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05-21-2006, 03:17 PM
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#1 |
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Member (9 bit)
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
Posts: 259
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Spring Cleaning
well guys, I'm not sure if any of you remember when I built my pc December 2005, but spring is upon me and now the question has popped up about what, if any, upgrades are necessary? I play BF2 alot, I listen to alot of music, my system temps never get above 90 degrees fehrenheit, I plan to start running music creation apps, and my downloading rates are pretty sluggish.
System specs: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ ASUS A8N SLI-Deluxe nvidia 7800 GTX 1GB Corsair VS 300 GB Maxtor HDD NEC DL DVD burner X-Fi Xtreme Music Linksys wireless G PCI card (about 3 years old now) I already have 5.1 speakers, and a 19" LCD. I was thinking of maybe going Dual core (supported by my BIOS) or uprgrading the RAM to 2GB of XMS. Maybe getting a new wireless card, if that would help me out at all. And in no way am I in a rush to get any of this done. Thanks |
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05-21-2006, 03:49 PM
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#2 |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 810
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Utilising XMS RAM won't give you any performance boost... at least, none that you could actively see. It's got potential as an overclocking RAM, but that's about it.
As for your download speeds, that's most likely a bottleneck due to your internet connection, rather than a problem related to your software/hardware. However, I do notice that you are using a wireless LAN card. Having a physical line connecting your computer to the router may increase download speeds, so you may want to switch to an ethernet card instead of using your PCI card. |
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05-21-2006, 04:15 PM
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#3 |
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Member (9 bit)
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Flint, MI
Posts: 256
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Kareeser's right, a wireless card is 54Mbps, whereas a hardwired ethernet connection will provide 100Mbps. Realize that those speeds are from the router to a node, they are intranet speeds.
I personally can tell a difference between a 54 and a 100 (within the intranet, not so much from the internet though), but to some its no big deal. As far as music creation apps, I have no clue how much they need. I would assume a 3700+ is enough, but thats only a guess. No amount of music listen should bog down that computer. Is it? Is there a problem listening to music, or are you just mentioning that you listen to a lot of music? The 2GB's of RAM...I have found VERY little performance gain from 2GB's. It also depends on how many sticks you use too. This is a very interesting study which was on digg a few months ago: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mem...y/2gb-ram.html »fo |
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05-21-2006, 06:34 PM
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#4 |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Belgium
Posts: 873
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Trust me, the 2Gigs are helpful to play BF2 without any hiccups and not having to close down all system tray apps. On my system with usually 350 Meg taken up by Xp and a few browsers/utilities, BF2 can peak to 1.6-1.8 Gigs of memory use. If you use the lower video settings for BF2 you don't need that much memory, but for a 7800GTX I definitely recommend at least 1.5G and preferably 2 G so you can play in high settings. There are not much games that really can use 2 Gig's today, but BF2 is definitely one of them. For the rest I'd not change much except maybe get another 7800GTX for SLI. Dual Core isn't really worth it yet, I've got it and it's rarely fully used.
If I was you I'd save most of my money for next year or the year after when your system will get on in age... |
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05-21-2006, 07:15 PM
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#5 |
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Member (10 bit)
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 810
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Right, I second Mesaeus' statement. I only meant to say that if you intend on upgrading RAM, you should stick to ValueSelect, unless you're planning on overclocking.
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05-21-2006, 07:54 PM
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#6 |
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Wx geek
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Indiana
Posts: 6,638
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I'll vouch for another gig of RAM too. Even going 1.5GB to 2GB really helped in BF2 for me.
__________________
"It is the way of man to make monsters and it is the nature of monsters to destroy their makers." |
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05-24-2006, 05:45 PM
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#7 |
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Member (9 bit)
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
Posts: 259
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Yeah the upgrade to 2 gigs is pretty much for BF2.
Could you please point me in the right direction for a cable modem? And if I do decide to upgrade to dual core, what dual core AMD socket 939 is the sweet spot right now? |
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05-24-2006, 05:55 PM
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#8 |
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Wx geek
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Indiana
Posts: 6,638
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Not sure about cable modems, but as for the dual cores - a 3800+ X2 is a good starting point. I'm not sure if it'll help you much...I think it's two slightly slower versions (each core) of what you have...
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05-24-2006, 06:37 PM
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#9 |
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Member (9 bit)
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Virginia Beach, VA
Posts: 259
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Yeah i was thinking about that or the 4400+ X2. The only problem with the 4400 is that I have to save up again. And with AMD switching sockets soon, I think it'd be better in the long run to wait until the transition occurs, then I'll buy 2 gigs of DDR2 ram, a socket M2 mobo, and probably a dual core M2.
Better start saving now. |
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05-25-2006, 01:15 PM
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#10 |
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Member (9 bit)
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Statesboro, Ga
Posts: 265
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Am2 is out now. So you will see things start to swtich over in the next few days/weeks.
Newegg has some already in stock. |
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