Hardware Suggestions

[TheVoid]

My setup:
Pentium 4 1.6Ghz
640 Mb pc133 RAM
GeForce4 MX420 64Mb RAM

I have $400 to spend. Suggestions?
lol
*alien*

[DooMMooD]

an ipod

[Deathgiver]

A serious response
1) a non MX Geforce 4 or better
2) a faster CPU (Motherboatd permitting)
3) 5.1 surround sound system

[TheVoid]

ok...
well, i've got a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum and Altec Lansing 5.1 surround speakers... so that should be good to go.

Which do you guys think is better, the GeForce series or the Radeon series?

[ARMYguy]

Depends on what you want to play. If you want to play Doom III and almost every game there is in existance with exception to half-life 2 , halo, and splinter cell ( those are most common games that run better on radeons ), then get an fx, i d recommend in your case an fx 5700 ultra. great speed for a great price, with great OverClocking abilities.

[eX_Do0mY]

Depends on what you want to play. If you want to play Doom III and almost every game there is in existance with exception to half-life 2 , halo, and splinter cell ( those are most common games that run better on radeons ), then get an fx, i d recommend in your case an fx 5700 ultra. great speed for a great price, with great OverClocking abilities.

Like he said, an FX 5700 Ultra should do you. These charts may help you: http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html

[The Undertaker]

You can get a 5900 for a little more which has a nice phat 256 bit bus.

[Deathgiver]

Depends on what you want to play. If you want to play Doom III and almost every game including half-life 2 , halo, and splinter cell get a Radeon.

I'd reccomend any Radeon higher than 9000 (with exception to SE models)

[Tyberious]

I recommend, a radeon 9600 TX or 9700 Pro,

Faster ram then pc133 because your computer is cutting some serious cheese with that type of ram, get a I865PE or I875P chipset like MSI.

Get pc3200 Ram in dual channel pairs. (512MB sticks for a total of 1GB of memory)

Geta sound blaster Audigy 2 ZS (because its better then the normal Audigy 2 and is cheaper if you don't buy the pro)

A 2.4Ghz Pentium 4C (800FSB) processor, those shouldn't be too expensive (depends where you live though)

[Tyberious]

Depends on what you want to play. If you want to play Doom III and almost every game there is in existance with exception to half-life 2 , halo, and splinter cell ( those are most common games that run better on radeons ), then get an fx, i d recommend in your case an fx 5700 ultra. great speed for a great price, with great OverClocking abilities.

anything that rubs alot of shaders such as pixil/vertex 2.0+ or 1.4+ kick FX card's asses because their shader speed is slower then ati's. They will fix this in the future.

they usually do better in anything directX 8.1b or lower (faster then radeon) but if its Direct X 9.0b then radeon rules the roost, its your choice, if you run older games then get nvidia (for now) if you want to run games of the future then radeon (nvidia will come back with something great)

[eX_Do0mY]

I would go with a Radeon, until nVidia comes back with something that will kick ass.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=780690/search=pentium%25204%25202.6%2520ghz/ut=cc44e36fc4fe0a68 A great price.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=717893/search=radeon%209700%20pro/ut=cc44e36fc4fe0a68
Another great price, and it still falls within $400

[TheVoid]

heres a question. my motherboard is socket 478. does this mean that ANY socket 478 Pentium 4 will work with it?

aka will that chip (P4 2.Ghz 800 FSB with HT), work in my motherboard that currently has a P4 1.6Ghz with a slower bus?

Also also, if this is true and all will work fine, how do you swap a processor? Just like any other hardware? Shut the puter off and take it off, put the new one in, and start 'er up? Or is there some settings somewhere i need to change?

Sorry to bombard you guys with questions... but i've been perusing the forums for a while, just never signed up... feels like i've been a member for a long time.

[Tyberious]

what model is your board first of all, second tell me the chipset, example: mine is a I865PE and mine works with all those (accept the .18 micron process p4 sock 478, only with .13 micron p4's. The short answer is no, not even if your model is the most recient model but if its bought within a year ago then they will support most processors, check your manual and come back with the answer of what shipset you have.

By the way, a.k.a. means also known as not example. :)

by the way, with the motherboard you have corrently, chances are no, it wont support anything with a faster bus (unless you have an amptron which has sdram but they suck anyway and I had an mptron so I can talk actually I had 2). You should upgrade your botherboard to either a I865PE or I875P if you can scrounge up the cash, if not then get an I865G and buy some ddr then save up for a new graphics card and processor if you want some serious power. Another alternative is to get ATI's new motherboard with IGP 9100, its one of the best integrated graphics today and it can save you a bit of cash if you are looking for pixil and vertex shaders but, don't expect to play hard core games on it so save up some cash (im not talkin aobut much, maybe 200 for a new processor (mainstream) and 200 for a new vid card (mainstream) I recommend getting either 9600 XT or Nvidia 5700 Ultra, I recommend Nvidia on this one because it has ddr 2 which overclocked well I heard and its slightly faster on most tests then ATI's mainstream card ( maybe because they forgot they needed the memory to be overclocked to be faster). Also don't be fooled by ati's overdrive technology, its nto that great, the parts only overclock at 30Mhz themselves at the max so its not going ot help much. Hope this helped. Good luck! *alien*

[TheVoid]

wow!

you guys are awesome. heres the specs on my mobo:
Gigabyte P4 Titan
GA-8SDX
SiS 645 AGPset

Glancing through the manual, heres what it says under CPU:

Socket 478 for Intel Micro FC-PGA2 Pentium 4 processor
Intel Pentium 4 400 Mhz FSB
2nd Level cache depend on CPU


So apparently i have to stick with 400 Mhz FSB P4's...

is that worth upgrading, or should i just save up and go for a whole new mobo/cpu/ram thing?

Oh and i'm looking at the Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb.

[Tyberious]

I'd upgrade your ram/motherboard/processor now and save up for a new vid card and then save up for a sound blaster audigy 2 ZS (regular, not platinum or pro) here is my specs

P4B 2.4Ghz (533 Mhz bus) overclocked to 2.7Ghz
I865PE MSI NEO2 LS (runs on 400/533/800 Mhz busses) (currently running at 600Mhz
512MBs 266Mhz of dual channel memory now running the fastest timings and running 300Mhz (dual channel makes memory bandwidth)
Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB (strangely now says its a RADEON mobility 9600) (CORE:481Mhz MEMORY:360Mhz and can go even futher!)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
80GB hard drive 8MB cache 7200RPM
40GB hard drive 2MB cache 7200RPM (backup)

thatsjust a brief description of my rig, I will be getting either a 9800 Pro or a 9700 Pro depending if they offer the 9800 Pro for under 300 like they say they will,

I personally recommend upgrading the motherboard to something that uses ddr memory and not sdram because you are slowing your processor down with that stuff (I know I had one before ay can thank amptron for that one). What needs the most attention is the mobo the ram and the processor, the rest can wait but, if you find it better to upgrade the vid card first then wait fo rthe other stuff then by all means do so :)

[eX_Do0mY]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-487&catalog=280&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=1

Here ya go, supports 800/533/400 FSB, AGP 8x, UDMA, Dual channel DDR400, etc.

[IRONMAN]

If you have $400 to spend, I would suggest holding it untill you have another $400. Then you could get a new motherboard and processor, use the memory that you have, and have a faster system. DOOM III and other games of the next generation may not be out for a while, and you will need something faster than what you have to play them well. You can always replace the memory with faster memory later, but you could use what you have untill then.

Personally, I would suggest an AMD based system, but since you already have so much invested in Pentium, I'd stay with it unless you can come up with about $900+ for a whole new shabang. You could look on Ebay for a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 for less than $100 and might get lucky. However, beware of buying on Ebay. Many people have been ripped by unscrupulous sellers there. Read the seller's reviews and email with them a bit before buying. Buy with something traceable, like a cashier's check.

I tried to buy a SpaceOrb 360 at Ebay once a few years ago, and after several emails and 2 months and the seller giving me a sob story about his wife leaving him and his home mortgage eating him alive and still no product, I finally got what I ordered after ruining his Ebay reputation and threatening legal action in court and through the California (he lived there) Attorney General's Office, State Commerce Division.

[The Undertaker]

Its a bad time to get a new mobo. LAG775, PCI-Express, and DDR2 around the corner for Intel anything you buy will be short lived. Same for AMD, socket 939 is coming though AMD will support socket 754 for some time after.

[TheVoid]

ive heard about the PCI-Express...
should i hold off on the graphics card too then? or will the AGP card get faster when plugging it into the PCI-Exp?

[Tyberious]

amd processors are typically cheaper and mroe effecient but are a hair slower at games then p4's although I recommend an amd more thena p4, hell im building my friends computer on an amd foundation.

[hurleybird]

amd processors are typically cheaper and mroe effecient but are a hair slower at games then p4's although I recommend an amd more thena p4, hell im building my friends computer on an amd foundation.

Obviously you have never tried an athlon64. The athlon64 3000 beats a 3200GHz P4 in most gaming apps. A 3400+ A64 will beat the P4 in almost everything.

As for radeon Vs. Fx, this has been discussed a lot.

For Doom3 the FX will actually be a bit faster.

However the Radeons have better image quality all around, and seem to be faster in lots of games, i would sayt that ATI has better performance in over half of new games out there. Older games with no pixel or vertex shaders usually run faster on the Fx though, and i like Nvidia's drivers beter, though ATI has almost caught up. It seems to be consencious amoung hardware type people right now that ATI is in the lead, actually they just recently usurped nvidia as the number 2 graphics card manufacturer by a smigin (intel is #1). I say this without bias, I have never had an ATI card in my computer/s. Last two were Nvidia, one before that was S3.

I would worry most about your graphics card, for 400 bucks you could get a nice 9800xt ATI card.

You might want to wait for PCI express. not because its better (AGP 8x is far from being saturated, so the two buses will give the same performance on todays cards) but some new mainboards wont support AGP when PCI-express comes along, which could cut your upgrade path.

If you can afford to, also look at hose new athlon64's, they have really extraordinary gaming performance that is truly kick-ass. And having one makes you look so much l33ter than saying you have a P$.

[Tyberious]

im talking about amd XP processors, read mainstream. I knwo the amd fx/64 processors are more powerful, I stay up on hardware so you don't need to tell me any of this (yes I read your whole article) but thanks anyway for the thought *thumbs*

[hurleybird]

Yeah, i dont really see the point of going AXP. Right now the 3000+ has to be the best deal around for an affordable high performance processor, and then you also get a major performance when 64-bit apps come along.

You are right about AXP's being slower than P4's though, at least on the high range that is. The lower rating you go the better the AXP performs in comparison to the P4. For example, a 1600+ beat a 2GHz P4 when it the AthlonXP was first introduced.

[The Undertaker]

Your AGP card won't fit into a PCI-Ex slot. I'd wait on the video card. Intel and SiS announced that their dropping AGP if you want to use that video card you'll have to use a VIA mobo (which isn't a bad thing but you always want to keep your options open). Though there's been no news about PCI-Ex on the AMD side yet. As for cheap processors, can't beat the 2600 for under $100.

[Tyberious]

yeah it wont fit! Its physically smaller then a agp slot, they will have a motherboard with maybe a few pci slots on it when they relase the motherboards (this is offical) I mean look at when they were trying to phase out ISA, they kept like 2 or 3 ISA slots and added more PCI slots and eventually an AGP slot before it was eventually phased out for good, the same will happen, its not a new phenomenon.

[Tyberious]

Yeah, i dont really see the point of going AXP. Right now the 3000+ has to be the best deal around for an affordable high performance processor, and then you also get a major performance when 64-bit apps come along.

You are right about AXP's being slower than P4's though, at least on the high range that is. The lower rating you go the better the AXP performs in comparison to the P4. For example, a 1600+ beat a 2GHz P4 when it the AthlonXP was first introduced.

this is MY money I am going to be helping my friend build his computer up with so I think he is more then happy with what hes getting. All he has is a pentium 800 (thats the highlight) 133Mhz bus and intergated graphics 8MB on 256MB of ram and thats his gaming system in which its all he can play games on, I don't think he needs a rediciously espensive A64 or AFX just to play some freakin games taht have been out for a year or two. Since I will be paying for half of it and be getting his old machine afterwords, I think he will be fine with this. I really don't think hes doing to argue because hes forking half of the dough and I dout he wast to pay more then 200-300 bucks for me to hand build a system for him. So hes gettan an Athlon XP machine, he knows it will perform pretty fast and have good graphics so hes happy either way.

[TheVoid]

Yeah... i'm not looking for the top of the line best system ever. Also, the way I figured it, I know PCI-X is coming out soon, but you figure it'll be a couple more months, probably longer until it comes out, and is supported by new PCI-X hardware (i know its backwards compatible, but i'm talking about hardware that takes advantage of PCI-X)

And then it'll probably be a couple years before a game comes out that really NEEDS PCI-X to run at full steam, and by then, it'll be major upgrade time again anyways.

SOOOOO, i'm thinking i'm going to upgrade the video card now.. Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb (scored pretty damn high on a lot of tests), save up another couple hundred and update the motherboard, ram, etc.

Here's a good one:
What RAM do you think is a good type to go with that might be in use for a while?

[Tyberious]

ddr 2 is coming out but, I suggest dual channel ddr ram for now using an intel or amd chipset. Those will be cheap and fast computers, mind you I have one, I suggest if you want to save mroe money, get quality parts and if ya need more power...... overclock but, please do your research on componets and how to overclock if you plan to do so unless you want to be scraping molten silicon out of your scrotched case (ok its not that bad but just know what your doing.)

I recommend these specs for midranged but powerful computer

INTEL SPECS:
2.4-2.8Ghz Pentium 4 C (or oyu can get b but I recommend getting a c because it will last longer and be faster)
1GB of PC3200 400Mhz Dual Channel ram just to be on the safe side
I865PE chipset
(since they are cheap and almost as fast as the I875P, get one from other then intel because intel chipsets are more conservative and don't allow more performance then other vendors, for example MSI, Gigabyte, ATI (yes tehy make motherboards too, with integrated graphics one of the best mind you with agp and dual channel memory), VIA etc.

Radeon 9600 XT-9700Pro (they should be cheaper, I'd go with the 9700 pro but go with waht your budget will allow)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (not platinum or pro, just regular ZS since its only $100 and offers one of the best sounds without bothering your cpu to do all the work)
450Watt power supply (come on! Its only $50 bucks for a power supply anyway, just get a good one so you wont have a problem int he future)
Western Digital 80-120GB 8MB cache 7200Rpm hard drive (these are fast and cheap, I have one and I noticed a huge difference compared to my 40GB hard drive with 2MB cache and 7200RPM load times will be better).


AMD SPECS:
I recommend the 2500+ or the 2800+ but which ever the fastest you can afford without compramising componets, remember, spread the wealth on all the componets not just one area)
Nforce 2 Ultra 400 (don't skimp on motherboards because that is the body of your computer and also helps define the overall performance, this chipset offers dual channel as well as a wealth of other features)
Same graphics card
Same hard drive
you can use the integrated sound card because its pretty good but, I never liked integrated anything. Expandability is what I like, I perfer the same sound card but this is your choice, just don't decide on a flip of a coin.

these systems can't do you wrong, no use to upgrading to Athlon FX or Athlon 64 yet since they are expensive as sin and when it comes to performance per dollar the Athlon XP is the best out of all of them but intel is slightly faster overall but not by much (accept for AFX or A64 but only time will tell) no use on investing in prescott chips since they offer minute performance and are still expensive and run hotter then the bowels of hell. You can work around these suggestions or ignroe them completely, this is just my 2 cents worth.

big recommendation:
Don't try to have the best otherwise you will be washed up on the shores of upgrades every month (if technology is slow) and you will be wasting cash, jsut have mainstream of better then that and jsut accept having a good machine and don't try to compete with everyone in tech spect because its pointless. I found that out the hard way. Its your choice though and always remember, hit the *book* 's and research, research and research some more. It pays off, believe me I am my own computer tech and saved myself over thousands of dollars in diagnosis prices, componet replacements reinstalls/formats cleaning and other such areas such as tax, I saved my parents computer from a bad stick of ram which caused a 1 1/2 day and couple of hours more of headaches.

[TheVoid]

awesome. well, i currently have an Audigy 2 Platinum (not ZS), and its wonderful.
Figure i'll nab the 9800 Pro 128, and that should hold me over till i get enough $$ together for a mobo/processor/ram.

found my 9800 for $213. not too bad, eh?

[Tyberious]

yer good if you have a sound blaster audigy 2. The ZS eddition is slightly better but not nearly enough to warren an upgrade. As for the ccardproce im damn impressed, I thought I had the ebst deal when I could get either a Radeon 9700 Pro for $230 or a Radeon 9800 Pro for $240. Good choice. I think you are going great now, all you need really is a new processor (maybe for you a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 C for you, if you can find a 2.8Ghz Pentium 4 C for around $200or less then $250 then you will have a great deal and should get that then anything lower) and an I865PE motherboard with dual channel and it should suit you very well when it comes to speed.

[The Undertaker]

Little off there Void. PCI-X is very different from PCI-Express and Nvidia has anounced that by using their super awesome bridge they'll have PCI-Ex versions of the FX out that'll be able to use the features of the new bus, and the new high end Radeon will be native PCI-Ex.

[Tyberious]

I still can't wait till those days come, i want to see some serious competition, the clash of the titans shall shurely come soon, the main battle im waiting for. I'd love to read the specs of a future machine equipped with tomarrows tech.

[Abrax]

I currently have:
AMD Athlon xp2400+
256Mb DDR 400 (PC3200)
32Mb GeForce 2 (Onboard, but flys because of DDR Memory)
60Gb Maxtor 7200RPM HDD
Windows 98 SE (Because my father gave it to me for nothing)

Next month I should have an MSI Fx5700U TD (128Mb), and WinXP.

[Tyberious]

if you run xp, please upgrade to 512mbs of memory unless you want lag ass performance and alot of swap file usage, trust me, it will be hard to run games with only 256mbs of ram, I know I can barely run a game that requires more then 384MBs of ram free since thats what I usually ahve around without using memory managers, then I cna usually get around 450ish. Just a dire warning, you will see kick ass performance in xp if ya do, either that or a cheap alternative is to get a memory manager and run it alot, and optmize the hell out of your computer to use as little memory as possible but make sure your computer uses all its memory before it uses swap file.

[hurleybird]

or switch to linux :)

[FATAL]

Just a thought in mind, shouldn't this topic belong more likely to rants and raves forum instead of DooM III forum?

I'm in a picky mood tonight!

[Tyberious]

nah, its talkin aobut a system being prepaired for doom ]|[ so its still on the main theme. no prob about the mood ;)

[eX_Do0mY]

My system isn't too hot. I got a:

AMD Athlon XP 2100+
512MB Kingston PC-2100 DDR SDRAM
PNY GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 128MB OCed to 342/707
Biostar M7VIG Pro MB
Scores about 9000 on 3DMark01SE.
Onboard CMedia 9700 sound.

MIGHT be able to run D3 with medium detail at 30FPS

[Tyberious]

its still pretty good none of the less. I consiter that better then what most people now-a-days have as computers. Be proud to have a score of 9000+ marks on 3dmark.

[FATAL]

It angers me greatly that people call their computers crappy even if they are pretty good. I have an average comp and I'm really happy about it.

[Tyberious]

same here. I may not own my dream machine but, I have a dream machine compaired to most and I am happy witht he performance. I remember it wasn't very long that my computer was much slower (with really crappy computer parts) and I was still happy with it.

[FATAL]

People should be happy about what they HAVE at the moment, and maybe be happy about what their friends have at the moment.

People may dream about better computer and stuff, but they shouldn't whine about what they don't have at the moment or that the things they own are crap, respect your material posessions ;)

[Tyberious]

I plan on building ym friend a machine because he can barely play any games (barring the original doom) on his computer. Him and I have made an agreement on how we are going to build his machine and have set a budget. He can get a really good computer with the price we set dispite the low budget, ill supply the extra parts and do everything I can to get it as fast as I can (optmizations) before i hand it to him to "personalize it" and you can be sure it will get a copy of JDooM on it! when he saw those old pictures of what the engine could do he was amazed and now he wants it. He is enrolled on these forums right now.

[The Undertaker]

You know how it is, that guy down the street can open word .35 seconds faster than you so they assume they have crap.

[Tyberious]

uhhh actually thats nto the case with ym friend. He needs a better solution then he has because he is having so many problems with it hes ready to drop it in the water. I am merely being a good friend by taking up half fo the cost and offering a better solution. This has nothing to do with any technicalities that anyone said.

[The Undertaker]

That comment was directed to FATAL. We just posted at similiar times and it don't like editing cuz it tells the whole word. As for your friend, get him one of these (http://www.michaelscomputers.com) and he'll never have to upgrade again.:D

[Tyberious]

blegh! Thats out of the price range. I think he will be fine with the aging athlon computer, actually that will be more power then he will need since hes gettin dual channel. Also sorry for misunderstanding your post.