Upgrading soon, but could use some help

[Manny]

The time's finally come to upgrade this old hog, but I'd like to do it reasonably. In other words, I'd like to get a good PC at a nice price/quality ratio. I'm still not really clear on a few things though, and I'm hoping some people here might be able to help.

I've pretty much decided on a 2.8 CPU. Trouble is, there's a price difference between the Athlon and Intel CPUs that I don't really get. For instance, the Athlon 2.8 processor is about 175 euros, while the Intel P4 2.8 is about 245. In the store's price list ( http://www.fsh.nl/a_cpu.html ), behind the cpu name, it says "333MHz" for the Athlons and "800MHz" for the P4 cpus. What exactly is this, and how does this difference affect performance?

Then there's the soundcard. I wanted to upgrade as little as possible in my PC, but you know how it is; you'll find the HD's getting kind of dated, your cdrom player starts to hiccough from time to time,... The CD that came with my soundcard says SB Live! 5.1 at least; I don't really want to upgrade here, but recently I read that KOTOR, for instance, needs a directX9 compatible sound card. Is my sound card dated, should it be replaced for some reason?

Last but definitely not least, there's the video card question. I'd like a good, fairly high-end card, but not one of the most expensive ones. This is an area of hardware whose evolution I've always tried to pay attention to, but lately it's become such a mess. I don't think I'd like to go over 250 euros, something around about 200 would be great. Am I right in saying it seems most people are going for ATI right now? I read the 9800pro was recently downpriced severely, to around 200-250. Is that correct? Also I'd like some advice on whether there's really much difference between 128 and 256 RAM there.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Asus]

The Athlon XP 2800+ is a good choice if you what performance for your money as it doesn't cost a lot at all and performs very well all around. This CPU is on a very mature and stable platform with a good range of boards available. You can find a lot of these boards with a lot of features and they are priced very reasonable.

The Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz 'C' is a good choice if you want very good performance in all fields from gaming to highend video scene rendering. It also is on a very mature platform but the boards cost a little more. The CPU itself costs a bit more as well but it gives you added performance. You will need 2 sticks of memory to take advantage of the memory bandwidth and avoid other verions of this CPU. The 'A' and 'B' versions only have 533MHz FSB while the 'E' version is the Prescott core which runs hot. All of these will perform poorly in games compaired to your other options.

The Athlon 64 2800+ costs about the same as the Pentium 4 2.8GHz CPU and is usually the gamers choice. The platform has been out for quiet a few months now and the boards are at a pretty good price. Very good performance in games that exceed either an Athlon 3200+ or a Pentium 4 3Ghz in games, for the most part. It out performs an Athlon XP 3200+ in all ways and does very good in multimedia compaired to the AthlonXP's.

The 9800Pro would be a great choice for a graphics card. I would suggest the 128MB version since the extra money is not worth the 256MB version at all. Games don't really take advantage of the 256MB memory and therfore the extra money for it is somewhat of a waste. Grab the 9800Pro 128MB version. Make sure it says 256Bit memory bus though. Email who you are buying it from to make sure, if that information isn't listed.

 

[ACLeroK212]

The time's finally come to upgrade this old hog, but I'd like to do it reasonably. In other words, I'd like to get a good PC at a nice price/quality ratio. I'm still not really clear on a few things though, and I'm hoping some people here might be able to help.

I've pretty much decided on a 2.8 CPU. Trouble is, there's a price difference between the Athlon and Intel CPUs that I don't really get. For instance, the Athlon 2.8 processor is about 175 euros, while the Intel P4 2.8 is about 245. In the store's price list ( http://www.fsh.nl/a_cpu.html ), behind the cpu name, it says "333MHz" for the Athlons and "800MHz" for the P4 cpus. What exactly is this, and how does this difference affect performance?

Then there's the soundcard. I wanted to upgrade as little as possible in my PC, but you know how it is; you'll find the HD's getting kind of dated, your cdrom player starts to hiccough from time to time,... The CD that came with my soundcard says SB Live! 5.1 at least; I don't really want to upgrade here, but recently I read that KOTOR, for instance, needs a directX9 compatible sound card. Is my sound card dated, should it be replaced for some reason?

Last but definitely not least, there's the video card question. I'd like a good, fairly high-end card, but not one of the most expensive ones. This is an area of hardware whose evolution I've always tried to pay attention to, but lately it's become such a mess. I don't think I'd like to go over 250 euros, something around about 200 would be great. Am I right in saying it seems most people are going for ATI right now? I read the 9800pro was recently downpriced severely, to around 200-250. Is that correct? Also I'd like some advice on whether there's really much difference between 128 and 256 RAM there.

Thanks in advance.

my Soyo CK8 Dragon Plus mother board has built in sound and that's all i use. works fine with KOTOR and other games. Unless you have an advanced speaker setup or your really picky about your sound then your sound card is probably on the bottom of your upgrade list.

the 9800pro is definitely a good buy. your not gonna find another card that'll give you more bang for your buck at around $200 US. i don't know exactly how much better the 256mb is than the 128mb but you can never go wrong with more video ram. i'd suggest just using your sound card you've got now and use the extra cash you'd save on a new one to put towards the 256mb 9800pro or even look into the new x800 series.

 

[Asus]

Another reason why not to get the Pentium 4 'E' (Prescott).
Link

 

[Manny]

Thanks for the help guys; after mailing back and forth with the store, they offered me this card:

VGA ASUS 128Mb A9600XT TD

at just over 200 euros. Is this a good buy? Should I get this one? Since the 9700 series appears to be no longer available and I'm not willing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an 9800 pro or XT, I'm thinking this should be an ok deal. Is there a 256 RAM version of this card however, and should I try to get that one instead of the 128M version? Also I'm curious as to what the "TD" at the end is about.

 

[ACLeroK212]

Thanks for the help guys; after mailing back and forth with the store, they offered me this card:

VGA ASUS 128Mb A9600XT TD

at just over 200 euros. Is this a good buy? Should I get this one? Since the 9700 series appears to be no longer available and I'm not willing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an 9800 pro or XT, I'm thinking this should be an ok deal. Is there a 256 RAM version of this card however, and should I try to get that one instead of the 128M version? Also I'm curious as to what the "TD" at the end is about.

I'm not too familiar with euros but if my converter worked right 200 euros is about 243 US dollars? Just use sites like pricewatch.com or newegg.com and you can find 9800 pros for around $200 US (163 euros).

 

[Manny]

I just checked Pricewatch and the prices it finds for that hardware are indeed incredible. Too good to be true almost. I mean for quite a few of those video cards the price is pretty much half of what you'll pay in most stores, or less.

 

[ACLeroK212]

I just checked Pricewatch and the prices it finds for that hardware are indeed incredible. Too good to be true almost. I mean for quite a few of those video cards the price is pretty much half of what you'll pay in most stores, or less.

They are usually OEM products so your not going to get the fancy boxes and whatnot. I paid $204 for my 9800 pro and I got the card, cd w/ drivers and an AV cable all stuffed in a plain ol white box with bubble/static wrap. A box hardly makes for a good product though, and at around $200 it's hard to find a better deal for such a great card.