Update needed

[edyzmedieval]

Well, I'm ready to spend. I've worked for my dad, I've helped him in the business and thus, I want to improve my computer so I can run M2TW maxxxed out completely.

I got this computer after my exams, didn't get a super computer but a decent-powerful one.

What I have now

Intel Pentium IV 3.2 GHZ with HT
512 MB DDRAM
ATI Radeon X700 256MB
250GB HDD
ASUS 19"
DVD-RW

I want M2TW maxxed out. What should I get?

[Spino]

Well, I'm ready to spend. I've worked for my dad, I've helped him in the business and thus, I want to improve my computer so I can run M2TW maxxxed out completely.

I got this computer after my exams, didn't get a super computer but a decent-powerful one.

What I have now

Intel Pentium IV 3.2 GHZ with HT
512 MB DDRAM
ATI Radeon X700 256MB
250GB HDD
ASUS 19"
DVD-RW

I want M2TW maxxed out. What should I get?

Maxxed out? My friend I fear that even if you owned an Intel Duo Core or AMD dual core X2 (4600 or faster) processor AND an ultra-high end ATI or Nvidia card you would still not be able to run MTW2 maxxed out and running at a smooth framerate (especially with Huge sized units).

Anyway I assume your system is PCI-ex and not AGP? An AGP system would severely limit your video card upgrade path.

How much are you willing to spend?

First and foremost you need more system RAM because 512megs is inadequate for all state of the art games. Since you have 512megs I will assume that you have two 256meg sticks of RAM in your system. Hopefully you'll have another RAM slot free. If so consider purchasing a 512meg stick of RAM or better yet, a 1gig stick. Regardless of whether you will be replacing the old ram sticks or simply adding another stick make absolutely sure you wind up with 1gig of RAM or more. You should notice an immediate speed increase in games once you increase your system RAM.

Secondly you'll need a video card with alot more 3D horsepower than that X700. I don't know how much you're willing to spend or how much your existing power supply can handle but the brand new ATI X1950 Pro cards are fast, cost effective and consume less power than other cards in their performance/price category. The 256meg X1950 Pro goes for $200 which is a great deal. Powercolor makes a 512meg version of the X1950 Pro that costs roughly $50 more and sports an extremely quiet and efficient cooler as well.

[Dutch_guy]

Anyway I assume your system is PCI-ex and not AGP? An AGP system would severely limit your video card upgrade path.

How were I to find out which one I have ? And in what way would it limit ones upgrade paths, videocard wise?

By the way, Sorry for the thread hijack Edyz

[Spino]

How were I to find out which one I have ? And in what way would it limit ones upgrade paths, videocard wise?

By the way, Sorry for the thread hijack Edyz

Well if your system was bought within the last two years you probably have a PCI-ex motherboard. If it was bought within the last year or so then I'm pretty sure your motherboard is PCI-ex. Since the industry has moved to the PCI-ex standard ATI and Nvidia have followed suit and now make very few AGP video cards anymore. However in order to avoid alienating tons of people who still own AGP motherboards both companies still produce a few token AGP cards. So basically if you're intent on not upgrading to a PCI-ex motherboard your video card options are limited. Coincidentally ATI just announced an AGP version of the X1950 Pro card I mentioned earlier.

Download this fantastic little application and unzip it to its own folder.

http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-137.zip

Double click on the 'cpuz.exe' file in the folder you extracted it to and voila.
Once the application is running click on 'Mainboard' tab and look for anything that might say 'AGP'. Usually this info is listed in the bottom section where it says 'Graphic Interface'.

[Dutch_guy]

Well if your system was bought within the last two years you probably have a PCI-ex motherboard. If it was bought within the last year or so then I'm pretty sure your motherboard is PCI-ex. Since the industry has moved to the PCI-ex standard ATI and Nvidia have followed suit and now make very few AGP video cards anymore. However in order to avoid alienating tons of people who still own AGP motherboards both companies still produce a few token AGP cards. So basically if you're intent on not upgrading to a PCI-ex motherboard your video card options are limited. Coincidentally ATI just announced an AGP version of the X1950 Pro card I mentioned earlier.

Download this fantastic little application and unzip it to its own folder.

http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-137.zip

Double click on the 'cpuz.exe' file in the folder you extracted it to and voila.
Once the application is running click on 'Mainboard' tab and look for anything that might say 'AGP'. Usually this info is listed in the bottom section where it says 'Graphic Interface'.

Thanks a lot Spino !

Neat little programm, it seems like I do own an AGP motherboard - not surprisingly since I bought the rig at least two years ago.

So where do I go videocard wise, other than the X1950 pro, I doubt I'd be able to go for the better Nvidia cards like the 7600 gt and the 7900 gt...

[edyzmedieval]

Maxxed out? My friend I fear that even if you owned an Intel Duo Core or AMD dual core X2 (4600 or faster) processor AND an ultra-high end ATI or Nvidia card you would still not be able to run MTW2 maxxed out and running at a smooth framerate (especially with Huge sized units).

Anyway I assume your system is PCI-ex and not AGP? An AGP system would severely limit your video card upgrade path.

How much are you willing to spend?

First and foremost you need more system RAM because 512megs is inadequate for all state of the art games. Since you have 512megs I will assume that you have two 256meg sticks of RAM in your system. Hopefully you'll have another RAM slot free. If so consider purchasing a 512meg stick of RAM or better yet, a 1gig stick. Regardless of whether you will be replacing the old ram sticks or simply adding another stick make absolutely sure you wind up with 1gig of RAM or more. You should notice an immediate speed increase in games once you increase your system RAM.

Secondly you'll need a video card with alot more 3D horsepower than that X700. I don't know how much you're willing to spend or how much your existing power supply can handle but the brand new ATI X1950 Pro cards are fast, cost effective and consume less power than other cards in their performance/price category. The 256meg X1950 Pro goes for $200 which is a great deal. Powercolor makes a 512meg version of the X1950 Pro that costs roughly $50 more and sports an extremely quiet and efficient cooler as well.

I ran M2TW maxxed out(normal unit size) and it had a bad framerate but you could play it. So, more RAM and some more video power can do the trick.
I'm willing to spend and hopefully I can get a nVidia 7950GX2 with 1024MB so I can finish the deal once and for all. 3x512MB DDR2 RAM coupled with these video beast should do the trick.

Thank you for the program. I found out some VERY interesting things which made me very happy.

PCI Express 16x
4 RAM slots... only 1 occupied!!!
DDR2 RAM
L2 cache 2048KB

And this didn't make me happy: L1 cache 16KB.

I have a ASUS P5GD2-X motherboard. How good is it?

[Spino]

Thanks a lot Spino !

Neat little programm, it seems like I do own an AGP motherboard - not surprisingly since I bought the rig at least two years ago.

So where do I go videocard wise, other than the X1950 pro, I doubt I'd be able to go for the better Nvidia cards like the 7600 gt and the 7900 gt...

FYI, the 7600 GT is much slower than the x1950 Pro or 7900 GT. I don't advise spending too much (over $200) on a new AGP video card because regardless of whether you upgrade your motherboard & processor or purchase a new system either selection will force you to buy a PCI-ex video card. When that time comes I doubt you'll be happy about using an expensive AGP video card as a paperweight. What video card you should buy depends on the other components in system. What is your processor and how much RAM do you have?

ran M2TW maxxed out(normal unit size) and it had a bad framerate but you could play it. So, more RAM and some more video power can do the trick.
I'm willing to spend and hopefully I can get a nVidia 7950GX2 with 1024MB so I can finish the deal once and for all. 3x512MB DDR2 RAM coupled with these video beast should do the trick.

Thank you for the program. I found out some VERY interesting things which made me very happy.

PCI Express 16x
4 RAM slots... only 1 occupied!!!
DDR2 RAM
L2 cache 2048KB

And this didn't make me happy: L1 cache 16KB.

I have a ASUS P5GD2-X motherboard. How good is it?

Your current system is very nice with lots of room for expansion! Upgrading so you have 2gigs of RAM is wise but you might want to get one, possibly two 1gig sticks of RAM instead of three 512meg sticks. Why? Because if you decide to upgrade to a new processor and motherboard you need to keep in mind that most motherboards can only handle two or three sticks of RAM. Be sure to keep your upgrade options open and purchase quality DDR2 RAM that can also be used in an AMD 64 X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo capable system.

The 7950GX2 card is certainly top of the line but it is also ridiculously expensive and requires a ton of power. Other than that the only drawback to putting that card in your system is that it will be definitely be 'held back' by your P4 processor, meaning there's only so much data that the older P4 chip can send to the 7950GX2. Not that you won't see smoother framerates but only the high end AMD 64 X2 and Intel Core 2 Duo chips will help you make the most out of a 7950GX2.

One more drawback to the 7950GX2 is that the new 8800 cards are going to be released by mid November. This should drive down prices of the 7950GX2.

Don't worry about the 16KB L1 cache; that's the processor's primary internal cache which is typically small because it is made of very expensive RAM that can keep pace with the processor's internal clock speeds.

[edyzmedieval]

I found a very good thing on sale, don't know how good.

GeCube ATI Radeon X1900 XTX

PCI Express 16x
512MB memory
...and other stuff.

Aproximately 230 quid. Kinda expensive.

About the memory, I could only find these 2x512 MB packages. They didn't sell 1GB sticks.

[Dutch_guy]

FYI, the 7600 GT is much slower than the x1950 Pro or 7900 GT. I don't advise spending too much (over $200) on a new AGP video card because regardless of whether you upgrade your motherboard & processor or purchase a new system either selection will force you to buy a PCI-ex video card. When that time comes I doubt you'll be happy about using an expensive AGP video card as a paperweight. What video card you should buy depends on the other components in system. What is your processor and how much RAM do you have?

Well I have an Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz processor and 512 Mb RAM.

Oh and in what way exactly do memory (RAM) and processor have anything to do with which videocard one choses ? I can understand why knowing your processor is needed, something I don't yet for memory.

Also, I thought relatively powerfull videocards like the 7600gt, or the more powerfull 7900 and x1950 pro, weren't able to function with an AGP Motherboard - don't know why I thought so, but judging from the quoted, this isn't necessarily so. Or am I wrong ?

[x-dANGEr]

@Dutch Guy: There is an AGP version of the 7600 GT, same goes for the x1950 pro (As Spino says).

[Beirut]

3x512MB DDR2 RAM coupled with these video beast should do the trick.

Some people have stability problems with 3x512 RAM. Also, when you do want to upgrade your RAM later, which you would obviously up with sticks of 1024, you'll be stuck with three old 512s instead of two. I'd stay with what you have until you can get 2x1024.

I just went from 2x512 to 2x1024 a few days ago. Other than a slight increase in FSX, I haven't noticed it much, but I know it's good to have and I'll keep this new RAM even if I change the CPU or video card.

[Dutch_guy]

@Dutch Guy: There is an AGP version of the 7600 GT, same goes for the x1950 pro (As Spino says).

Ah ok, thanks for mentioning that. The card seems to be just what I'm looking for, a reasonably priced card which can run most current and new games (think M2TW) on an acceptable level.

[edyzmedieval]

Some people have stability problems with 3x512 RAM. Also, when you do want to upgrade your RAM later, which you would obviously up with sticks of 1024, you'll be stuck with three old 512s instead of two. I'd stay with what you have until you can get 2x1024.

I just went from 2x512 to 2x1024 a few days ago. Other than a slight increase in FSX, I haven't noticed it much, but I know it's good to have and I'll keep this new RAM even if I change the CPU or video card.

I'm looking for 1024MB sticks, but I am also looking for 4x512 sticks. I have 1 stick of 512 right now and I have a dilemma:

The CPU-Z says this:

PC4300 - maximum(at the RAM memory)

I have this: I found some nice Corsair sticks PC6400. If I remove the one existing, and put 4 of these PC6400, will it affect my system? I wonder if I am doing the right stuff if I change this.

[Spino]

Well I have an Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz processor and 512 Mb RAM.

Oh and in what way exactly do memory (RAM) and processor have anything to do with which videocard one choses ? I can understand why knowing your processor is needed, something I don't yet for memory.

Also, I thought relatively powerfull videocards like the 7600gt, or the more powerfull 7900 and x1950 pro, weren't able to function with an AGP Motherboard - don't know why I thought so, but judging from the quoted, this isn't necessarily so. Or am I wrong ?

I just wanted to get an idea of what your system could do. Based on your processor and RAM I really don't advise spending too much to upgrade your current system. If you intend on keeping that system for another year or so then consider upping the RAM to 1gig and getting the AGP version of the 7600 GT. Even if you upgrade your RAM and get that 7600 GT don't expect really smooth framerates when you try to run the latest games on that machine.

Basically I think you're much better off saving as much money as you can and then upgrading to a new system in the next six months.