Upgrade choice

[Lusche]

My extremely limited budget may allow me a minor upgrade of my beloved, yet a bit old system. Currently running

Athlon 64 3000 / socket 939 K8N Neo4 Platinum MB, 1 GB ram, Nvidia 6600GT

Now I may be able to choose between a new CPU probably AMD Athlon64 X2 2200 4200+ 1MB, or a new vid card, probably a Nvida 7600GT.

But wich one is the way to go? CPU or vid card?

[whels]

Originally posted by Lusche
My extremely limited budget may allow me a minor upgrade of my beloved, yet a bit old system. Currently running

Athlon 64 3000 / socket 939 K8N Neo4 Platinum MB, 1 GB ram, Nvidia 6600GT

Now I may be able to choose between a new CPU probably AMD Athlon64 X2 2200 4200+ 1MB, or a new vid card, probably a Nvida 7600GT.

But wich one is the way to go? CPU or vid card?

I think you would see a greater benifit from the new CPU more
then a video card.  the 2 video cards preform  close to same with 7600
slightly better.


whels

[Bronk]

Originally posted by Lusche
My extremely limited budget may allow me a minor upgrade of my beloved, yet a bit old system. Currently running

Athlon 64 3000 / socket 939 K8N Neo4 Platinum MB, 1 GB ram, Nvidia 6600GT

Now I may be able to choose between a new CPU probably AMD Athlon64 X2 2200 4200+ 1MB, or a new vid card, probably a Nvida 7600GT.

But wich one is the way to go? CPU or vid card?

I'd recommend the cpu because they will become scarcer sooner.
 I had the exact same setup. I bought the 4200 it is great. Game feels smoother and better frames.

[Lusche]

Thanks for the input.
 Not exactly what I had expected,as the 7600GT usually is said to outperform the 6600 in a major way. Guess I go for the CPU now

[humble]

AH is much more CPU intense...after the CPU I 'd look to add a 2nd gig of memory before upgrading VC...

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Lusche
Thanks for the input.
 Not exactly what I had expected,as the 7600GT usually is said to outperform the 6600 in a major way. Guess I go for the CPU now

Err I went from a 6600GT to a 7600GT and saw a big jump in performance.

[humble]

looking at new egg the proccessor and memory (assuming PC3200) would be just about $20 more then the VC....

[humble]

Originally posted by Vulcan
Err I went from a 6600GT to a 7600GT and saw a big jump in performance.

you should, but in a game like AH you can also get a big boost from a better CPU...or if you've got just 1G of memory adding a 2nd Gig...ideally you'll do all 3....but if $$$ are an issue (and arent they always) then the question is what order. In the end I think the CPU is the biggest driver in pereformance for AH.

[whels]

Originally posted by Vulcan
Err I went from a 6600GT to a 7600GT and saw a big jump in performance.

Vulcan,

you also have to conside which is the bottleneck. in you example, ur cpu might have been fast enough that it was waiting on the VC .  so when u upgraded, fps jumped alot cause the new VC complimented the cpu  = in speed.

 all things being =  you should see a bigger increase in fps from
 CPU then you would VC in AH.

[Spatula]

Both options will help - hard to say which will help more. Depends if you are currently being limited by CPU or by video card.

Upgrade the CPU, and the 6600 would become your next bottleneck. Upgrade the vid board, and the CPU would likely be holding you back.

Either way, i would seriously consider adding another 1 gig of RAM as well as your planned upgrade. May require getting 2x1Gig sticks for dual-channel mode tho.

I used to have a Sempron 64 2800+ with a 9800pro and it ran ok. I decided to upgrade the CPU to a Athlon 64 3200+ as it was cheaper than splashing out on a better video card. The improvement was HUGE! Easily doubled my framerate. Mind you thats the crappy sempron for you and its tiny L2 cache. All that is moot now as my MOBO died a few months after that upgrade, and now im running a core 2 duo and X1950pro

You have XP pro? Perhaps you can use the performance counters to chart CPU usage in the game and see how much of a thrashing its getting???

[Lusche]

Originally posted by Spatula

Either way, i would seriously consider adding another 1 gig of RAM as well as your planned upgrade. May require getting 2x1Gig sticks for dual-channel mode tho.

As RAM seems to be the least important factor of all 3 right now, I wont get any. It's too expensive too add 2 512BM sticks (that would still eneble me to run dual-channel) in addition to CPU or GPU upgrade. I need DDR1 for that, 2x512 would cost me 42€, a new Athlon X2 4200 is 55€ and I could get a 7600GT for about 45€


That being said, I am still inclined to get a new CPU, because after reading Bronks posting I found out that most stores here don't even have socket 939 CPU's anymore. trying to get one next year could be more difficult that getting a 7600GT.

Again, thanks everybody for all the input.

[Mister ED]

Cant tell you what processor I even have in this box. I can tell you I have 2k ram and a pair of 7600s, and there isnt any sim/game out there I cant turn up everything in so far.

[alskahawk]

new cpu may require new operating system. win doesnt like major component changes like cpu/mb changes. Detects it as a new system.
 New video card will work without any other changes though your system can get bottlenecked with slow cpu.
Ram will help if you have less than a gig now. Recommend 2 gig with win xp and most other systems.

[Irwink!]

Originally posted by alskahawk
new cpu may require new operating system. win doesnt like major component changes like cpu/mb changes. Detects it as a new system.
 New video card will work without any other changes though your system can get bottlenecked with slow cpu.
Ram will help if you have less than a gig now. Recommend 2 gig with win xp and most other systems.

The worst that might happen is a re-activation of Windows is triggered, certainly not a reinstall if your Windows install is legit. I've changed processors a few times without even triggering a re-activation. A new motherboard along with the new processor might be a different story.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Yeah displaycard is counted as a component just as the cpu. Swapping them makes no difference as far as WGA is concerned.