Help me upgrade my computer

[Dooom]

I have limited $$ to upgrade my Computer. Here are my options
1) Upgrade my 1.5 Ghz Processor to 2.8 Ghz Processor
2) Upgrade my 512 MB SDRAM to 1024 MB SDRAM
3) Upgrade my 128 MB GeForce FX 5200 Video card to ????. And if so, which video card?
4) Save my money, Doom 3 should run just fine.

Please keep in mine that I only have $200 to $300 to spend. I would like to play with atleast some of the setting turned up and a good frame rate.

[Aleaver]

Hmm..only 300$? thats going to hard..I am looking to spend 1500$+ to get me a new computer..But thats just me i guess..But since u are just upgradeing ur comptuer i guess u could do it..

[Fredrik]

4)

[DoomUK]

I'd go for:-

3) Upgrade your video card.

[Ichor]

5) Upgrade your modem so you can play deathmatch with a decent connection.

[Naked Snake]

Dude, you look set already, all the specs there are quite capable of running Doom 3 at a decent framerate. Save your money and throw a party instead.

[insertwackynamehere]

I'd upgrade memory first when you do decide to upgrade.

[Naked Snake]

insertwackynamehere said:

I'd upgrade memory first when you do decide to upgrade.

Pfft, if anything, he should update the processor. The vid card and memory are perfectly fine, even the processor isn't too shoddy either.

[wildweasel]

I agree with BBG - 512 MB should be fine for Doom, as should be a Geforce FX. Your processor is a bit lacking.

[insertwackynamehere]

I read it needed 2gb which is twice as much as the average person currently has (1gb). 512 is OK, but 1gb is optimal and 2gb is extreme. I only have 1gb and I have memory errors all the time, nowadays.

[Amaster]

I have 512 megs of ram and the only errors I've ever had were due to a driver issue, so maybe you've got another problem going on (or not).

Anyway, you look pretty set up there. If you absolutely feel the need to upgrade I'd suggest going with a new processor. Otherwise just save your money.

[Fredrik]

insertwackynamehere said:

the average person currently has (1gb)

I am HIGHLY curious about wherefrom this statistic stems.

I only have 1gb and I have memory errors all the time, nowadays.

If you have 1 GB and get "memory errors" all the time, the problem isn't the amount of memory, but either a software problem (probably) or your memory being broken.

[Intel17]

That video card sucks. Get a radeon 9800 pro 128 or GeForce FX 5900 (NU, U,or XT depending on your budget)

[Sephiroth]

update CPU, everything else is set
2GB please, maybe in 4 years

depending on what CPU you have though, cleron will not run good. this is only what others have told me, i dont use nor plan to use a celeron.

first thing is first see what mainboard you have and what you can put in it.

if you have a 1.5Ghz you may only be able to update to 2Ghz or 2.4Ghz

if you have a cheap ass prebuilt system, compaq and such, you may be stuck with the CPU, or the upgrade would only be small.

also you can only buy CPU's of the same type. AMD athlonXP boards only use AMD athlonXP. intel P4 gets tricky, it has changed size. early P4's were about the size of an AMD, newer ones are smaller. so if you got a P4 chances are you may be maxed out. i dont know if celeron is the same socket size as a p4, so lets assume it isnt.

simply we need to know what CPU you own, and what mainboard you own.

if it is an older P4 you may be out of luck

here we go, old VS new
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/20010227/idf01_1.jpg

[Alientank]

If it's a 1.5 ghz p4, it's a socket 423 which is the larger sized pentium 4 chip, so he's SOL for a 2.8 unless he buys a new mobo. I think his memory is fine his video card is half decent. He needs a new mobo/cpu first.

[Dooom]

My 1.5 Ghz Pentium 4 processor is a Socket 478 that runs on a 400Mhz FSB. I was thinking about getting this processor as an upgrade.(http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=720590) My system is also a cheap ass prebuilt system, DELL, but from what I have read so far, it can be upgraded with this processor.

[Mogul]

In my opinion, what will make the most drastic difference in DOOM 3's performance is the video card. Your current specs are enough to run it at the minimum requirements (I'd guess), and shouldn't bottleneck a really good video card's power. For 300 you should be able to pick up a Radeon 9800 XT. That should be enough to play DOOM 3 pretty well.

[Fredrik]

"Minimum requirements" would be about GeForce 2 level. His current card will likely run the game nicely with everything enabled.

[DaJuice]

insertwackynamehere said:

I only have 1gb and I have memory errors all the time, nowadays.

What OS are you running? And I doubt the average person has 1GB in their system. Probably more lke 128MB-256MB. The average gamer I guess 256MB-512MB.

[Sephiroth]

if it is a dell never ever replace the mobo or powersupply.

once agian check to see what you can go upto on the main board.

if it can only go to 2.4, your stuck with a2.4
1.5 to 2.8 is over a Ghz so you may only be able to go so high. check the specs of the main board

[$SOLID$ Necro]

I would upgrade all of the above, If you want buttery smooth gameplay, You mention that it has SDRAM, wich is quite a bit slower than DDR memory. Couple that with a low end video card, and 800x600 with everything turned off will look rotten, but should still be playable. And another area that wasn't covered is the Hard Drive,if it's an older slower model, the levels in DOOM 3 will load like a hamster is powering your rig.

There is a great article about some testing of ATI and Nvidia video cards at [H]ard OCP if you serach for Doom 3 in the review section.


http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDc0LDE=

"While we can't be specfic on content, we can share with you some things about the hardware aspects that we encountered. Throughout our entire testing, we did not encounter one visual anomoly. Our DOOM 3 "test2" benchmark ran flawless on all cards tested, including a GeForceFX 5200 series card. This is something that I can't say for some mature benchmarks we run"


I am a member of PimpRig.com, we focus on Overclocking/Modding/Gaming systems.
If you are mainly building this for DOOM 3, I would suggest sticking with NVIDIA, it seems to run better for this game than ATI. If you are considering playing other games too, such as half life 2, ATI will typically run better on games based on that technology.

My current system specs:

AMD Mobile 2500+@ 2.6GHZ (1.83 stock) (88$)
Geil PC4400@520FSB CAS 2.5-3-3-7 (150$)
DFI LAN PARTY Rev B (142$)
Thermalright SP-97 HSF (55$+10$ 92mm fan)
Western Digital 36GIG 10,00RPM Raptor H.D. (110$)
Antec 550 watt True Control Power Supply (115$)
ATI 9600XT (550MHZ Core 700MHZ Memory)(165$)
Pimped/Modified Generic Case 35$
AS-5 Thermal paste 10$

Total Cost: 748$


I think it will play it pretty well, I will be getting the brand new X800 Pro when the price drops a bit (400$now!) and availablity is better.
When using Overclocked settings it will get 15,500 on 3DMARK 01, 4400 on 3DMARK 03,4600 Points on PCMARK 04, and 36,000 in AQUAMARK

Switching to a 9700Pro (A friends) raised my scores to 5400 Points during a quick test, and I am expecting to see over 10,000 points In 3DMARK 03, after I get the X800Pro

The point of my listing the scores, is to give you an idea of what a typical gaming system should get that will run Doom 3 very well.

I looked up systems close to yours on the ORB, and found the highest score to be 8,000 points on 3DMARK 01 (a DX 8.1 Benchmark), when overclocked to the max!A more typical score is around 6,00 points.

When moving to a Direct X 9 benchmark, wich is what Doom 3 uses, the best score listed was 1500 points Overclocked, and around 1,000 Points at stock settings.

Now some hypothetical research:

If you change CPU's to a 2.8GHZ, but still use your Nvidia FX5200, the top score listed is a WHOPPING 2027 points in 3DMARK 03 Overclocked to within an inch of it's life. A more averages score is around 1400 points.
We are looking at gain of around 400 points by upgrading the CPU.

By switching your video card to a regular Nvidia 5900 or ATI 9800, but keeping the 1.8GHZ CPU, the score jumps to 5000-6000 Points!!!!

A 400$ X-800Pro will net you a sweet 10,000 points using a little old 2.4GHZ CPU BTW!!!

For your system, assuming you still want to stay NVIDIA, I would grab the new regular 6800 for 300$ (Check Pricewatch.com) and worry about upgrading the rest of the sytem down the road. They get similar numbers to the X800 By ATI,and support Pixel shader 3.0 (A patch for Far Cry will use it!) wich ATI will not.

I think it's pretty clear that you can have a slow CPU with a fast Video Card, and it will perform 10 times better than a fast CPU and a slow Video Card.

Here is how I would "estimate" playable performance in Doom 3 using 3DMARK 03 scores as a GENERAL guideline, that is the best you can do until it hits the shelves.
Under 1000 points- Slide Show (Unplayable)
1000-3000 Points- Low Resolution no AA or AF
3000-5000 Points- 1024x768 2x AA no AF
5000-7000 Points- 1024x768 4x AA, AF on medium settings
Over 10,000 points, High Resolution, 8x AA, AF on high settings

I hope this guide helps, you can also stop by and see us at PimpRig if you want to get more guidance in your specific parts selection, there are a lot of people with tons of hardware experience, most of us are gamers too!

[Dittohead]

You need a new video card, everything else is fine.

Trust me. The Lower End FX series are crap, and will be crap for Doom 3. Get a Radeon 9800 Pro or better. Also, I'd look into upgrading the processor as well.

[Intel17]

a 9800 or 9700 would be sufficient to play the game well. Even with a 6GHz cpu and that card, it would still prolly run like shit.

[Sephiroth]

talking to a friend today, he said a 9600XT can be overclocked to a 9800pro. i happen to have a 9600XT. however i dont think i will overclock it.

also i have not tried it

said something about a program called softmod, or maybe it was a site. i was more interested in the CPU he was talking about. the new intel, pinless CPU

welcome to a world in the reverse now mainboards will have pins!

[Laguna]

Is it possible, FOR ONCE, that we can try to keep the fanboy talk out of a "WILL DOOM 3 RUN ON THIS RIG/COMPUTER/MY COMMODORE 64?!" type thread? It's bad enough that people have to start these threads without reading the FAQ which can be found here: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9653

They're both excellent cards and they'll do fine either way.

Get whatever suits your tastes. We don't have an apples-to-apples comparison on the newest 6800 versus the X800 so fucking stop it already.

...Good God.

Now, to answer this fella's question:

2 gigabytes of DDR is overkill. I am able to run newer games (Painkiller, UT2004, Max Payne 2, etc...) with FULL settings at 1024x768 using [newest available ATI/Nvidia GPU goes here]. I have only 1 gigabyte of RAM and I am running a factory-clocked AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2 ghz @ 400 MHZ FSB). I have 1 SATA drive, and 2 ATA133 hard drives. I would like to add that said games run around 40 - 60 FPS, like I said, at high-res (1024x768) with full details on. I am currently using an Antec TruePower 430 Watt PSU as well.

I am running the newest video card out right now (of which I will omit in this thread so as not to encourage more ATI vs. Nvidia debates) which I bought for about $430. If you want a solid framerate, I'd say the newest (as of this writing) Radeon or Nvidia cards (or if you want, hold out for the X800 or 6800's) will likely be more than sufficient to run Doom3 at an acceptable rate.

I DO recommend at least 1 gigabyte of RAM, however, and one that runs at a high clock-speed at that. DDR333/400 is perfect for these kinds of situations.

A good hard drive is nice as well, but not quite essential to gameplay flow as much as it is for offsetting loading times. Picking one with an extremely low seek time (I forgot the scale for this - like 8.2 milliseconds?) will help you load levels faster, and the caching Doom3 will do certainly will need it.

Now for a nice rig like that, I'm afraid $300 won't do it.

However, your PC would run *acceptably* with your current GPU and RAM configuration. I wouldn't expect you to run it, however, with something like 8-pass Multisampling and 16x Anisotropy.

The exact amount I used to build mine (another point made earlier on in this forum for gamers is DO NOT BUY A PRE-BUILT MACHINE! THEY HAVE TOO MANY PROPRIETARY PARTS IN THEM) was somewhere between 12 and 16 hundred dollars. I'd say either buy a new(er) graphics board, or try and save more up to get a more "on-par" system.

In any case, Doom3 will probably run on your machine.

One more thing:

DDR IS SDRAM. It merely processes data at twice the rate of normal SDRAM. SDRAM stands for "synchronous dynamic random-access memory."
That simply means it is synchronized to the system clock.

DDR (double data-rate) is just something that gets twice the amount of data processed per clock-cycle as opposed to traditional SDRAM.

I do believe the majority of RAM on the market (for newer PCs, not surplus proprietary computer shit) is DDR. I didn't want you to get confused when you go shopping for RAM (if you do).

Good luck bud.
Laguna

[Intel17]

to thread poster. That card that you have is junk. First priority would be to upgrade that. May i suggest this? http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-268&depa=0

And what ram does your motherboard use? if it uses DDR and you already have 512MB, you could buy this (im thinking yours is a dual channel DDR setup) http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpecs.asp?imodule=CT3264Z40B&cat=RAM you would need a pair of those.

And bingo, for roughly 300 bucks you've made a good upgrade!

[Intel17]

Sephiroth said:

talking to a friend today, he said a 9600XT can be overclocked to a 9800pro. i happen to have a 9600XT. however i dont think i will overclock it.

also i have not tried it

said something about a program called softmod, or maybe it was a site. i was more interested in the CPU he was talking about. the new intel, pinless CPU

welcome to a world in the reverse now mainboards will have pins!

Your friend does not know what hes talking about!

The 9600XT is a 4 pipeline card, the 9800 pro is an 8 pipeline card. and the 9600xt was not softmoddable. only the 9500 was softmoddable to a 9700.

[insertwackynamehere]

Fredrik said:

I am HIGHLY curious about wherefrom this statistic stems.
If you have 1 GB and get "memory errors" all the time, the problem isn't the amount of memory, but either a software problem (probably) or your memory being broken.

Well actually it's mostly Windows Explorer with the memory problems (Explorer being the Start Menu, Explorer, My Computer, etc). However almost every XP machine seems to have problems with Explorer.

[Deathmatcher]

$SOLID$ Necro said:

Switching to a 9700Pro (A friends) raised my scores to 5400 Points during a quick test, and I am expecting to see over 10,000 points In 3DMARK 03, after I get the X800Pro
...
A 400$ X-800Pro will net you a sweet 10,000 points using a little old 2.4GHZ CPU BTW!!!

I have an X800 Pro + Athlon 64 3200+
I get around 7,600 points with 3DMark 03, not 10,000 points.
Far Cry runs fine under 1280x1024 full details, however.

[HaydZ]

My Dad iz byin me a new PC hopefully next year
but at the moment ive got a

p4 2.8 ghz
512 megs of ram
radeon 9200 SE

would that cut? it Maybe for HL2 but i dont no bout Doom3