PC Upgrade. How far should I go.
Moderators: Fingoniel, Stranglehold Moderators
PC Upgrade. How far should I go.
As some of you know I'm playing EVE Online for the moment. They just released their Trinity patch with updated graphics. However, you need a graphics card that supports Shader Model 3.0. The card I have, an ATi Radeon X850 XT PE, only supports SM2. State of the art and costing me a kidney 2 years ago but oh well. That's life in pc hardware
What I can do is just replace it with a midrange Geforce or Radeon from todays line-up which do support SM3, but I could also go a bit further, like maybe 8800 GT (seems to be THE bang for the buck card these days) or SLi as I got an SLi ready mobo. I can't go too low in midrange as then I will have a card that might be SM3 proof but slower overall than my current card!
On top of that the CPU I'm using is also gettign a bit long in the teeth for current and future games. A simple single core Athlon64 X3200
I really wanted to wait till next spring to upgrade or build a completely new pc but I want juicy graphics and I want some decent power for WAR, Crysis and what not
What I can do is just replace it with a midrange Geforce or Radeon from todays line-up which do support SM3, but I could also go a bit further, like maybe 8800 GT (seems to be THE bang for the buck card these days) or SLi as I got an SLi ready mobo. I can't go too low in midrange as then I will have a card that might be SM3 proof but slower overall than my current card!
On top of that the CPU I'm using is also gettign a bit long in the teeth for current and future games. A simple single core Athlon64 X3200
I really wanted to wait till next spring to upgrade or build a completely new pc but I want juicy graphics and I want some decent power for WAR, Crysis and what not
DAoC Europe: Retired - DAoC US: Retired
EvE Online: Retired - Warhammer: Retired
WoW: Retired
Playing: Minecraft (sue me)
EvE Online: Retired - Warhammer: Retired
WoW: Retired
Playing: Minecraft (sue me)
Hmm. Sounds like a good idea. It's not exactly breaking the bank getting an interim el cheapo card that supports SM3
I'll hurl myself into the pc shop one of these days (always fun around the christmas shopping season)
I'll hurl myself into the pc shop one of these days (always fun around the christmas shopping season)
DAoC Europe: Retired - DAoC US: Retired
EvE Online: Retired - Warhammer: Retired
WoW: Retired
Playing: Minecraft (sue me)
EvE Online: Retired - Warhammer: Retired
WoW: Retired
Playing: Minecraft (sue me)
If I was to upgrade my card now I think that I would go for the Ge-Force 9800GX2 card. It sells for around £100 and it is basically 2 9800GT cards stuck together (So in theory you can run quad core GPUs if you pop this thing in SLI mode) - They outpace the new 260GTX cards, which are over twice the price, a pretty good sell if you ask me.
In regard to graphics cards you can get an GeForce 8800 GTX for quite cheap now especially if you are going to be huying from e-bay. An 8800 GTX is easily enough to run most new games on high or even top graphics. The only thing you might struggle on is games such as crysis on high but for warhammer online it should be more than enough.
You can also pick up a nice dual core CPU for under £50 on ebay if you find a good deal, enough to run almost anything on high graphical settings without any stutter or jumpiness. For instance i ran crysis on high for most graphical settings on an AMD 2.6 GHz dual core card and the 8800 GTx like i recommended before.
If needed you can also pick up some fast (600 Mhz) DDR2 ram for under £20 if your lucky enough to find a nice deal.
Basically im just reading off my computers specs, i got the same spec computer about 1 year ago as a custom deal for about £900 so by now it should be a lot cheaper. Hope this helps =]
You can also pick up a nice dual core CPU for under £50 on ebay if you find a good deal, enough to run almost anything on high graphical settings without any stutter or jumpiness. For instance i ran crysis on high for most graphical settings on an AMD 2.6 GHz dual core card and the 8800 GTx like i recommended before.
If needed you can also pick up some fast (600 Mhz) DDR2 ram for under £20 if your lucky enough to find a nice deal.
Basically im just reading off my computers specs, i got the same spec computer about 1 year ago as a custom deal for about £900 so by now it should be a lot cheaper. Hope this helps =]
if its any help Egor was running a 7800 512 AGP untill about a week ago and lotro/WAR were running fine in something like 1400 x900 1600 x1050 was too much. Issue there was
that was on a Semperon 64 3000 1.5 GB Ram Win XP DX9
I had an 8600 256 pcie on Lotro pretty much maxed out except for rvr on another pc Vista 2GB RAM DX10
Egor is now using that on a Athlon x2 3800 but we havent streched it yet Win XP 4GB RAM DX9 Basically it was time to make the jump too some got a pretty Good MoBO and stuffed in CPU card ec that had come out of my pcs over time.
currently got an 8800 1GB pcie on main pc running at 1600 x 1050 and thats nice too!
that was on a Semperon 64 3000 1.5 GB Ram Win XP DX9
I had an 8600 256 pcie on Lotro pretty much maxed out except for rvr on another pc Vista 2GB RAM DX10
Egor is now using that on a Athlon x2 3800 but we havent streched it yet Win XP 4GB RAM DX9 Basically it was time to make the jump too some got a pretty Good MoBO and stuffed in CPU card ec that had come out of my pcs over time.
currently got an 8800 1GB pcie on main pc running at 1600 x 1050 and thats nice too!