Upgrading in a few weeks...

Well I guess Doom 3 kinda forces me to
I havent followed closely the PC hardware scene for a long time now, Im not the type of guy who upgrades every month. Last time I did, I bought a whole new comp 2 years ago. My current spec is the following:

amd xp2100+
784 mb ram pc2700
MSI mobo (Via kt333)
radeon 9800 pro
maxtor 40gig
sb audigy


I currently want to buy a new processor, mobo, case, and powersupply. Could anyone recommend me a certain combo?
Should I go Nforce or stick with Via?
Price range around US700-800.

 

your current system will run doom 3 just fine IMO... expect 40-50fps @1024x768 (rough estimate based on farcry on similar setups).

the weakers point is your processor... thought not even that weak.

if you are bent on upgrading, if you stay in the athlon xp chips, definetly go nforce2 chipset. to stick with your RAM, get an athlon XP 2800+ ($90 oem), and one of the best motherboards is the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe (also about $95)

for case... i just ran into this Silverstone Case which is really the same case as the Thermaltake Skull Xaser 3... but much cheaper and without all their 'fluff'. It has a screwless design and a unique layout and cooling.

I personally love the chieftech dragon series of cases as they are well built and easy to work with... but for cases its really your call.

for a power supply...in descending price, Antec makes great ones, so does Fortron, and Thermaltake. of course there are others, but newegg stocks those 3 with good models between $55 and $86 for around 480watts.

 

I'm a big fan of the nVidia chipsets, but my old VIA KT266 mobo keeps on chugging.

The problem with updating right now is this:

The best performing gaming processors right now are the AMD64 line. Most of these chips use the older Socket 754, which does not support dual-channel. I find that discouraging since it's adding a bottleneck. The newer Socket 939 processors do, but they run several hundred dollars (the cheapest 939 is the 64 3500+ at ~$490).

In any case, updating to top of the line right now is probably a bad idea. PCI Express, DDR2, and a host of other technologies are on the way, and existing technology is not compatible with it at all.

Therefore, I suggest updating to an Athlon XP 3200+ (which has a 400MHz FSB so you can fully utilize PC3200 RAM). I like the nForce2 400 Ultra chipset (dual-channel memory) and I'd suggest getting 2x 512MB of PC3200.

If you really don't want to buy new RAM, you can get away with the older XP processors that have the 333MHz FSB. Your PC2700 RAM will work with those, although I'm not sure how well they will work in dual-channel mode because they're mis-matched sizes (one 256 and one 512... or 3x 256).

For mobo's with the XP, I'd suggest the ASUS A7N8X or A7N8X-E Deluxe (Deluxe has Gigabit LAN and SATA), the Gigabyte GA-7N400-L or GA-7N400 Pro2 (Pro2 has SATA and Gb LAN), or a similar board by Abit. The ASUS board is very popular, but I personally like the Gigabyte board a bit more. 4 DIMM slots makes so much more sense to me than 3 on a dual channel system.

For power supply, you can't go wrong with the Antec TruePower series. The True430 will suit yur needs just fine.

For cases, I've always been a fan of this style case. I've built two or three machines with them, and they're great. They're a bit heavy, but they're very well designed.

So, here's what I would get:
Mwave's Althlon XP 3200+ Retail Bundle (last processor on list)
+ Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2
+ 2x 512 MB of PC3200 (Mwave RAM is fine with me since I don't overclock and it has lifetime warranty)
+ Assembled, & tested for $9
$446.00 + shipping

Newegg's Antec Case with True430 bundled with it
$112.00 + $15 shipping

Total: $573

Holy crap is that a good price! I need to find me $600!

 

I'd agree with InYearsToCome, don't worry about upgrading right now. That system should run Doom 3 just fine. Save your money for when upgrading will give you a good boost in performance. In about a year (maybe less), with $700-800 you'll be able to get an Athlon 64 processor and mobo with faster SATA, DDR2 RAM and a PCI Express video card.

 

thanks for your help guys!

 

oh and I heard that the x800 can barely run doom 3 at 1024x768 with max details... I dont even wanna think about how it would run on my current spec lol

 

you didnt see the doom 3 video going around running on a GeForce 3 then did you?

it may not have had amazing framerates... but it was actually playable.

dont worry, your system will definetly be able to play it... albeit maybe not with max details.

 

yeah I did see it when it was first revealed to the public.
Gf3 could only run tech demos tho ;p

lol

 

Am i right you need a 3.0GHz processor to run DOOM 3 at it's normal speed?

 

take a look here http://www.doom3portal.com/info/systemreq.php

it mentions minimum specs... obviously minimum will barely run the game... but you're system is only a processor away from their "high end" system thats supposed to run it ideally.

 

Ive been thinking about what da chicken said, and might opt for a 64 bit processor... but only at max the Athlon 64 3200+...

Is it worth upgrading to a 64 bit processor?

 

its definetly faster than an athlonXP, but since not many programs (and no final release Windows OS) utilize the 64-bit, its potential might not be recognized.

that said, the athlon 64's are significantly faster than p4's in all but video encoding.

the only problem with a socket 754 amd64 like the 3200+ is that they do not support Dual-Channel RAM configurations. Only the FX series and the new socket 939 athlon 64's have that support.

 

P4's are better in any application that requires a whole lot of math computations and not a whole lot of anything else. That incudes encoding/decoding multimedia and compressing/decompressing (which is basically the same kind of thing as encoding and deconding), but it also includes multimedia editing (including 3D studio and ray tracing stuff). These all benefit from the large number of math computations per second due to the 3+ GHz clock speed.

AMD64 is better at gaming, bussiness applications, and (somewhat surprisingly) compiling source code. These all require a large number of logical operations, looping, memory pointers, and memory access.

Unsurprisingly then, the P4 can do math faster with its much higher clock speed, but the AMD64 can read and write memory faster with it's on-die memory controller.

64-bitness is not an issue at the moment, since the only 64-bit OS's available are limited Linux distros and thw WinXP 64-bit Beta. Both drivers and software for 64-bit OS's are few and far between. 64-bit won't be relevant for several years yet.

[My opinions are based on reviews I've read, primarily at Anandtech.]