Upgrade rather than new rig?

ionapaul

Hey all,

I posted a few days ago about buying a new PC...however been thinking that maybe an entire new rig is not needed (and maybe want to avoid Vista for a while if possible). I have the following components:

MB: Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI, nForce4 SLI, ATX, Socket-939
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz
RAM: 2GB DDR 3200
GPU: nVidia 7900GT
OS: XP Home

Would an easy upgrade the GPU to an 8800GT give me another year or two of playing the newest games? If so, anyone know how much a secondhand 7900GT could be sold for? Thanks

RoyalMarine

your cpu will bottle neck the 8800gt upgrade.

for it to last 2 years more honesltly a dual core intel would be the way to go.

ionapaul

Would the CPU adversely affect running Crysis if I upgraded the graphics card? Planning to go for a quad-core Intel in the future, so would need to change the MB if I upgraded, that's such a pain I'd rather buy an entirely new rig!

Sqaull20

It wont be bottlenecked that bad, you will still see a huge improvement over a 7900gt

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_8800_gtx_gts_amd_cpu_scaling/page15.asp

Stiil you would be better off getting a new cpu/mobo/ram if you want to play Crysis, the x2 4200 will struggle with that game

TerrorFirmer

You'll get another while out of it with a better graphics card, regardless of any technical bottleneck your performance will hugely increase. The X2 will start to feel the pain in the likes of Crysis alright, but in any other reasonably hardware friendly game i.e Call of Duty 4, UT3, etc a 4200+ is more then sufficient.

Varkov

You could give it a pretty good adrenaline shot for 300 squid.

Lets say €200 odd for the 8800GT, €50 for a good cpu cooler (get that 4200+ up to 2.8-3Ghz) and if you mobo can take it, slap in another 2 gigs of RAM as its so cheap at the moment.

ionapaul

There seem to be a huge amount of options on Komplett regarding different 8800GT / 8800GTS cards, anything in particular to look out for? My natural tendency would be to buy as cheap as possible, but I think the cheapest 8800GT only has 256MB and most of the rest have 512MB.

RoyalMarine

dont get the 8800gt 256mb.

the 8800gt 512mb varies in price from different manufacturer's. some come with games like crysis and a free t-shirt.

evga, bfg, innov any of them really.
i bought the bfg version and am very happy with it.

TerrorFirmer

Pixmania have the Jetway 512mb GT for 201, or about 215 including delivery. Very good price.

RoyalMarine

ordering 2 at that price seems affordable!

Sqaull20

For €325 delivered you could get a new system

XFX GeForce 8800GS 580M, 384MB DDR3, PCI-Express €137
Intel Pentium Dualcore E2160 "Box", LGA775 €55
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L ,Intel P31, ATX, PCI-Express €57
2048MB-Kit OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel, CL4 €40

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/3/home.jsp

Sqaull20

On adverts/ebay you might get

MB: Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI, nForce4 SLI, ATX, Socket-939 €25
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz €40
RAM: 2GB DDR 3200 €20
GPU: nVidia 7900GT €70