Upgrades or PCI-e?

Mousey

I got about £50 for my birthday yesterday and i was really pleased, but now i'm wondering what i should do with it.
I've had a few ideas, i thought eitheir,

• 2GB Ram (Details)
• Thermaltake Soprano Black (Details)
• or PCI-E Switch?

It's gonna cost me about £75 to switch to PCI-E with ANOTHER mATX Board (), DDR2 Ram and a 512mb Sapphire Radeon X1550.
Word has come in as well that i'm still to recieve payment for a job i did a couple of days ago, clean out and fresh xp install on an old emachines ... THING (Jesus it was difficult, locked bios, no cd booting and there was a forgotten password for the OS i managed to guess eventually)
I reckon i should go for pci-e but i just wanna know what you guys are thinking.

Mousey

Boomp

Matth

Depends (doesn't it always).

If you have an AGP based system that is decent and will take a reasonable upgrade, stick with AGP and plan on running it into the ground at the last level that it is worthwhile upgrading to.

If you want a versatile platform for future upgrades, them go PCI-E.

Buying DDR memory is a bit of a dead end, but then who knows when DDR3 will take over and DDR2 will be history, or the "future proof" DDR2 will look so slow compared to more recent versions that is is really no longer the same kind of memory.

Future proofing is rarely 100%, usually it only delays the inevitable.

kris23

pool your money together, and when you finally decide to upgrade, dont get some cheap, crap mATX board, DDR3 is taking over so neither memory upgrades are the best choice..... but you peobably wont have enough money to get that for a while.....

do you REALLY need to upgrade now? id rather you save and get something better once you actually have the cash for quality stuff.....

Mousey

At the moment it's just too expensive to keep upgrading this sytem, the parts are dissappearing off the sites i normally get them off and if i don't switch now the prices might rocket back up, i've put together another list of parts that i'm happy with and i'm gonna save for those ;

- Biostar P4M890-M7 SE (£26.52)
- 1GB CCL Choice PC5400 DDR677 (25.66)
- 256mb Sapphire Radeon HD 2400 Pro (29.97) < ABSOLUTE BARGAIN!!! HD Ready, DX10 Ready and Crossfire ready, so if i ever buy a board with dual x16 lanes i might buy another one

i know the parts (especially the mobo) aren't the best but i REALLY need to switch to pci-e before i get completely left behind, wish me luck

Matth

Wow! that is a mad price for an entry level DX10 card - love to see it benchmarked (DX9) against anything else that can make that price, like the X1550.

Or Nvidia's budget DX10 offering, the 8400GS, versus some 7300GS/LE/GT solutions.

Are budget cards still as embarrassing as the Geforce 4MX, or are they all-rounders that could game well enough to see where improvements could be made.

Mousey

To be honest i have absolutely no idea, i don't have the card yet mate lol ^^
when i get it (shouldn't be too long now, maybe a week or 2) i'll run 3dmark and some other stuff on it
the specs on paper (well excel anyway) look really good though, Shader model 4.0, DX10, HD and Crossfire is damned good for 30 quid though, can't get me wrong

kris23

feature packed and weak processing power could only mean FPS disaster in games..... all the added textures needing rendering compared to a DX9 card the 2400 cards are really worthless if you want to play games..... just look at the benches for the 2600 cards! they suck!

your choice of slowly upgrading will only lead to buying more crap, too slow of progress and theres really nothing, you are behind and it seems you will stay pretty far behind.....

i personally see no great speed boost in your upgrade, the memory is only a few mhz better and i dunno about the vidcard being any better than what you have currently.... sure its DX10 and has Shader model 4.0 vs 3.0 but that probably just eyecandy at the expense of FPS, in terms of FPS and stability, the MX400 is better than an 9550 card.... despite being better in specs....

save more money, get 2 gigs of higher RAM, a better Dx9 (performance for cheap) vid card and a heatsink to OC that pentium D

at this rate you will be going nowhere very slowly with a million different rigs of different ages with the same performance......

Dyre Straits

Whatever you do, please, for the love of all that's sane, stay away from any motherboard that has a VIA chipset!! If you don't understand my revulsion of this chipset, just do a search on our own forums posted by people with problems with VIA.

temeteus82

save some money and get this : http://www.cclonline.com/product-inf...urer_id=0&tid=

Intel P35 northbridge and ICH9 shouthbridge...

Mousey

I spose i could go for that board but i've decided to save a few pennies and the IL9 pro, to be honest i'm not bothered about UBER power atm, that's gonna come later once i'm properly established with PCI-E.
I'm still trying to find out if the IL9 Pro supports crossfire, it's running an intel chipset so i don't see why not :/

Edit : A VERY Precise google search (Abit IL9 Pro Crossfire) turned up the results i wanted, an e-tailer had a couple of comments posted about this board saying it was a fantastic, stable, affordable base for C2Ds or Crossfire.
Looks like this is the board for me ^^

josh2thad

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127015

From what people are saying that board doesnt look all that great man.
Doesnt support E6x50's? Whats the point in upgrading to something thats not supporting the latest processors? Also the second lane thats (16x) Is really ONLY 4X.

I'd take a look at this board, and get a zalman and OC the HELL outta that Pentium D.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128012

Honestly if i were you, id wait till DDR 3 becomes the Norm and just get a new system then. But thats me, either way id OC that D

Mousey

lol i was looking at that exact same board on ccl in clearance, but i gotta admit i really do like that IL9 Pro, and tbh i don't care the second slot is only x4, i still like the board.
Another thing, i don't want to overclock, if i screw up and damage my cpu i won't have the money to buy another one and even though i've got a celeron here on the desk i really don't wanna have to resort to using it.

I mean come on, i'm struggling to find £100 to switch my mobo, ram and gfx card, do you really think i give 2 shits if it doesn't support Core 2 Extremes?
i'll NEVER be able to afford one of those, it supports core 2 duos so if i ever upgrade to one of those i might consider saving my money for a few YEARS to buy a C2E but i highly doubt i'll ever do it

But for now i think the parts i've chosen should be fine.
and i'm gonna go for em

And btw please don't try linking me to newegg products, i live in the UK and they don't ship here, and i can imagine it would be ridiculously expensive if they did

PangingJr

bah you deserve some fun, just buy what you want to buy.

Mousey

now THAT is a response i like ;p