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  • overclock or upgrade

    This is my situation. I just recently purchased a Dell 2045 24" lcd(it is sitting in the box in my office right now). I have noticed that my graphics card is not keeping up anymore. I am tight on money right now now( jst spent $900.00 on the monitor). In November when I refinance my house I will have lots and lots of money(god bless the usa). This is my system right now

    Asus P4P800SE Mother Board
    Pentium 4 2.8 Processor
    MSI Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 XT
    Raptor 74 Gig and a 80 gig caviar hard drive
    Antec 350 watt power supply

    I am a eye candy guy with single players like Doom 3 and Riddick, and
    a FPS guy when it come to online games like MOHAA and Batllefield 2

    Is it worth spending I guess about $100.00 dollars to Overclock, or should I just wait (and suffer)until November to upgrade?

    Will overclocking give me enough to play at the higher graphic settings?

    I will be gettin jst about everything new in November. I will have about 3 grand to spend on the puter ( going to be lots of fun shopping there mate).

    Any advice would be appreciated. I am also thinking since I have oodles of money to spend AMD or Intel ?

    Best Regards............Dunpeal

  • #2
    Re: overclock or upgrade

    Maybe I'm missing something here, but why is it going to cost you $100 to overclock your machine?

    As to the performance gain with overclocking, that depends on how high an overclock you end up with. All chips were not created equally so your results may vary with what others have been able to pull off. But here is something to keep in mind. While overclocking can make noticeable differences in some games, in others (the ones that are very graphically driven), a newer video board will make an even higher degree of difference.

    Finally, with regards to your AMD -vs- Intel advice, get the AMD Athlon64 based processor, preferably the Socket 939 variety. These processors are kicking ass when it comes to gaming and have been breaking past Intel on several benchmarks that have been geared toward the Pentium line for years. It is the only real solution to consider nowadays until Intel comes out with something better, which they likely will sometime in the future.
    Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill
    My Toys

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    • #3
      Re: overclock or upgrade

      The $100.00 is for extra cooling. I posted on overclock.com. there suggestion was to get a nvidia 6600gt oc instead of overclocking. I have some money to spend. I just do not want to spend to little so I do not get enough performance, but not to mush as I am going to build a new pc in Nov. By the way this dell is awesome, but this graphics card can barely handle it...

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      • #4
        Re: overclock or upgrade

        The graphics card would be a good start and if the BIOS on that allows then 3.2GHz shouldn't be a bad overclock with standard cooling but that size PSU may hold it back.

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        • #5
          Re: overclock or upgrade

          ok, here is what I have done. I have went over budget. but just a little, I ordered a BFG 7800 from dell ($554.00). I am going to buy a AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego Integrated into Chip FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor, and a ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard Next Friday( That is about the time slow ars dell will get the video card to me). I plan o buying another 7800 in November. I need a value power supply to run this monster. Can I get some suggestions?

          I am only over budget by $1100.00 not bad right ?

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          • #6
            Re: overclock or upgrade

            dude, I would never pay $500 for a GFX card. It's gunna cost about $200 in a year or two. I thought u were on a budget. Y not just get like a $300 card and OC the hell out of it, with extra cooling. Also, I dont see much problem with your current PC. Just OC the proc to about 3.4ghz. I'm not sure what rams you got so... get good ones if you can. Just find high mhz (200 minimum) with 2-2-2-5 timings if you got DDR. With that $500, you can do all this. Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 and all those other games shouldn't even be a problem. Oh, get good PSU btw. Go to andantech if you want ot know which ones are good.

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            • #7
              Re: overclock or upgrade

              I can build a good system for less than $1100 that can manhandle those games.

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              • #8
                Re: overclock or upgrade

                Most computer savvy folks could, but they wouldn't be on the cutting edge like the one shown above. Even a year or so down the line when you have to upgrade yours to keep up with the new games hitting the streets, this one will still be good to go.

                Way to go Dunpeal!
                Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill
                My Toys

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                • #9
                  Re: overclock or upgrade

                  That's true. I did rebuild my entire system for around $550 (minus case and psu) not too long ago and I'm going to have to replace my video card come a few more months. Although I haven't overclocked it yet... I don't think that would make a great deal of a difference on my video card though. I'm thinking about going with an Nvidia just for the vertex shader 3.0. So "if" I had $1100 to spend, I would certainly get what Dunpeal has.

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                  • #10
                    Re: overclock or upgrade

                    Originally posted by eat@joes
                    That's true. I did rebuild my entire system for around $550 (minus case and psu) not too long ago and I'm going to have to replace my video card come a few more months. Although I haven't overclocked it yet... I don't think that would make a great deal of a difference on my video card though. I'm thinking about going with an Nvidia just for the vertex shader 3.0. So "if" I had $1100 to spend, I would certainly get what Dunpeal has.
                    It's the old argument of buying a nice higher quality expensive part less often or buying the cheaper not as good more often. I think he made a good choice in his purchases.

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                    • #11
                      Re: overclock or upgrade

                      Didn't say he made a poor choice, or did I? Anyway, I also meant to say pixel shader 3.0. Sleep doesn't come around too often here anymore. The point is, you can get a relatively cheap card and still play most high end games on it, especially at high settings. I will also be able to run the same software in a year or so just not as high a setting. I don't mind sacrificing some graphics. If the game entirely depends on graphics...don't get it. Doom 3. Pretty graphics, not so great game play. I think most Doom fans (or any other game that has had sequals of the like) agrees that most of the older ones are better. So, in turn you save about $200 - $300 on your video card and still enjoy your favorite games. If you're a graphics nut and want to suck your pecan sandies dry...go for it. In the meant time I will just freely express my opinions to anybody who posts a topic that I find interesting. And agreeing with everybody so far, the 7800GTX is a fantastic card. To me, there's just no need. And if you actually read my post instead of trying to be smart and quoting it for no reason, here's the last sentence of it:

                      Originally posted by eat@joes
                      So "if" I had $1100 to spend, I would certainly get what Dunpeal has.
                      Thank you in advance for paying attention next time.

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                      • #12
                        Re: overclock or upgrade

                        Thank you Darthtanion, for the Praise. I have changed my purchase since then as I have been doing extensive research on the subject.... Forums and websites...I have received my BFG 7800 (got it Friday). I have ordered a DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939, AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 1GHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939, and a Antec TruePower 2.0 TP2-550 EPS12V ATX12V 550W Power Supply(I should get them tomorrow). I went with the DFI for overclocking ability, the 3700 for the same reason (90nm). I have read that it can be overclocked to 2.8 rather easily... That is like a 4.2 Pentium (That’s what I am talking about)... As far as spending all the money I can't spend good money after bad and buying something out of date is doing just that. With the ability of SLI, I do not think there will be any software the will test the two 7800s. I will have to upgrade my cpu eventually, my ram ASAP and get some water cooling. I went on a diet of ramen noodles to afford this much, but I can do it for a while longer and get the memory next month... Any suggestions for water cooling? Is it better to just buy a kit for my current case or to buy a water cooled case...? The cases with integrated water cooling seem way expensive. Are they more proficient than the kits or is it just a matter of appearance?
                        Thanks for all the help.
                        Dunpeal
                        By the way I did some test on my current setup so when i get the new I can compare... I will post them here. I think there might be a little difference especially on the 3Dmark05

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                        • #13
                          Re: overclock or upgrade

                          Good choice on the DFI board. It is looking to be the best in the industry at this time. Another good feature it has is the ability to raise the memory voltage to outrageous levels, so when you pick up your memory, make sure to get something that can take advantage of this feature. Two that come readily to mind are the OCZ VX series modules and the Mushkin Redline series. Both of these brands are using Winbond UTT chips on the modules that love the higher voltages. Just pick up soe sort of little fan to give them active cooling if you take their voltage above 3v or so.

                          As to water cooling, I've done well with the Swiftech kits. I'm going to be receiving their new dual 120 kit soon for testing and review and it looks very impressive. There other kits all do very well and I run a dual 80mm radiator setup on an Athlon XP Mobile processor and a 120mm radiator kit on an Athlon64 FX53 processor. Both work very well and are a good deal quieter than good air coolers. Corsair also has a new kit out that is very close to the Swiftech and from what I've heard performs on par with it. Otherwise, you can go to www.dangerden.com and custom build a kit designed for your needs. It will be a little more expensive, but not terribly so. Stay away from the all-in-one water coolers as they perform poorly for anything but a casual user looking for peace and quiet.
                          Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill
                          My Toys

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                          • #14
                            Re: overclock or upgrade

                            Thank you for the advice Darthtanion. I was looking at the Mushkin Redlines....I am pretty sure that is the direction I will go in, but that is acouple months away and more research to do. I like the idea of getting a custom water kit, but will not have the money for about a month now( unless I pull out the credit which I do not want to do). When I get there I wil surely ask for some hel on decided what are the best products. I figure about $400.00 on the water cooling kit from dangerden if I go all out.

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                            • #15
                              Re: overclock or upgrade

                              you are going to have fun with this. How to overclock Athlon 64 3000+ (venice) .
                              I haven't tried yet but I will very soon. I am new to overclocking but serious about this

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