Time to Upgrade my PC - Suggestions

[Mike]

Time to upgrade my old rig to a modest system that can play today's game without a problem. Give me some suggestions if needed.

DVD-Rewriter: Lite-On Dual Layer DVDRW+-
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600
CPU: AMD Athlon Barton XP 3000, 333mhz , 512K cache
Harddrive: 120 GB Maxtor or Western Digital



Does it look good so far? The total would cost me just below $400 at newegg. Can't wait to get back on online games.

[Keng]

Get a 9800 Pro OEM...about $200

[Nate]

Ditch the 9600, it's a bit old now and you're better off spending $50-100 more for a Radeon 9800 Pro or XT. Prices seems to be dropping since the Radeons X800s came out. Going to pricewatch.com, I could find a non OEM Radeon 9800 Pro for $160.

[ak]

Go for Western Digital (Make sure that you get the 8mb cache version, much faster).

Are you going to use the OEM heatsink?

[Keng]

Get Segate, quietest and pretty good performance. I have 2 Segate SATA 80GB

[ak]

No, get Western Digital. I've been building/repairing computers for years now and I've seen many failed harddrives (mostly Quantum, Seagate, and Samsung).

While SeaGate has vastly improved in reliability, you should still spend the extra $5 and buy proven quality (Western Digital). Maxtor is nearly as good as WD, but imo they have lesser life expectancy.

[I do like Samsung for everything else though: Memory, CD-rw, DVD, etc. Who knew that a Microwave maker would take over the memory industry?!?!]

[Admin]

I would also pick up the ATI Radeon 9800 videocard and skip the dual layer DVD rewriter. Dual layer media are very expensive. Unless you plan on backing up your DVD or burning videos, I don't think you will have much use with a dvd rewriter.

Wish I had the money to upgrade my Athlon 1.2 GHZ CPU.

[Keng]

Originally Posted by ak

No, get Western Digital. I've been building/repairing computers for years now and I've seen many failed harddrives (mostly Quantum, Seagate, and Samsung).

While SeaGate has vastly improved in reliability, you should still spend the extra $5 and buy proven quality (Western Digital). Maxtor is nearly as good as WD, but imo they have lesser life expectancy.

[I do like Samsung for everything else though: Memory, CD-rw, DVD, etc. Who knew that a Microwave maker would take over the memory industry?!?!]

Er, All my Segate Hard Drive are still fine after many years, plus Segate offer 5 years warranty on their Hard Drive. Afterall, it's about your luck if you pick a good one or not.

P.S. Samsung is actually merger of many Korean company, they are very sucessful indeed.

[Mike]

The dvd burner is not really important compared to the videocard and the cpu upgrade. I am picking up a retail Athlon Barton chip and most likely a Western Digital hard drive.
Samsung LCD monitors are very stylish.

[Nate]

Make sure the LCD monitor has a refresh rate of at least 16 ms. Anything higher then that, you will notice ghosting when you play your games.

[Admin]

Unless you need the estate on your desk or prefer the style of a LCD, CRT monitors are the way to go.

[Keng]

I would vote LCD, it's so much easier on my eye than CRT.

[JPWRana]

yeah, LCD is easier on the eye... but CRT is still king for pc games, because of its crisp clear picture and much better refresh rates, AND CRT's are still cheaper than LCD's.

Seagate does offer VERY quiet hard drives, but since u want this pc upgrade for gaming, I will say go for the WD drive, because their performance IS better than seagate's, AND the noise (db) level isn't SIGNIFICANT, let alone NOTICABLE.

For video card, yes I do recommend that 9800 pro 128mb OEM because of its very good value, AND it is better than the 9600.

For cpu, I recommend getting the Barton 2500+ because you can overclock that EASILY to the 3200+ level without sacrificing more $$$.

That is what I would do.

[Ology777]

when your upgrading your PC for video games you can never go wrong with adding more RAM, 512 is nice but todays games are starting to recommend more RAM.

and I agree the DVD rewriter sounds like a waste if your using the system to play video games. Most games have the CD keys now and its pointless to burn them unless your making a backup. You'd need a new CD key in order to play it online or whatever.

[Keng]

When playing games your hardly use hard drive except during loading/saving. so that few extra mb per sec on transfer won't do much.

[Admin]

Originally Posted by Keng

When playing games your hardly use hard drive except during loading/saving. so that few extra mb per sec on transfer won't do much.

The only time I really needed the 8mb hard drive was the time I was capturing the home video into the pc. Other than that, I agree with Keng.

More RAM is always good.

[adambat]

I have a
P III 1GHz
Ati Redeon 9100 64 MB
SEAGATE baracuda 40GB
256MB DDR
sound cdrw
And I'm not even thinking about upgrading I have my previous ATI card on the shelf it's an REDEON 9000 (9100 i bought from a fraind for a wary low price) and I'm thinking do I need the new one wich makes more noise. I have no problem runing any games and the only changes I'm thinking about is swiching from a PC to a laptop which will hava worse grafic card but will be much more usefoul.
I'v seen most of the new games but the nowest I'w been playing is Legasy Of Kain Defiance and I had no problem with it.

[Keng]

Originally Posted by adambat

I have a
P III 1GHz
Ati Redeon 9100 64 MB
SEAGATE baracuda 40GB
256MB DDR
sound cdrw
And I'm not even thinking about upgrading I have my previous ATI card on the shelf it's an REDEON 9000 (9100 i bought from a fraind for a wary low price) and I'm thinking do I need the new one wich makes more noise. I have no problem runing any games and the only changes I'm thinking about is swiching from a PC to a laptop which will hava worse grafic card but will be much more usefoul.
I'v seen most of the new games but the nowest I'w been playing is Legasy Of Kain Defiance and I had no problem with it.

Some of the notebook has good graphic card but pricey...

[PandaMoOo]

I've been making myself and others computers for about 3 years now. Done about 10 or so I'd say.

Most important things I'd say when upgrading is find out what you want to do, and see what it costs you. There's no sense in upgrading your computer if you don't need it to do something else.

For games: It really all depends on what kind of games you're into, and how cutting edge you want to be. There's nothing wrong running a year or two behind the PC game scene, games are half the price by then; it's kind of nice.

Anyhow: I would agree with putting up the extra money for the Radeon 9800 Pro, very few things matter when you play games. Video card is definately the biggest effect. Make sure you have enough RAM to load the game fully, so about 512MB for less-then-cutting edge, 756 for cutting edge, 1024 to be ready for the future. A 3000+ CPU is very fast, but see how it costs to go to a 2800+ or so. 3000/2800= Less then 4% speed increase, is the money worth it? CPU speed rarely even affects game speed, perhaps only 1% difference in game speed. Or on the other hand, a 3200+ may only be another $5 or so. I'm too lazy to check with newegg.

That's my advice, if you've read nothing till now, the summary is: Find your goals of performance versus cost and hit it.

I currently got a Radeon 9800 Pro, 3.0 Ghz P4, 1024 Megs of RAM. I can play almost every game out there with better quality then I can see Well... except maybe Doom 3, but they are sponsered by NVIDIA and are poltically against optimizing for ATI cards. Hope that helps.

[Keng]

Originally Posted by PandaMoOo

I've been making myself and others computers for about 3 years now. Done about 10 or so I'd say.

Most important things I'd say when upgrading is find out what you want to do, and see what it costs you. There's no sense in upgrading your computer if you don't need it to do something else.

For games: It really all depends on what kind of games you're into, and how cutting edge you want to be. There's nothing wrong running a year or two behind the PC game scene, games are half the price by then; it's kind of nice.

Anyhow: I would agree with putting up the extra money for the Radeon 9800 Pro, very few things matter when you play games. Video card is definately the biggest effect. Make sure you have enough RAM to load the game fully, so about 512MB for less-then-cutting edge, 756 for cutting edge, 1024 to be ready for the future. A 3000+ CPU is very fast, but see how it costs to go to a 2800+ or so. 3000/2800= Less then 4% speed increase, is the money worth it? CPU speed rarely even affects game speed, perhaps only 1% difference in game speed. Or on the other hand, a 3200+ may only be another $5 or so. I'm too lazy to check with newegg.

That's my advice, if you've read nothing till now, the summary is: Find your goals of performance versus cost and hit it.

I currently got a Radeon 9800 Pro, 3.0 Ghz P4, 1024 Megs of RAM. I can play almost every game out there with better quality then I can see Well... except maybe Doom 3, but they are sponsered by NVIDIA and are poltically against optimizing for ATI cards. Hope that helps.

That's not true, ATI just suck at OpenGL simple as that.