EPTIt's most noticeable when I'm using multiple programs or graphics-intensive software. What I'm wondering is would it make sense to get more ram/better video card, or should I just wait a little while and get a whole new computer?
Computer question
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BroOd
Austin10833 Posts
It's most noticeable when I'm using multiple programs or graphics-intensive software. What I'm wondering is would it make sense to get more ram/better video card, or should I just wait a little while and get a whole new computer? | ||
CaucasianAsian
Korea (South)11599 Posts
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
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BroOd
Austin10833 Posts
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BroOd
Austin10833 Posts
On September 09 2008 22:24 0xDEADBEEF wrote: RAM is the bottleneck dude. Get 1, better 2 GB. Yeah, I figured this was probably the biggest problem. I thinking about maybe a 2GB pair off of crucial.com. | ||
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CaucasianAsian
Korea (South)11599 Posts
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writer22816
United States5775 Posts
Obviously if you're into gaming you should definitely get a new rig. I would advocate getting a whole new computer regardless. My new computer is E7200, Gigabyte EP43-DS3L, 2gb OCZ ram, HD3850 512mb and 640gb hard drive. I got a DIY desktop and they put it together for free, although they screwed up in a few places (keyboard lights are always on even when computer was off, C partition was FAT32) but these could all be fixed rather easily. The only things that I kept were my keyboard, speakers, mouse, mousepad (lol), printer and especially monitor (17 inch). I bought a new CPU, motherboard, ram, graphics card, hard drive, PSU, dvd drive and computer case. Basically I bought an entire new computer minus the monitor. It was about 4000 rmb which is a bit over $600, very cheap. It might be more expensive if you're in the US, who knows. I felt that a new upgrade was very necessary even if you're only into office work. In the beginning I was amazed at the sheer speed of how quickly my computer could start up, or even simple tasks like opening a folder would be virtually instantaneous compared to my old rig's 1 second delay. And of course I could play lots of games I could never have hoped to run with my old rig. | ||
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BroOd
Austin10833 Posts
On September 09 2008 22:28 CaucasianAsian wrote: if you are only willing to spend $600 go upgrade your current comp I'm just wondering if it would be worth it to do that, or wait a few months (closer to games like D3 and SC2) and just get a whole new setup. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
if you get anything now your mobo won't support any of the new chip and you will find yourself needing to upgrade in a year's time. wait it out or just get a cheap am x2 board from amd and 5200 x2 which is quite a bargain for what they can do. when amd's new chip comes out you can grab one and still be able to stick it into your mobo. (If you decide to going this way, you will find yourself spending less than $250) or you can just grab a gig or two of ram. make sure to double check your motherboard's specification tho. I'm assuming your motherboard takes only DDR ram not DDR2 ram. So you get anything now you won't be able to use it in your future rig. But ram is cheap so why not. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
On September 09 2008 22:35 writer22816 wrote: My old computer I had was almost just like yours, with a slightly faster 3.00ghz P4. Obviously if you're into gaming you should definitely get a new rig. I would advocate getting a whole new computer regardless. My new computer is E7200, Gigabyte EP43-DS3L, 2gb OCZ ram, HD3850 512mb and 640gb hard drive. I got a DIY desktop and they put it together for free, although they screwed up in a few places (keyboard lights are always on even when computer was off, C partition was FAT32) but these could all be fixed rather easily. The only things that I kept were my keyboard, speakers, mouse, mousepad (lol), printer and especially monitor (17 inch). I bought a new CPU, motherboard, ram, graphics card, hard drive, PSU, dvd drive and computer case. Basically I bought an entire new computer minus the monitor. It was about 4000 rmb which is a bit over $600, very cheap. It might be more expensive if you're in the US, who knows. I felt that a new upgrade was very necessary even if you're only into office work. In the beginning I was amazed at the sheer speed of how quickly my computer could start up, or even simple tasks like opening a folder would be virtually instantaneous compared to my old rig's 1 second delay. And of course I could play lots of games I could never have hoped to run with my old rig. you spend $4000 rmb on that piece of crap? lol? (no offense but you got rippped offf) | ||
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BroOd
Austin10833 Posts
On September 09 2008 22:41 haduken wrote: There is no point getting a new pc now since new nehalm chips are comming out from intel. if you get anything now your mobo won't support any of the new chip and you will find yourself needing to upgrade in a year's time. wait it out or just get a cheap am x2 board from amd and 5200 x2 which is quite a bargain for what they can do. when amd's new chip comes out you can grab one and still be able to stick it into your mobo. (If you decide to going this way, you will find yourself spending less than $250) or you can just grab a gig or two of ram. make sure to double check your motherboard's specification tho. I'm assuming your motherboard takes only DDR ram not DDR2 ram. So you get anything now you won't be able to use it in your future rig. But ram is cheap so why not. Yeah, it has 2x DDR PC3200 in there now, w/2 more slots. It's just that this thing is starting to get slower and slower, especially compared to my comps at work. I'll probably end up getting a new computer in a year or so, but now I feel like upgrading this a bit so I don't keep getting frustrated at how it takes like 10 seconds to tab out of BW sometimes. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
I recommend you throw away the RAM that you have now. And find out what the maximum RAM capacity is for your motherboard (Having more slots doesn't mean it can take more). But generally Pentium 4 era machines can take up to 4 gig but not always. Use Kingston's RAM finder (google it) to tell you if you are in doubt. As for your machine getting slower, there are many things that can cause this (especially with Windows). try to reinstall your system or defrag your hard drive and get extra RAM for short term fix. If you must get some thing new now. buy a cheap board (E.g. gigabyte P31 series), get some cheap RAM but at least 800 mhz and pop in an E8400 intel chip. that will give you good result without costing you an arm and a leg. Stay away from the quad at the moment. they are all overpriced except maybe q6600 but that's a 60nm chip so it's old as fuck. I recommend A-Data RAM (They cost less than other brands and offer the same reliability) you can get that and then upgrade to nehalm 6 months later and run everything at current trend. (You still have to replace the mobo + cpu but you also can use it for a considerable amount of time because E8400 is a decent CPU and is pretty much the fastest for anything except video editing) good luck. | ||
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BroOd
Austin10833 Posts
One more thing, would it make sense to get a better graphics card? | ||
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distant_voice
Germany2521 Posts
I'd recommend buying a new rig though. You'll end up with a bigger harddrive, more RAM, a faster CPU than you currently have, almost regardless of the amount of money you're willing to invest. the just add the 7600GT (at least, better would be something like the 8800GTX or S or whatever) and 2-4 Gigs of RAM on top of that and you're set. A new mainboard always lets up upgrade later much more easily. The best option is to wait until you can afford something you know you can stick with for about 4 years. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
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QuanticHawk
United States32157 Posts
On September 09 2008 23:38 BlackJack wrote: Wait til Black Friday and see what is on sale imo hmmm, that's actually a pretty good idea im gonna shoot myself if i have to keep playing TF2 at 20fps. I think I'm gonna get stuck buying from one of the manufactuers insted of getting it customized ($ is tight now, so I wanna finance or slap it on my card for no interest) Anyone got any recommendations on something cheap? Preferably under $1,000 | ||
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fanatacist
10319 Posts
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QuanticHawk
United States32157 Posts
He will never accept $ any time he does work for me. What's a fair price to have someone just build it? | ||
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XCetron
5226 Posts
On September 10 2008 00:54 Hawk wrote: True, I could buy all the shit on my card and have my friend build it. He will never accept $ any time he does work for me. What's a fair price to have someone just build it? Lunch | ||
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carotte
United States32 Posts
On September 10 2008 00:48 fanatacist wrote: If you don't mind building your own PC, I'd suggest finding the latest issue of PC Gamer, going into the "build your machine" [sic] section somewhere in the back, and see what they recommend. They usually have 3 systems recommended, one that is ~500 dollars, one that is ~1000 dollars, and one that is ~1500+ dollars. All the parts they recommend are available on websites like newegg.com and they of course check compatibility before recommending a combination n_n My friend made a PC using their recommendations a year or two ago and it worked great, and because he made it himself and bought the parts off newegg it was way cheaper than buying a whole rig of similar power. he speakeths the truth! | ||
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