What to upgrade first?

Dragula

Dragula

Stormtrooper oTO
Orderite
These are my current specifications, what should i upgrade first, and to what? Try to keept it as economic as possible.

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System Information
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BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM

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Display Devices
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Card name: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Display Memory: 512.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (75Hz)
 
well, what do you feel is holding you back? and what are you aiming at being able to do?

your gear isn't exactly crappy as it is.
 
It's a pretty decent rig as it is, but if you still want to upgrade, you should probably start with video card (get something like HD4870 or better) and then maybe add some more RAM. Your CPU shouldn't have any problems with recent games, except maybe for GTA IV.
 
aenemic said:
well, what do you feel is holding you back? and what are you aiming at being able to do?
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Play everythign thats on its way. Dragone Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, Alpha Protocol and so on so forth.

I think the main issue is the VGA, but a 4850+ is kind of expensive.
 
Nothing. That system should be more than enough for another year or two, assuming you aren't one of those nutcases who absolutely insist on playing the very latest games with highest possible settings. Afterwards you'll probably want to upgrade everything, including your display. *Especially* your display. I always find it funny when people have killer rigs but still use antiquated displays. I remember the early days of 3D acceleration when kids like me sold their souls for a Pentium MMX and 3dfx Voodoo, but couldn't <strike>hit up their parents for</strike> afford to fork out another $400 for a decent display to go with it. As impressive as Psygnosis F1 looked, it was kinda hard to be awed when playing it on a no-name 14" CRT which came with your 386 six years earlier.
 
I would go for another gig of RAM (although technically 2gb should be enough for some time, I have 2 myself) and something along the line of a 4850. I'm sure there's something a bit cheaper available that's almost as powerful. Check out the benchmarks at tomshardware.com for a good performance comparison.

beverageleverage said:
Looks like you have a 17" monitor, get a bigger one, use the stuff you have for now.
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Umm, I don't think so. 1280x1024 is the native resolution of a 19'' non-WS monitor. He could have that.
 
What's your sound set-up? A nice sound card and decent speakers are nice if you're into that stuff but it's purely for personal joy and only noteworthy enough to most people if your built-in sound card is complete crap. I'd say RAM is the weakest link, followed by your video card, but I'm in agreement with people who say you should wait another year or so before upgrading, certainly with your GFX card (RAM is pretty cheap).
 
Integrated sound card, which is pretty decent and with 5.1 surround system, and
20192104169l.jpg
.
 
If you must get a new graphics card, I'd recommend the AMD/ATi HD 4770. About $100, it's just a smidgen slower than the HD 4850 while using much less power and running much cooler. Don't let the 128-bit memory bus fool you - the 4770's GDDR5 pushes much higher clocks than the 4850's GDDR3 to make up for it. It's also a decent overclocker.

But just to be a parrot, your computer is honestly quite good and not in need of a serious upgrade besides the monitor. Newegg has a 19" widescreen Acer that's cheap (I think it's less than $140 now), 1680x1050 resolution and has a very respectable display quality, as far as cheap LCDs go.

EDIT: And by "a smidgen slower" I mean "actually faster in some scenarios."
 
Leon said:
Newegg has a 19" widescreen Acer that's cheap (I think it's less than $140 now), 1680x1050 resolution and has a very respectable display quality, as far as cheap LCDs go.
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Hmm, is that really a good buy? To me 19'', which he already has, for 140 seems too expensive for a crappy upgrade. Plus I'd say that 19'' is way too small. That might be a personal thing though since I'm surrounded by 32'' monitors at work making my 22'' at home seem ridiculous.

So I'm thinking of a monitor upgrade too. Looking through newegg, there's some interesting stuff. The biggest value, in terms of size/price ratio, seems to be this $330 27.5'' one:

But if that seems to huge/expensive then I'd say, for Dragula, at least go for this 22'' for $160.

Somewhere in between would be this $240 24''
 
The 19" I talked about is essentially the same as the 22" you linked to, with the only major differences being the physical size and a tad lower contrast ratio. Having a smaller physical size with the same resolution (1680x1050) as that 22" results in a finer dot pitch (smaller pixels, basically), which makes details appear more crisp and fine.

The 27.5" one seems alright, although Hanns-G aren't exactly renown for their display quality. The contrast ratio is rather low, for instance.

A good friend of mine has that 24" Asus, and while the resolution is nice, the color gamut leaves something to be desired. Plus, glossy bezels are pretty blech, but that's just my preference.
 
if you really want to upgrade, then get a mobo that supports crossfire/sli and either get two ATI Radeon HD 4800 or two Nvidia GTX 280. if you do you'll probably need to upgrade the cpu too so that it doesn't bottleneck your entire system. and a new psu that can handle all that muscle. I mean, if you desperately want to upgrade a working system, you might as well go all the way.

as for ram, there's no reason to upgrade from 2GB unless you have 64-bit vista.
 
Dragula said:
32 bits can handle 4gb, but does it do so efficently or is it just waste of space?
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I've had this discussion many times before, even on these forums, and the conclusion I've come to is simply that 4gb is a waste on a 32-bit system.
 
another 2 gb's of ram wouldn't be bad. as for the rest, i think it should just do fine for now. maybe you could save some money and change the whole thing in a year or two.
 
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