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If you were me ????????

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  • If you were me ????????

    Yo hows things......

    I was wondering....I'm a bit strapped for cash and I was looking into upgrading one of three things.

    At present I have:
    Asus V8200 PURE Geforce 3
    512 pc-133 ram
    Athlon T-Bird 1ghz

    Now if you were me and you mostly played new games and loved to have all the detail up and real-time shadows and the like,

    would you buy new RAM (mobo = A7A266-E so i guess only takes 266 mem I'll have to check that)?

    would you buy a new graphics card?

    or would you buy a new Processor?

    I have overclocked my geforce 3 to a stable 225/460 rather than the 220 original core speed...and that has helped alot but I notice that a lot of the cheaper newer cards have higher core speeds than this.

    I know a 1ghz is getting long in the tooth now so I was thinking an Athlon XP 2200+ ( I can get it nice an cheap y'see)

    I dont't know much about RAM speeds and such so any advice on how this affects gaming performance would help me in my quest for gaming smoothness.

    I have just bought a new gorgeous monitor so Im covered there.

    well thats it .....

    cheers in advance for any help offered

  • #2
    If your still using SDR Ram - (that mother board uses the ALi chipset and has slots for both SDR & DDR - doesn't it?) - the first thing I would change would be the RAM - get some good DDR - if you can afford it, get PC2700 just in case you ever upgrade to a KT333 or something similar, if not at least you'll have some good OC'ing RAM. Unfortunatly RAM just jumped in price again - 3 weeks ago was a better time to buy RAM.
    You've already got your video card OC'd - what's your CPU running at? - depending on the stepping you may have a good shot at running at a stable 1.333 as long as you have decent cooling. T'bird's are pretty easy to unlock.

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    • #3
      Haven't O/C'd my cpu ..... too dangerous for my liking.... especially when your pc is as hot as mine 70 under load.
      Thing is my case is a tad old and is in the corner of a hot room ...it being summer and all, I have a DP5-6I11A which brought the temp down by 8 degrees compared too my old coolermaster (which I still have....maybe I could use that somehow? suggestions?)
      when you say RAM is expensive can you quote me a british price?
      is the 1ghz- XP 2200+ a waste of money If I can get it for about 100 quid?

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      • #4
        I wouldnt upgrade that video card just yet, the processor speed is sufficient for all of todays games, but you want to get DDR ram instead of PC-133 even PC2100 is good. I think if you upgrade from a normal GeForce 3, to a GeForce 4 Ti you will be wasting your money.

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        • #5
          70 under load, that would mean you have done something wrong, check your HS connection. Even microATX cases w/ no case fans dont get that hot

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          • #6
            Yes do a favour as RDR and get ya self some good quality DDR SDRAM as the improvement in performance should be enough to satisfy ya. ;)
            With those temps though I'd look at ya HSF and case ventilation as even for Asus monitorin' that's very high. :eek:
            Ya should be able to clock that up to at least 1.2GHz and keep it below 50c under load. If ya have used the supplied thermal pad on the HSF then scrap it off and put some Arctic Silver 3 on there but really there are a lot better HSF's out there than those. A good list of HSF's is compared here though I'd recommend the Volcano 7+ but the best HSF in the world won't help if ya case don't breath properly. Also what, if any, case fans does that have? :?:
            <center>:cheers:</center>

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            • #7
              Yeah I always thought that 70 degrees was a bit on the hot side...

              I only have a CPU fan DP5-6I11A Coolermaster in the whole thing (with a power supply fan too....but thats it)

              Could you recommend a case that isn't too expensive (say around 50-70 quid or so (UK- pounds)) that maybe a decent investment for a system as hot as mine.

              I'll look into that fan, I already have my own thermal paste on there but this fan isn't actually that bad... I reckon its my case personally but I'll do whatevers necessary to get my games going good.

              Oh yeah ... If all this works and it cools down alot ... how would I go about overclocking my cpu...never done it b4 :rolleyes2

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              • #8
                This one here would suit ya well, http://www.overclock.co.uk/moreinfo.php?id=514 , and once all fan positions are full (3x80mm's required 1 supplied) there is very good airflow plus in ya price range. There maybe another store near you that sells this cheaper so have a look around just in case. ;)
                More info on AOpen's H600A can be found here. :smokin:
                As for overclocking there are a couple of ways which is either raising the FSB or unlocking ya CPU and raising the multiplier or a compination of both. Also in some cases lowering the multiplier and raising the FSB even further can work to but it depends on if ya CPU is a 200MHz or 266MHz FSB unit. :?:
                <center>:cheers:</center>

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                • #9
                  70 degrees at stock speed. thats crazy, either you have an inaccurate reading or you need to cool your CPU somehow and soon i would imagine

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                  • #10
                    i'd have to swear you had an incorrectly installed HSF, ie. on an angle or something

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