Author Topic: New video / Old processor (Read 515 times)

Alpo · « **on:** December 05, 2001, 09:04:00 AM »

Currently I'm running a Celeron 400MHz with 192MB and a Voodoo 3000.

The Voodoo (or maybe the CPU) is having troubles keeping up with all the new changes and loading DX8 hasn't helped the frame rate at all (if not made it worse)

My question: If I were to start shopping (and no a new MB and processor are not an option... the boss has spoken on that issue

), what video card would get the most bang for the buck on my limited system

I know that the CPU will most likely be the limiting factor but if I can find a card that will get me into the 40+ fps range again AND not freak out the household accountant I would be a very happy camper

mrsid2 · « **Reply #1 on:** December 05, 2001, 09:23:00 AM »

Overclock that CPU it should go to about 466-500 with aircooling, if you have high temp even now, buy a cheap but more efficient cooler.

For displaycard, I'd reckommend anything from Nvidia except the MX series.

GF2 Ti is cheap and should be fast enough for AH.

mason22 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 05, 2001, 10:32:00 AM »

but, you might want to stick with the MX series because the celeron would starve anything faster than an MX. MX 400 64meg would be best bet.

weazel · « **Reply #3 on:** December 05, 2001, 01:35:00 PM »

Tell the *boss* that it doesn't make good economic sense to upgrade your current mobo.

For $200.00 you can buy a AMD 1GHZ, mobo, 128mb DDR, and GF2 MX-400 64 mb card from Pricewatch.

This will give you future upgrade capacity, your Celeron system is at a dead end.

I did an upgrade similar to what your contemplating about 6 months ago and bought a GF2 MX400 64mb, a slotket and Celeron II 600 and overclocked it to 933mhz.

A Celeron II 1.1GHZ and GF2 MX400 is $115.00 on Pricewatch.

While a big improvement over the 466 I was running it wasn't enough horsepower for some applications.

I bought an AMD 1 GHZ, ECS K7S5A, and 256mb DDR last month and it blows the previous setup away, it doubled my system score in some benchmarks and gave a big increase in 3DMark2001 score.

Mason is correct about the GF2 MX 400, it won't be a limiting factor for a system under 1GHZ, mine is adequate for all the games and applications I run.

[ 12-05-2001: Message edited by: weazel ]