Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 I'm trying to stretch some miles out of this 3 year old Gateway, and one of the things I'm looking at is replacing the CPU. Right now it's a 900 Mhz AMD Athlon. I'd like to get it up around 1.8-2.0 gigs if possible. I'm sure I'll have to replace the motherboard as well, so I've been thinking about a decent Nforce2 board and an AMD Barton 2600 chip. Would I see much benefit with this change gamewise with resource hogs like the bigger CMAK/CMBB scenarios or games like Soldiers? If not, what would you recommend for improved game performance? I could probably do with a little more RAM as well, I've got 320MB right now. I should probably pull the 64MB stick and replace it with a second 256. [ July 21, 2004, 11:12 AM: Message edited by: Dressler ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally's World Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Well in my case, I went from an Asus A7V8X-X (KT400) motherboard to an Epox 8RDA+ (nForce2) board and by keeping my Athlon XP 1800+, saw a 50% increase in my 3dMark score. I also increased my RAM from 256 to 512. So just by changing the motherboard, my machine speeded up quite a lot. And the bigger CMBB scenarios do play a lot better. I hope you have a good video card because the increase in performance that an upgrade in the CPU and/or MB will do may not be as much noticeable without a good video card. My GeForce3 Ti200 card is getting a little long in the tooth, but it still does the job. When I do upgrade my CPU to something around 2800, I'll be getting a new video card to go with it. [ July 21, 2004, 11:24 AM: Message edited by: Wally's World ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Author Share Posted July 21, 2004 The video card is pretty decent, although I'm looking at replacing that as well. It's an ATI Radeon (don't remember which exact model number) and I'm tired of the "no fog" bit with CM, so I'm going with something with the Nvidia chipset. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 I recently upgraded my motherboard to an nforce board as well. I did this because of an article I read that basically said Nforce was a fast chipset. I wasn't impressed with the results. I to went from an ASUS A7V8X (KT400 chipset). I think you will have better results than I did because of the sheer horsepower in CPU that you are looking at. 900mhz to 1.8-2.0ghz is a big jump. You may have to get more RAM. In fact, depending on the motherboard you get, you may have to scrap the RAM you have now because it won't fit in the new board. What kind of RAM do you have now? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Author Share Posted July 21, 2004 I'm going from memory here, but I think it's one stick of Kingston 256mb DDR and the whatever the OEM 64mb stick was that came with the system. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Dressler: I'm going from memory here, but I think it's one stick of Kingston 256mb DDR and the whatever the OEM 64mb stick was that came with the system. Is it DDR PC2100 or older than that? If you get a newer motherboard you may have to scrap the older RAM. Just something to keep in mind. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally's World Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Jack: You didn't see a big increase in your performance? I'm surprised because I did get a 50% increase in my 3dMark score from the A7X8X to the Epox 8RDA+ board. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Wally's World: Jack: You didn't see a big increase in your performance? I'm surprised because I did get a 50% increase in my 3dMark score from the A7X8X to the Epox 8RDA+ board. I didn't use any benchmark software so it may have gotten better but I'm certainly not seeing a big difference when playing CM. I upgraded my motherboard from an ASUS A7V8X to a Chaintech Apogee board with the Nforce2 chipset. The board has a 333mhz FSB which matched the PC2700 RAM I have. I also upgraded my CPU to an AMD Athlon XP2800+ Thoroughbred 2.25ghz. Slight increase in horsepower from the 2700+ I had. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy with my rig but NForce2 didn't do much from what I could see. I picked up approximately 10 seconds on my boot-up from the other motherboard but beyond that, I wonder if it was worth it. To their credit, several folks on the forum advised me not to waste my time and money on it but I had to find out for myself. The new Chaintech board's FSB was quicker than the ASUS boards, 333 vs 266. One thing I will say is that the ASUS motherboard's stability seems better. I have no problems with crashing but if I change a few settings in the BIOS with this Chaintech board the results are unpredictable. I also had a heck of a time getting the machine to boot once I had it all put back together. I think this is more of a Chaintech issue than an NForce2 one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally's World Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Regarding my motherboard upgrade, the difference in CMBB is when I 'fly' over the battlefield. With the old ASUS, I would have some jitters, but not with the new Epox. I also must admit that the ASUS boards I had were really stable compared to the Epox. But then again I was told that the Epox 8RDA+ is known more for its speed than stability. I plan to upgrade the CPU and video card within the next year or so. Maybe sooner. But both seem to be able to handle everything for now. I don't think I'll upgrade the CPU without upgrading the video card because I think I'm maxed out as to what the GeForce3 Ti200 can handle. [ July 21, 2004, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: Wally's World ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Author Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Jack Carr: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dressler: I'm going from memory here, but I think it's one stick of Kingston 256mb DDR and the whatever the OEM 64mb stick was that came with the system. Is it DDR PC2100 or older than that? If you get a newer motherboard you may have to scrap the older RAM. Just something to keep in mind. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Wally's World: the difference in CMBB is when I 'fly' over the battlefield. With the old ASUS, I would have some jitters, but not with the new Epox. I also must admit that the ASUS boards I had were really stable compared to the Epox. But then again I was told that the Epox 8RDA+ is known more for its speed than stability. I plan to upgrade the CPU and video card within the next year or so. Maybe sooner. But both seem to be able to handle everything for now. I don't think I'll upgrade the CPU without upgrading the video card because I think I'm maxed out as to what the GeForce3 Ti200 can handle. My video card is pretty strong. Chaintech GeForce Ti4600 128MB. I'm hoping that this last upgrade will hold me for several years but CMX2 will more than likely be the driver behind where my rig will go from here. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertFox Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Dressler: Right now it's a 900 Mhz AMD Athlon. I'd like to get it up around 1.8-2.0 gigs if possible. I'm sure I'll have to replace the motherboard as well, so I've been thinking about a decent Nforce2 board and an AMD Barton 2600 chip. Would I see much benefit with this change gamewise with resource hogs like the bigger CMAK/CMBB scenarios or games like Soldiers? If not, what would you recommend for improved game performance? Hi, I did exactly what you are planning. I did it last year and haven´t regretted it at all. I went from a 900Mhz Duron on a EPOX ep8kta2 with 512MB and a Ti4200 64MB to a Barton 2500+ (OCed 3200+) on a EPOX ep8rda3+ with 1024 DDR333 and Nvidia FX5950. I exclusively play with 1600x1200 resolution and gamewise it´s a huge step ahead. If you, like me, occasionally play FPS (Farcry, UT2004, MOHAA, COD) you should also consider a new graficboard. If you only play CM keep your old ATI or replace it with a TI4200 128MB. It will do fine for CM. cheers Helge [ July 21, 2004, 02:52 PM: Message edited by: DesertFox ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Author Share Posted July 21, 2004 Well, I checked my system while I was home for lunch and it's even more outdated than I remembered. The Kingston stick is actually ValueRAM, PC133 SDRAM. The graphics card is a 32mb Radeon 7000 AGP. So, maybe two new RAM sticks and a new video card to start with...and then the CPU/mobo upgrade. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertFox Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Dressler: Well, I checked my system while I was home for lunch and it's even more outdated than I remembered. The Kingston stick is actually ValueRAM, PC133 SDRAM. The graphics card is a 32mb Radeon 7000 AGP. So, maybe two new RAM sticks and a new video card to start with...and then the CPU/mobo upgrade. If you look for increasing performance I´d do it the other way round. Replacing your video card and investing money in outdated RAM will give you only a small (if at all) performance increase, but certainly no performance increase in turn calculation. If you buy outdated RAM for your old mobo now, you will have to buy new RAM again when you buy a new CPU/mobo, so now you actually have to spend money for something you will not use in the long run. Go for a new mobo/CPU/Ram first and then , if you are unhappy with your videocard, replace it later. Remember: For calculating turns only a faster CPU can give you a decent performance increase. cheers Helge 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Author Share Posted July 21, 2004 That's true... I guess the newer PC2700 RAM won't work with my existing mobo? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertFox Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Originally posted by Dressler: That's true... I guess the newer PC2700 RAM won't work with my existing mobo? Unfortunately not. If you now have PC133 SDRAMs as I had, you can´t use them in your new mobo, because it requires DDR333 or DDR400 RAMs which have more connection pins and won´t fit in the old slots and vice versa. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Carr Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 At this point, following the thread through, you are looking at upgrading almost every component. You might as well check the power supply while you are at it. Got money? Good luck. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dressler Posted July 21, 2004 Author Share Posted July 21, 2004 Hehehe... yeah, sounds that way. I might as well just copy my existing harddrive into a brand new PC. The old RAM is 168 pin DIMM, so yeah, the PC2700 won't retrofit. I can live with the slower turn calculation, although I'd like faster, but I also get really choppy framerate with bigger maps and higher numbers of units in the CM series as well as games like Soldiers: Heroes of WWII (which seems to be a massive resource hog itself). I figured more RAM and a better vid card would at least help with that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wally's World Posted July 21, 2004 Share Posted July 21, 2004 Like DesertFox wrote, a better video card and more RAM will help when viewing the battlefield, but not when calculating turns. When I had my original GeForce MX420 card, I got quite a bit of choppiness when viewing the battlefield, but after my upgrade to a new card, no choppiness at all. Unfortunately it appears that your machine is at the point where almost everything has to be upgraded in order to see the full performance improvement that any one upgrade will make. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hpt. Lisse Posted July 22, 2004 Share Posted July 22, 2004 E-mail me your address and I'll send you 3x256 MB PC-133 dimms (total 768MB) for nothing. Keep in mind that only WinXP/2000 will deal with greater than 512MB correctly... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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