New Upgrade

[Metalspawn]

Hello guys and maybe girls
I am no noob at building pc's and I know alot about em (gaming wise)
I was just wondering if any1 clan plz give me a good upgarde from a:
3500 + amd
6800 gt
512x2 (normal cheap ram)
gigabyte GA-K8NS ulttra-939
I would love to keep sum1 off my parts for saving money, i saved a while for this rig and just want to know if any xperts can tell me if upgrade is a good idea atm?
Thanks alot

 

[CrazyBob]

I would say not - reason: That rig is still pretty decent, and I'm sure it has no trouble with any of the current games.

CPU prices are in line for a bit of a shake up with the release of the new Conroe CPUs, and as you may have read already, AMD has slashed their prices on just about their whole range ...so it'll be worth the wait for those effects to filter down to our part of the world.

I would say that this moment in time would probably be about the worst for upgrading

 

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

If you're a "hardcore/enthusiast" gamer, you might want to upgrade the memory to 2GB (another 2 512MB sticks).

Yeah wait for the price-drops - although buying a Conroe will be more expensive [as you need to buy a new motherboard, currently the cheapest is R2k]. Maybe go for a 4400+ once prices come down?

6800 GT: Wait for the new DirectX 10 cards to come out before buying a new one...then you'll be a proudly "Vista Ready" user

 

[supersunbird]

CPU prices are in line for a bit of a shake up with the release of the new Conroe CPUs, and as you may have read already, AMD has slashed their prices on just about their whole range ...so it'll be worth the wait for those effects to filter down to our part of the world.

Read my post in the "AMD prices to go down 47%" thread, the new prices are already here in South Africa...

 

[venom]

I badly wanted to upgrade too but i've decided to wait. First i waited for the AMD price drop....then i heard conroe was coming so i waited again....then i found out that the DX10 cards are due out next year......soooo its going to be a long cold winter

 

[supersunbird]

Well, the AMD price drop came today and Conroe is here in a 2 weeks, nobody says you cant have a nice CPU and motherboard now and just buy a DX10 card later, its gonna use PCI Express 16 just the same...

 

[ebendl]

I badly wanted to upgrade too but i've decided to wait. First i waited for the AMD price drop....then i heard conroe was coming so i waited again....then i found out that the DX10 cards are due out next year......soooo its going to be a long cold winter

Lol! That has always been the problem with computer technology - if you keep on waiting for this or that to come out, there will also come something better along.

Although, at this stage I am also waiting before a upgrade, to get a nice Vista Compatible machine (and justify the need to buy an extra sweet graphics card ).

 

[CrazyBob]

Read my post in the "AMD prices to go down 47%" thread, the new prices are already here in South Africa...

Yeah, just hasn't affected everywhere just yet...

Thing is though, that he might rather want to wait a few months for the Conroe's to drop in price a bit - they're quite a bit ahead of the pack atm. Like I said - his pc is more than adequate for now, and I reckon it'd be worth the wait.

 

[sdd]

guy,

what you have there is a decent rig for the games at the moment ... as crazybob said.

If I were in your shoes, I would up my ram to 2gig and see a noticeable diff. remember that if you buy gaming ram (low cl) ... 2x512 extra ... they will work at the same speed as the cheap ram that you have.

Wait for prices to stabilise on the cpu side.

Anyway, if you decide to upgrade ... please pm me if you gonna sell our gfx card ...

 

[flarkit]

Metalspawn, your PC should play games fairly well for another 6-12 months. So you could upgrade it slightly now and definitely be capable for a year. Otherwise, save up about R5,000 and replace the whole shebang (selling your current base).

If you do choose to upgrade, I strongly suggest that you swap the 6800GT for a 7900GT.

Then, you could sell the 512Mb's and buy 2x1Gb DDR400 sticks. A few games will run better, such as BF2, Vampire Bloodlines and probably most titles coming out in the next year.

Then, if your still have a few grand that needs spending, you could sell the 3500+ and go for an X2 CPU (the 4400+ is simply lovely). Alternatively, go for a single-core 4000+ (see the 1Mb cache pattern???).

These are the best 'good-value' upgrades for your rig IMO. With your setup, I'd prioritise these as:

- 7900GT
- 2Gb RAM
- 4400+ X2 or 4000+ (not a critical choice)

 

[Metalspawn]

thanks alot guys i will wait for dx 10 and conroe