Upgrade woes part two: gonna spend lots of money, oh no
Right, so I'm looking to build a new PC to catch up on all the gaming I've missed the last year or so. I'm going to be cannibalizing as much as I can from the old one, but at the very least I'm looking at a motherboard, processor, case, RAM, and graphics card.
I'm going to try and research all this lot eventually, but I just got an offer from an acquaintance to buy one of his spare graphics cards on the cheap, and it strikes me as rude to leave him hanging for too long.
So my question is this: how well does an X1950XT perform on today's games?
Please do keep in mind that I'm not GameGuru; I don't have much money to burn, and I don't throw away my old equipment at the first hiccup. 
I'm used to not having fantastic performance, and if I can cut a corner, I will.
EDIT: The card in question is this one.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
Most of those issues could only be answered by knowing what your expectations are. Do you run games at 1024X768, or are you looking for huge resolutions? Do you "crank it to 11"?
An X1950XT is a fairly high end card still. How much of an "ahead of the curve" type are you? Tom's Hardware puts out a monthly "chart" of video cards. They don't recommend upgrading unless you go up at least three "tiers" on their chart. On this month's chart, that would have you dropping $700+ on an 8800 GTX. (linky)
I've also found lately that new PSU/MB/RAM these days usually leaves little for cannibalizing. If the machines are close enough that you can move much of the hardware, you're probably not getting much bang for your buck out of the upgrade.
"And the circle has been charged through the power of unphysics, which are physics so stupid they erase normal ones from your mind." -Wields-Rulebook-Heavily at rpg.net
I think the most helpful thing to do would be to post what your current set-up is and then we can go from there
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
I don't mind scaling back at all, as long as it's playable, which was what my GG comment was about.
I'm going to be buying everything that does any heavy lifting new, I'll just be reusing dvd drives and the like. Possible a harddrive as well, but I'm thinking of turning my current box into a fileserver/router, so I'll probably snatch up a new harddrive as well.
Duoae: my current machine has laid untouched for about a year or so and is terribly old, sporting a 1700+ XP and a 9600XT. Any hardware I buy is going to open up a whole new amazing world for me, basically.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
Hmm. Well you won't see much improvement with that new graphics card when running that processor. I would think that it would be bottlenecking your graphics card.
How much RAM do you have? Also, what type and model of motherboard do you have?
You have two choices:
1) Buy a new mid-end system outright
2) Upgrade your CPU and RAM - though this is highly dependent on your mobo as to how appropriate/sensible this option is.
[edit] - removed 1950 XT from option 1 as there's no point in going AGP... unless you can still find a decent dual AGP/PCI-E mobo.
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
No, you misunderstand. I am going to buy a new cpu, mobo, case and ram as well. I just got a bit thrown by this offer before I had any time to do some serious research on all the new-fangled technology that's out there, and the current prices.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
You might do a quick a price check vs. the 320MB 8800GTS. If they're close, I'd step up to the 8800. Otherwise the x1950xt should make you quite happy, especially compared to what you're used to.
AH! I stand corrected... i was a little confused by your initial post.
I blame the beer.
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
Sorry, I thought you were saying you had that card, which would mean you already had a PCI-E motherboard, which would mean a fairly current machine, which. . . Mea culpa.
Folks are really dragging their feet on Vista. I wouldn't worry a whole lot about DX10 just yet. A DX10 only game for a developer/publisher would be a little cutting of the nose to spite the face. Of course, I can live without Halo, so take that advice with however much salt you need.
That card should work fine for you on a modern PCI-E motherboard. Whatever you put together with a current CPU/RAM/etc. and that card, you should be fine for a little while at least. I would target around 2GB of RAM, for good XP performance and solid Vista potential. If DX10/Vista really forces your hand, you just need to purchase a new graphics card, which will be much cheaper and more common by then.
Be warned. Many new motherboards don't have IDE anymore. If you're thinking that you're moving IDE devices, you may be surprised. Even if it has an IDE, make sure you can boot from it to load the OS (again, going away). Although, you can pick up a nice SATA DVD DL burner fairly cheap these days.
For reference, I put a nice new 8800 in a P4 2.8. The card can handle the "shiz-nit", but the CPU slows it down a bit. But then, my monitor only goes to 1600x1200, so no harm no foul.
"And the circle has been charged through the power of unphysics, which are physics so stupid they erase normal ones from your mind." -Wields-Rulebook-Heavily at rpg.net
Hrmmm. I'm in a similar situation. AMD 64 3200+, 1 gb PC 3200 (2x512), and a 6600GT card. I was waiting to build a new system until I had the grand or so that I thought it would take buy the parts for a new one. Then I found that Newegg has nice prices right now on socket 939 procs. Now, staying 939 means that I lose any hope on upgrading again, but I thought I would be just replacing Proc & GPU and adding ram.
Of course, a little research showed that my Asus a8ve mobo won't accept X2 procs, so I had to factor in a new mobo. This of course opens the door to AM2 socket cpus and faster memory. Unfortunately, I have to do this upgrade on the super-cheap (my budget is hard-set at $300); so many performance options were not available to me.
What I ended up doing is getting a new socket 939 mobo and an X2 4200+ proc w/ 2 gb of PC3200 ram. Old tech and I'm out of upgrade options from here, but I built the rig originally in 2004, so it is nearing end of cycle anyway. Plus, I'm a budget gamer (clearly given my tiny upgrade budget) and I'm not going to spring for SLI or fast ram in any case. So CPU, Mobo, & Ram set me back $250 which would have killed my budget if I hadn't won a $60 Best Buy gift card in the Goojer raffle. BUT w/ that $60 I can get a $120 XFX 8600 GT from BB and only stretch the budget by $10. My beer fund takes a slight hit, but I'll be able to play newish games again.
I was really, really surprised to be able to get a dual core 4200+ proc w/ 2gb ram and a dx10 gpu for $310. I guess the moral of my story is to not give up on gaming if your system is slow and you don't have much cash. Of course, I haven't put it together yet so there is still time for the "fried expensive components during install" twist at the end of the tale. I've never been an upgrader before, I've always preferred to build new systems whole and use the old ones for various things. My last gaming rig from 2000 is my DVR. Now I can upgrade that and possibly do some couch gaming. I'm not a console person (I never use my ps2), but the thought of playing Psychonauts in the living room makes me happy.
**Extra notes for budget upgrading** I'm a librarian at a large research university and Microsoft make XP & Vista Business available to students/faculty/staff for free. They don't advertise this much, but if you have a university connection, look around the IT pages for the MSDN==>Academic Alliance.
*Edit*
Search here to see if your institution is a member: http://www.msdnaa.net/search/schoolsearch.aspx?
*Legion* wrote:
I'd buy a x1950xt for $80 in a heartbeat.
Yeah, I pretty swiftly came to the same conclusion.
(Although that's in euros, not your monopoly money, so it's closer to $110.
But you can assume a conversion rate of at least 1:1 for most consumer electronics prices.)
The card is on it's way to me now, which leaves me trying to decide on the rest of the parts, specifically the processor. *sigh* Why can't bigger numbers automatically equal better anymore?
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
They make more money this way
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
The pricing on these things make not even a lick of sense. An E6420 is much more expensive than other, ostensibly faster processors, and only five bucks cheaper than an E6750. Madness!
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
I think it was in another thread that GameGuru said that this basically boils down to overclocking potential - some chips do better than others.
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
So this is the shopping list as of the moment:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4400
Mother Board: Gigabyte DS3 LGA775
Case: Antec NSK6500 w. 430W powersupply.
Memory: 2x1GB Corsair DDR2 675Mhz
With a 320 GB Samsung hard drive, coming down to a total of 441.50 €
Alternately, replace the E4400 with an E6750 for a total of 503.50 €
There's of course also the comedy AMD option with an 64 X2 5600+ and a Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe to go with for 473.50 €, but as I understand it, the power consumption on the AMD chips is pretty dismal, and this makes me worrry about the poor little powersupply. And I might as well use a little bit more money and get an E6750, really.
Which I worry about generally as well. Is 430W enough? This new-fangled machinery is awfully power hungry, or so I've been led to believe. Opinions? Anything that just screams wrong, wrong, WRONG?
And how much does the processor really matter anyway, outside of Supreme Commander?
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
Maybe i've missed something but i thought that the AMD wattage is usually in line or lower with similar specced intel chips?
Apart from that the system looks good to my eye - though i'm not currently up on the vagaries of different core processors...
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
Not compared to the core duo, it seems. They're about the same while idling, but especially on higher frequencies there's quite a difference during peak performance. The 6000+ jumps over 100 W.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
I'm running quite nicely on a pretty similar system using a 430w supply. As long as you don't do something like an 8800GTX, you should be fine.
That said, that IS an Antec supply, and they are not well thought of. In the cheap end, the Sparkle/Fortron units are supposed to be quite good for the money. Personally, I tend to buy up on power supplies a little, because they're so central to the system. If they fail, they can cost you a LOT of money. The Seasonic supplies have a good reputation, are very quiet, and aren't too ridiculously overpriced.
PC Power and Cooling makes absolutely the best supplies you can buy for anything approaching a reasonable amount of money, but they're pretty noisy.... even the Silencer units. If you don't mind noise, and you want truly superb reliability, they are the people to buy from.
I don't know why you're doing 675Mhz RAM... I think you want 800Mhz with that chip. Lemme go look.
Edit: yeah, that's an 800Mhz FSB, you want 800Mhz RAM to run it. Shouldn't cost much more. Remember to get memory rated for 1.8v; if it's rated higher, you can have problems getting the board to boot, even if it can be adjusted to use the higher voltages.
I've had good luck with Silverstone Powersupplies as of late.. I tend to get the Modular ones as well..
I like PC Power and Cooling.. despite their purchase by OCZ (not a fan) but I find like Malor said their power supplies to be noisy.. and their lack of Modular Cables AND overabundance of cabling to be annoying.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
I didn't realize OCZ had bought them, that's a shame. I will stop talking about them so glowingly... god only knows what will happen to their quality now.
They actually have a very good reason not to do modular cables; inefficiency and power loss. Every coupling introduces resistance (and, thus, lost power to heat) into the circuit. I don't remember the exact percentage, but I think it might be as high as a 10% loss across a modular connector. If that memory is correct, a "600W" supply with modular connectors is actually only a 540W supply.
I have a couple of Silverstone cases; they are VERY nice, and I would expect their supplies to be of equal quality.
Indeed.. and this is the reason that PPC cites as why they dont use modular cabling.. but for me I'd rather get a bigger PS and deal with that % loss than mush excess cabling behind my Powersupply.. as it is my cases tend to be cluttered enough.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
It's nice to know 430W will do nicely. There's two reasons for going with 675Mhz RAM. The first and most importanis of course the fact that I'm cheap, and 800Mhz sticks are twice the money. The second is that if I go with the E6750, which I'm leaning towards at the moment, I'll have to snag a different motherboard as it runs the FSB at 1333 MHz. There shouldn't be any significant speed gains in that case, since systems like even multiples of bus speeds.
EDIT: Errr, that should be 667 MHz, clearly. It's a bit hard to multiply 675 and get something approaching 1333.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
I found what I think is a good site for calculating the amount of power your PSU needs to have. It's slightly behind the times on CPUs but not so much that you can't choose a close one.
http://web.aanet.com.au/SnooP/psucalc.php
Well, it's ordered now. I went for the E6750 in the end. Unfortunately, all the powersupplies recommended here were either not sold at all, or sold out, with obscene waiting times for replacements, or well into the ludicrously expensive. I'll ake my chances with the antec.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."