL2? Or am I deluding myself regarding my 1800+ rig? Is upgrading to a 2400/2600 Athlon xp important? If I need a whole system replacement, i'll probably just wait another year and get my feet wet late. But if I can upgrade my system for $300-400 canadian between now and Christmas I'll do so. I see my video card as the obvious weak point, but have concerns about the processor too. Thanks for your comments in advance. |
#5
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In article KoSid.301033$wV.106009@attbi_s54, mhicaoidh says...
So, you might want to think about just upgrading your video card. I cannot imagine that D3 and HL2 will have too much difference in spec with regard to hardware requirements. Theinquirer.net did a recent test and got over 50FPS in the Video Stress Test on an Athlon 2GHz with a Radeon 9800 Pro. -- Conor Opinions personal, facts suspect. |
#6
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On 11/5/2004 4:45 PM Conor brightened our day with:
In article KoSid.301033$wV.106009@attbi_s54, mhicaoidh says... So, you might want to think about just upgrading your video card. I cannot imagine that D3 and HL2 will have too much difference in spec with regard to hardware requirements. Theinquirer.net did a recent test and got over 50FPS in the Video Stress Test on an Athlon 2GHz with a Radeon 9800 Pro. What resolution? At 1280x1024 w/ no AA my Athlon 2.2 GHz w/ Radeon 9800 Pro gets 67.8 fps in the stress test. -- Steve ¤»Inglo«¤ www.inglostadt.com |
#7
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Buy an aftermarket cpu cooler and clock up the cpu, some people are
getting the XP1800+ up to XP3000+ speeds here in AU, but you wouldnt need to go that far, just bump it up a bit.. Odds are if it's 2+ yrs old it's a Palomino core. They're not the best for getting over 1800Mhz or so. A Tbred would have more headroom. |
#8
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"Augustus" wrote in message news:7cYid.101122$9b.37405@edtnps84...
Buy an aftermarket cpu cooler and clock up the cpu, some people are getting the XP1800+ up to XP3000+ speeds here in AU, but you wouldnt need to go that far, just bump it up a bit.. Odds are if it's 2+ yrs old it's a Palomino core. They're not the best for getting over 1800Mhz or so. A Tbred would have more headroom. You're right, its a Palomino. I have little ability to upgrade, aside from pushing the FSB ahead a few mhz. I'm keeping an eye on eBay for a Thoroughbred 'B' core 266mhz FSB chip. Best I can hope for is a 2600, more likely a 2400. But 2400 overclocked to say 2600+ is still a 50% improvement on my Palomino. |
#9
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Conor wrote in message ...
In article KoSid.301033$wV.106009@attbi_s54, mhicaoidh says... So, you might want to think about just upgrading your video card. I cannot imagine that D3 and HL2 will have too much difference in spec with regard to hardware requirements. Theinquirer.net did a recent test and got over 50FPS in the Video Stress Test on an Athlon 2GHz with a Radeon 9800 Pro. This is all good news for me. I struck on eBay and bought a new 9700 Pro (256bit) for $120 USD...worked out to be about $180 Canadian in total and a huge bargain given price in stores here in Toronto. Best Buy and Futureshop have the 9600 XT for $299 ~without~ the HL2 coupon. 9800 Pro retail is about $350. OEMs are a different story, but local ma'n'pa shops have limited stock (everyone I call is sold out) and I've read some nasty stories of people buying 9800 Pros that are actually 128 bit (Sapphires, specifically). I figure that although I can't run mind-blowing FPS and resolution, a reasonable 1024x768 @ 50 FPS+ is good for me. I figure HL2 will have tons of replayability down the road, so ~2 years from now when I build another system from scratch it will still be fresh. I can't see Valve releasing a game that 90% of the computers on the market can't play. Its all a matter of what's tolerable, and I was afraid that I was on the low end. Everyone's comments here indicate that if I upgrade my videocard alone I should be fine. |
#10
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Conor wrote in message ...
In article KoSid.301033$wV.106009@attbi_s54, mhicaoidh says... So, you might want to think about just upgrading your video card. I cannot imagine that D3 and HL2 will have too much difference in spec with regard to hardware requirements. Theinquirer.net did a recent test and got over 50FPS in the Video Stress Test on an Athlon 2GHz with a Radeon 9800 Pro. Actually, it was ~exactly~ an Athlon 1800+ that they tested with. Thanks for the heads-up about theinquirer.net! http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19405 Looks like they recommended an 9800pro, whereas I got a 9700pro. I'm still probably going to boost my ram (512 - 1gb) and swap out a processor for a 2400/2600+ though, so I think I'm set for another two years. Looks like Doom3 is the tougher of the two games on your home rig. Between HalfLife2 and CounterStrike:Source I think I'll be set for quite awhile. |
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