Computer Suggestion help please.

Malkata · Post by **Malkata** » March 17, 2004, 7:13 pm

I am currently running on a

900 Duron MMX chip

Motherboard is topped out so needs replaced when I replace the chip.
no way around that.

I have 1gig of PC133 memory which will most likely not transfer to a new motherboard

My Vid Card is a Geforce4 MX 440 64MB ram .. I need one with Direct X 9 Hardware support thanks to EQ's recent upgrades o.O

My sound card is a hercules muse xl and is not a priority cause it works just fine and I don't really use sound much at all when game.

My current OS is Win 2000

Most important fact: I am poor.. I dont have tons of money to spend on an upgrade. That's why it has been put off to the point where I can barely play games anymore. Now I have about 500 dollars to do the upgrade. It would be nice if I didn't have to spend it all. =P

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » March 17, 2004, 7:24 pm

dude, you're getting a Dell

as far as the video card goes, you need DirectX 9 support, not necessarily DirectX 9 HARDWARE support. Your Geforce 4MX will handle dx9 no problem. SOE has said that any card in the GeForce family will be fine when the engine upgrade is released.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 17, 2004, 8:45 pm

What is this?

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » March 17, 2004, 8:55 pm

you'd be looking at maybe 200-300 for a mobo+proc upgrade alone, another 100 or so for new ram. you can pick up radeon 9800 for cheap if you lookout for deals, i think fattyfat recently got one amazingly cheap.

Ransure · Post by **Ransure** » March 18, 2004, 1:19 am

Slickdeals.net has a BestBuy deal listed right now for a Radeon 9800 for 199... but I purchased a Radeon 9700+ and use the Omega drivers for it... it clocks out at 9800 speed...

Taly · Post by **Taly** » March 19, 2004, 1:44 am

Man where you guys buying your pc equiptment! thats insane! you can get G-force 128's at Best Buy for cheaper then that radeon lol

Ransure · Post by **Ransure** » March 19, 2004, 2:10 am

maybe because they are slower?....

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 19, 2004, 2:19 pm

Yeha, Best Buy has the 9800 Pro for $200 this week. After rebates and crap. But that's still a good price. I paid $300 for mine less than 2 months ago.

Taly · Post by **Taly** » March 19, 2004, 6:35 pm

Ransure wrote:maybe because they are slower?....

my personal dealings with both cards over the passed few years shows me G-Force is OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS better then radeon. Slower or not you can hardly tell which is anyway. I use both cards in different PC's and can't even tell a difference =P

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 19, 2004, 9:03 pm

Taly wrote:
Ransure wrote:maybe because they are slower?....

my personal dealings with both cards over the passed few years shows me G-Force is OMGIAMRETARDEDCAUSEALOTISTWOWORDS better then radeon. Slower or not you can hardly tell which is anyway. I use both cards in different PC's and can't even tell a difference =P

Really depends on the application/game. ATI is weak for EQ but whips NVidia's butt in other games. I read numerous reviews and benchmarks and that's why I went with the 9800Pro. And despite all the horror stories about ATI and their drivers I haven't encountered a problem yet.

Now, if you ONLY play EQ then you'd probably be happier with a NVidia.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 19, 2004, 9:28 pm

If you buy monster cables or Bose speakers, buy nVidia

If you like to research and get the best performance for your money, buy ATI

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » March 19, 2004, 9:59 pm

or if you enjoy crappy drivers that hose your system buy ATi

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 19, 2004, 10:03 pm

Tenuvil wrote:or if you enjoy crappy drivers that hose your system buy ATi

As I mentioned.. So far no crappy drivers.. And no hosed system.. Sounds like user error!

Ransure · Post by **Ransure** » March 19, 2004, 10:27 pm

Winnow wrote:If you buy monster cables or Bose speakers, buy nVidia

If you like to research and get the best performance for your money, buy ATI

Actually, I would never buy a bose speaker if my life depended on it... however Monster Cables is a bad analogy... I have M2.2 speaker cable on my 2 channel system, and it outpreforms most of the custom cable I demo'd for that application... but if you have a basic system, there are definately cheaper cables than monster, but on the high end, they are a competitor....

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 20, 2004, 12:56 am

Ransure wrote:
Winnow wrote:If you buy monster cables or Bose speakers, buy nVidia

If you like to research and get the best performance for your money, buy ATI
Actually, I would never buy a bose speaker if my life depended on it... however Monster Cables is a bad analogy... I have M2.2 speaker cable on my 2 channel system, and it outpreforms most of the custom cable I demo'd for that application... but if you have a basic system, there are definately cheaper cables than monster, but on the high end, they are a competitor....

Monster cables are typically decent cables but outrageously overpriced. Head on over to the AV Science Forums and do a search on Monster Cables to get some informed opinions from high end users. Monster cable pricing is 90 percent marketing, 10 percent quality. You can spend a quarter of the amount you spend on Monster Cables for the same quality or better.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » March 20, 2004, 1:52 am

Thanks Hijack!

Malkata, I put an upgrade together for you on NewEgg and emailed it to your VV acount. If we can't take outside emails to here, send me a PM with your email address and I'll shot you the quote.

It's an Athlon system with a 2400+ processor to keep the price down but an Asus Nforce 2 MB with dual channel ddr etc... that will go up to a 3200+ as those come down in price. Found a cheap case and a 128MB LeadTek FX5700. Not the fasted but it's DX9 compliant and will work very well with the MB, should do all you want for some time.

Note there are 2 sticks of 256MB DDR RAM to take advantage of the dual channel. You can get one stick of 512 DDR 400 a little cheaper but will have a VERY slight performance hit. However you might consider doing this for now and just getting another stick of 512 later so you can have a Gig of RAM. Should drop the price of everything to below $400 if you do that as well.

Cheers!
Marb

Malkata · Post by **Malkata** » March 21, 2004, 6:53 am

Thank you for all your suggestions and input. =D I'v gone over them with my hubby and hopefully by the end of the week I will have parts orderd to upgrade my machine. Kinda excited it's been a long overdue upgrade.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » March 21, 2004, 1:36 pm

Don't waste your money on a GForce FX card when you can spend like 50 more and get a 9800 pro

Ransure · Post by **Ransure** » March 22, 2004, 1:29 am

Winnow wrote:
Ransure wrote:
Winnow wrote:If you buy monster cables or Bose speakers, buy nVidia

If you like to research and get the best performance for your money, buy ATI
Actually, I would never buy a bose speaker if my life depended on it... however Monster Cables is a bad analogy... I have M2.2 speaker cable on my 2 channel system, and it outpreforms most of the custom cable I demo'd for that application... but if you have a basic system, there are definately cheaper cables than monster, but on the high end, they are a competitor....

Monster cables are typically decent cables but outrageously overpriced. Head on over to the AV Science Forums and do a search on Monster Cables to get some informed opinions from high end users. Monster cable pricing is 90 percent marketing, 10 percent quality. You can spend a quarter of the amount you spend on Monster Cables for the same quality or better.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/

Well, I do buy monster cables at cost

so I only pay the 10%

Ive been reading AVS for a few years now.