Hello, my post is similar to the one a few below , but a little different as I do like to game. I have a Pentium 4 Prescott at 3.0ghz, 1gig Kingston Hyper X ram, and an Radeon 9600XT AGP card in my desktop. I'm trying to milk her for all she has so i'm avoiding the big upgrade for hopefully another year. I came across the ATI 3850 512mb AGP card on the egg and at $160 it seems reasonable enough to give my computer one last hurrah. I was reading that with this card alot of times the Processor is the bottleneck, and I would just like to know if with my current processor I will receive a good enough improvment with this card. Has anyone used this card? I hope to be playing COD 4 and Star Craft 2 when it comes out, so nothing like Crysis. Thanks!

Yeah, to be honest, your processor is going to be big bottleneck. I read an article in a magazine a few months ago where they added a 3850 to a P4 system, and the results were none too convincing. The older CPUs just no longer have the power to run modern games well.

If you're going to avoid Crysis though, you should see some improvement. COD4 is very scaleable, and StarCraft 2 has been designed to run well on low-end machines like you'd find in internet cafes.

You'd see a massive improvement if you upgraded the whole setup and it might be cheaper than you think. Bang in a Pentium E2140, 2GB of value RAM, mid-range motherboard and a 3850 or Geforce 9600GT and you'll be flying.

Quote: Originally Posted by Supafly298 Hello, my post is similar to the one a few below , but a little different as I do like to game. I have a Pentium 4 Prescott at 3.0ghz, 1gig Kingston Hyper X ram, and an Radeon 9600XT AGP card in my desktop. I'm trying to milk her for all she has so i'm avoiding the big upgrade for hopefully another year. I came across the ATI 3850 512mb AGP card on the egg and at $160 it seems reasonable enough to give my computer one last hurrah. I was reading that with this card alot of times the Processor is the bottleneck, and I would just like to know if with my current processor I will receive a good enough improvment with this card. Has anyone used this card? I hope to be playing COD 4 and Star Craft 2 when it comes out, so nothing like Crysis. Thanks!

alternately, if you really want to go cheap for the time being, don't spend all that cash on the new card. You can probably pick up a used AGP card that out performs that 9600XT by a significant margine, and an extra gig of RAM will go a long way as well. My old rig, which I just upgraded, was running a Prescott at 2.8 GHz, but had 2 GB of Corsair XMS 2-2-2-5 RAM and a 7800GS AGP card. The 7800GS does HDR rendering, so Oblivion looked significantly better on it than the X800Pro it replaced.

-godling

Hmmn interesting, Heres another twist I guess I can throw in, I'm currently using my laptop as my main system, its got a core 2 duo T7300 at 2.0ghz, 2gb of ram, and an Nvidia 8600GTS 256mb, so its loads faster than my desktop, and its what i've been currently gaming on, sad I know. Judging by what I've heard I think I would probablly be better off just buying myself a nice LCD and hooking it up to my laptop. I guess I'm over estimating that systems potential. Thanks guys

Quote: Originally Posted by Supafly298 Hmmn interesting, Heres another twist I guess I can throw in, I'm currently using my laptop as my main system, its got a core 2 duo T7300 at 2.0ghz, 2gb of ram, and an Nvidia 8600GTS 256mb, so its loads faster than my desktop, and its what i've been currently gaming on, sad I know. Judging by what I've heard I think I would probablly be better off just buying myself a nice LCD and hooking it up to my laptop. I guess I'm over estimating that systems potential. Thanks guys

Don't know if it's anything like the 8600M GT in my laptop, but that struggles to play games at 1280x800, let alone anything higher. Your laptop might have a good core spec, but the graphics card still isn't much cop. I don't know really...it's a difficult situation to be in.

I just upgraded a friends PC for right at $600 and he had an old AMD XP2500. If you shop around and sell some of your old stuff now is actually a pretty good time to upgrade. People are spending less money and prices are pretty low. If I had a consule I'd be selling it 2 :-)

Quote: Originally Posted by Slaymate I just upgraded a friends PC for right at $600 and he had an old AMD XP2500. If you shop around and sell some of your old stuff now is actually a pretty good time to upgrade. People are spending less money and prices are pretty low. If I had a consule I'd be selling it 2 :-)

It is a sweet time to buy. I just picked up the e8400, a P35 mobo, 8800GT 512, 4 gigs of DDR2, 120GB hdd and PCP&C 610w PSU for under 800 ... and I've got loads of spare parts to sell, once I pull them.

-godling

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100226L Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Newegg.com - PC Power & Cooling S610EPS 610W Continuous @ 40°C EPS12V Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, cUL, CE, CB, TUV - Power Supplies

Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors

Newegg.com - Transcend 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

$35 in rebates, around the same for shipping.

$436 in total, a best selling board, you just need you standard stuff like HDD and optical, and a case.

If you need a better cooler the Big typhoon is like $45 on the egg, but you can get coolers cheaper on a lot of other sites.

In total though around $500 bucks and you have a three times (or more) better machine, and you can part out your old one on here so I can buy some parts I need ...

Just a suggestion though.

Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P31-S3G LGA 775 Intel P31 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Newegg.com - XCLIO Coolbox Fully Black Finish 0.5 mm SECC Chassis/ ABS Frontpanel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ 2pcs 180mm fans - Computer Cases

Newegg.com - Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR V9603GT52 GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Newegg.com - OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS 500W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply 100 - 240 V - Power Supplies

Quote: Originally Posted by nemwhaa Newegg.com - Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors For the couple dollars I'd agree. Didn't see this one earlier. Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P31-S3G LGA 775 Intel P31 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards Full ATX a little better memory capability (not that you couldn't OC the mATX version) Newegg.com - XCLIO Coolbox Fully Black Finish 0.5 mm SECC Chassis/ ABS Frontpanel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ 2pcs 180mm fans - Computer Cases I was assuming you had a case (90% of all cases are keepable) Plus with todays cheapo case standards, I would stick to the half decent already in your possession one you probally already have. Newegg.com - Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory Cheap RAM is cheap RAM...You can get a even cheaper set here Newegg.com - BIOSTAR V9603GT52 GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards I'm not a Nvidia fan myself although I hear them 9600GT's aren't bad. I say 3850 because its cheaper. Newegg.com - OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS 500W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply 100 - 240 V - Power Supplies The PSU i had is around $100 discounted off normal price, its pretty much a $200 PSU for $100 bucks my only alternative would be this one and thats only if you need that $25(including MIR).

Sticking with what I had and what I've aggred with newhmaa on, Your new complete total wth the case.

$50 MIR's + 35ish shipping = around $440 for the whole thing, not including fans and a cooler (again a good cooler will run you $40-$60) Just under $500 either or drop the case use your own and keep the total right around or under $450.