I'm thinking upgrading

[AntiAnto]

With all you guys pissing me off with your first impressions on the Battlefield 2 Demo that I couldn't even install if I succeeded to download it, I have been thinking of upgrading some parts of my 2 years old computer.

Here what I have right now:

[Watch out... it's pdf]
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press_kits/2003/desktops/ds_paviliona230n.pdf

Basically, it contains

AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Processor 2.08 GHz
512MB DDR SDRAM memory (2 × 256MB)
120 GB DMA hard drive
nVidia GeForce4 MX graphics with 64MD allocated to video memory

I definetaly want to change my graphic card and add some RAM too. What could I get for maybe 400$ CAD (319$ USD, 176£ GBP, 263€ EUR)?

P.S. I consider raising the price depending on what the deal is.

 

[bosox188]

Yes you definitely need to upgrade the ram and video card. You cpu is fine for now, I got the BF2 demo and I'm running 1024x768 on medium quality. It's running very very smoothly. I can probably turn some more settings up I think, because I haven't had any slowups at all and while I didn't use anything to tell me the fps it was running at, it seemed to be very fast. Here's the best you can do for $400 (yes these are in CAD $)

Memory: 1GB (2x512MB)

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=9821&vpn=VS1GBKIT400&manufacture=CORSAIR

Video Card: 6600GT

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=13490&vpn=BFG6600GT&manufacture=BFG Technologies

^^^This one is made by BFG, and I recommend you get that one because BFG makes very high quality cards that come with a lifetime warranty and are overclocked a little bit right out of the box, making them a little faster than other 6600GT's. If you got this one it would come to $422, but the BFG has a $40 mail in rebate so after that it would make the cost $382.

 

[AntiAnto]

Thanks mate, that is pretty much what I was looking for

 

[bosox188]

No problem. And seeing as you'll have a better processor and better video card than me, you should be able to run the demo just as well, probably a little better. I'm gonna see later how high I can turn up the settings.

 

[[w0f]Oblivion]

When i play the demo my graphics card starts getting really high temps so i have to limit my playing..
haha my temp alarm started going off and i couldnt figure out what the beeping noise was untill i looked down.. haha...

 

[ComradeBadger]

Ack.. if you're running SD RAM at the moment, check you actually have space for DDR

EDIT: I'm also not sure if that model has an AGP slot.. the graphics are intergrated :|

 

[bosox188]

Ack.. if you're running SD RAM at the moment, check you actually have space for DDR

EDIT: I'm also not sure if that model has an AGP slot.. the graphics are intergrated :|

It is DDR RAM he has, DDR SD RAM is just the long way of saying it.

And the specs on the PDF file do mention that it has an AGP slot. He's all clear.

 

[AntiAnto]

It is DDR RAM he has, DDR SD RAM is just the long way of saying it.

And the specs on the PDF file do mention that it has an AGP slot. He's all clear.

Wow, you sure helped me today. I was going to open my computer's case and all.

 

[bosox188]

Wow, you sure helped me today. I was going to open my computer's case and all.

I'm happy to get back into the loop again.

 

[ComradeBadger]

I'm happy to get back into the loop again.

Heh. Quite the opposite for me ;( I've had to take time out of building and repairing comps to study for my exams ;(

Ah well.

 

[bosox188]

Heh. Quite the opposite for me ;( I've had to take time out of building and repairing comps to study for my exams ;(

Ah well.

I took a time out from December when I finally got my 9800 pro until now. I got out of school on June 3. :bounce:

 

[gweedodogg69]

I wonder how BF2 will run on my PC?

 

[ComradeBadger]

Absolutely fine you rich bast

 

[holydeadpenguins]

Too bad the athlon xp 2800 cant run dual channel ram :-( and spend a little more money on the video card to get a 6800 or something.

 

[bosox188]

It's still better to get two sticks of 512mb instead of one stick of 1gb because the 512mb sticks generally have faster timings.

BF2 Demo Update:
I'm running the demo at 1024x768 with high settings on, except textures and lighting quality are both on medium, but everything else is on high. Texture filtering I'm guessing is the game's way of saying AF, and that's on high. AA is on 4x. I'm surprised I can run it that well. And it's still very smooth. If you press the ~ to open the console and type in renderer.drawfps 1 you can see you fps except it gives you two numbers I.E. 31.7/40.5 and both numbers change, so I'm not sure which one is the fps. Either way it all seems very smooth to me.