VeeshanVault

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

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.

What is this?

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.

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...

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

maybe because they are slower?....

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.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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....

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/

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

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.

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

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.