PC Upgrades....?

[rkjunior303]

So, I have the itch once I move to upgrade the PC..

Right now, I'm running:

Gigabyte 945GZME-RH MB
Pentium D 3.0gz w/ Masscool fan
1GB RAM
ATI Radeon x1300 Pro (512MB) PCIe
Ultra Defender Case w/ 350 PS.
250GB Seagate eIDE

Overall, it's not a bad system but I knwo there's room for improvement.. Ideally, I think I"m going to max out the MB's memory to 2GB and I was looking for a better video card.. Any suggestions? I'm not looking to break the bank - ideally, I'd like to do the card and memory for under $250. I'm most likely upgrading the drive to an SATA since there are only 2 IDE interfaces, and they're currently being used by the HD and the CDRW.

I don't do much gaming but when I do, I'd like it to not skip a beat... Suggestions?

[y0da900]

So, I have the itch once I move to upgrade the PC..

Right now, I'm running:

Gigabyte 945GZME-RH MB
Pentium D 3.0gz w/ Masscool fan
1GB RAM
ATI Radeon x1300 Pro (512MB) PCIe
Ultra Defender Case w/ 350 PS.
250GB Seagate eIDE

Overall, it's not a bad system but I knwo there's room for improvement.. Ideally, I think I"m going to max out the MB's memory to 2GB and I was looking for a better video card.. Any suggestions? I'm not looking to break the bank - ideally, I'd like to do the card and memory for under $250. I'm most likely upgrading the drive to an SATA since there are only 2 IDE interfaces, and they're currently being used by the HD and the CDRW.

I don't do much gaming but when I do, I'd like it to not skip a beat... Suggestions?


Radeon X1950 Pro and another gig of decent RAM should run you well under 250, closer to 200 if you aren't impatient and can look for a deal on the RAM, which pops up just about every day. Keep an eye on places like fatwallet.com and slickdeals.net. A 350 watt power supply might be pushing it if you go much higher than you are in the video category though, most of the faster ones require their own molex plug to run, and "require" a larger power supply than that.

[rkjunior303]

How are BFG GeForce cards? For some reason, I keep thinking they're decent?

[jenarelJAM]

For $250, you can get a pretty darn good video card and 2gb ram. I don't know if you have two 512mb modules, or one 1gb module, and you need to buy either 2x1gb or 1x1gb, I know that a while ago, 2x1gb (crucial iirc) ram for notebooks was $60. It was a deal that lasted like 3 days...

I'd check newegg.com, buy.com, frys.com. Ram first, spend the rest on the best vid card you can get.

[kruger]

Another place to try is Pricewatch.com. You can search either by type of device or by class. And I have two BFG cards in my SLI rig. No problems and no complaints either. I am a gamer, so I dont get the glitches. Howerver, if you are upgrading, then you might want to wait a bit. The DX10 stuff is due to be out soon and it is not supposed to be backwards compatible.

[y0da900]

DX10 is not compatible with XP, but I would be surprised if the manufacturers made the cards only run with DX10 (Vista only).

[rkjunior303]

I probably don't plan on running Vista, so DX10 really doesn't matter to me.. I think I've narrowed it down to two:

8800 GTS
7950 GS Extreme

They're both right around $250-300... Should be decent enough to cover me for a while..

I also heard the 1950X is a decent card for $200.

[kruger]

Dont discount DX10 just yet. That is the direction that the industry is going to. And, after it is out, then all games will be written to use DX10. The earlier games are not supposed to work with DX10. Just a something to think about.

[rkjunior303]

nice ploy by microsoft to make sure everyone has to buy new, vista certified copies.....

[kruger]

Well, I do agree with you up to a point. The DX10 is supposed to be the next Gen of Video software, and to make the transition from the old style to new is gonna be hard for the consumer to do. That is if they have been into computers for any length of time. Up until DX10, all other versions have been upgrades of the same software. I dont necessarily like the move that I will have to make, but I do understand it. Halo 2 is out, but for Windows Vista only. And, I have seen a coupla others for Vista only.

[going_home]

Well, I do agree with you up to a point. The DX10 is supposed to be the next Gen of Video software, and to make the transition from the old style to new is gonna be hard for the consumer to do. That is if they have been into computers for any length of time. Up until DX10, all other versions have been upgrades of the same software. I dont necessarily like the move that I will have to make, but I do understand it. Halo 2 is out, but for Windows Vista only. And, I have seen a coupla others for Vista only.

The one I'm waiting for, supposed to be out this year, is Crysis (the next Far Cry).

http://www.crytek.com/games/index.php?s=xsis

Its will be made for DX10, but is supposed to work with the latest DX9 version.
I'm not going Vista until I have to, its not complete yet.
Microsoft releases half built programs but charges full retail, but that seems to
be the trend with most all software companies now, especially EA games.

When the rest of the industry has drivers for Vista for their products I will think
about building a new machine for it and DX10 .

Early on in my tinkering with computers I gave up on Nvidia video cards and have
never even thought of buying another of their products.
Their drivers are pathetic.

I am an ATI guy all the way.


;)

[y0da900]

Their drivers are pathetic.

I am an ATI guy all the way.


;)


My first 2 builds were GeForce based, everything since then has been Radeon, and I couldn't be happier with the move. Better image quality, better drivers, and more powerful (the generation I have at least, I believe nVidia holds the current generation crown by a good bit). The thing that really turned me off from nVidia was a few years ago when they released the cheating drivers to automatically cripple graphics features to get better scores when certain programs typically used as benchmarks were detected to be running, even when the options were set to be forced on in the program.

[Pacifist_Farmer]

Well, I do agree with you up to a point. The DX10 is supposed to be the next Gen of Video software, and to make the transition from the old style to new is gonna be hard for the consumer to do. That is if they have been into computers for any length of time. Up until DX10, all other versions have been upgrades of the same software. I dont necessarily like the move that I will have to make, but I do understand it. Halo 2 is out, but for Windows Vista only. And, I have seen a coupla others for Vista only.

Sorry about hijacking, but it seems like the threads headed there anyways.

Back when I started with computers I remember having to swap versions of drivers and support software constantly to run different games at their best. Are we headed back to that?

Are my pre-DX10 games still going to work on DX10, or will I be hacking and swapping files to just play some good old favorites?

I realize we here probably don't have all the answers.

[kruger]

If I understand correctly, the DX10 is NOT backwards compatible. And, the DX10 Video cards are in the works. What that means to you and me is that when DX10 is fully implemented, then all games will be written with DX10 in mind. Your DX9 games will still work as long as you are running on a DX9 machine, but will not be able to run the DX10 games. So, in the very near future, if you want to play the latest and greatest, then you will have to have a DX10 machine. I see myself having two computers when this happens, one for DX9 and one for DX10 stuff. The software architecture is just different between the two.

Now, would it have been a good idea for them to incorporate both formats in a video card? Depends on your point of view. From a consumer side, then yes, it would prevent me from having to build up a new computer just to run the really cool games. From a manufacturers side, they are looking at forcing you to buy an awful lot of hardware to gin up the new format. And, change is inevitable and gotta be done sometime.

[Pacifist_Farmer]

Your right, change is inevitable, right up to the point where it completely obsoletes every game in the 200 disc binder I've been compiling over the last 10 years.

[y0da900]

Kruger, you seem awfully confident that the hardware will also only run with a DX10 machine. I've only heard about the software incompatibilities, but was under the assumption that the hardware would be like it had always been: unless a certain driver requires a certain version of DX to run, you could run it with whatever you wanted, you just lost the newer features unsupported by that version. Have I missed something big with these new cards, or are you making an assumption about the hardware being incompatible with older versions of DX? If the hardware itself is compatible, I would personally go the dual boot route in lieu of a second machine that didn't need to be there (I've got 3 working in my house now for 2 of us, but most people don't).

[kruger]

Your right, change is inevitable, right up to the point where it completely obsoletes every game in the 200 disc binder I've been compiling over the last 10 years.
I'm with you on this brother.




Yoda, I will be honest, I have not kept up with the industry as much lately as I used to. The last machine that I built was an SLI rig, just over a year ago. And during the research on the Video cards, I came a across a coupla threads on the Nvidia forums about this very subject. If I remember correctly, at the time, the DX10 is not compatable at all with the DX9. That includes the drivers and the Hardware. It almost made me not build a machine at the time, cuz if I wanted to stay in sight of the leading edge, then I would have to build another machine in a relatively short period. That was a little over a year ago, so things may have changed since then, but I dont see any evidence of that. The original post that I made in this thread was only meant to point out that DX10 was in the near future and should be a factor in any machine build.

And to do a Dual boot, you would need another slot for the DX9 video card. And, more than likely, that would mean an AGP card, unless you have a dual PCIe MOBO.

Also, I havent checked into this subject at all lately, so everything that I have said may not be true. But it was when I was interested in building a machine.

[jenarelJAM]

Uh... guys... I have a DX10 machine, and it's playing old dx9 games fine...
DX10 requires new hardware, but the new hardware can run the old software... unless there's something I'm missing... But according to dxdiag on my computer, I'm running dx10... and I've been dabbling in FEAR and Oblivion...

[kruger]

If that is the case, then disregard all my previous posts. I was mis-informed.