Comp upgrades

[Edward]

My comp now.

 

256 mg ram 2x 128

18 gb hd

plll 800mhz

GeForce FX 5500 256mb vid card

 

I want a processor that will run over 1000mhz im sure ill need a new board for this I want to make the upgrades for less than 200$ canadian I don't know what is needed to insiall a new processor onto a mother board (tools etc) biut ive worked with most other components of my comp before. I dont know what processor and board i should get i want stuff that wil eventually let me run HL2 and Halo 2 can you guys offer suggestions on boards and processors? I plan on buying the stuff from new egg or a local suplyier. ty in advance

[Sayonara]

You aren't going to turn that into a gaming platform for $200 CAD.

 

Although you can get a decent processor for that price, I'm going to bet that you'll need a new motherboard to go with it.

 

Also a 512Mb DDRAM stick on its own will cost about $100 CAD, and you could do with a couple of those if you want to play the latest games.

[bloodhound]

and i doubt ur gf fx 5500 will let u play HL2, Halo 2, or doom3 with bearable frame rates

[Dave]

You're also going to need a significantly larger hdd. They're going for quite a reasonable price atm.

[5614]

recommend for gaming:

 

2GHz processor

512MB RAM

30GB HDD (remember 1 game can be up to 5GB big)

decent graphics card, prob better than GeForce FX 5500 is ok, maybe a bit better.

 

thats the minimum to play the latest games, or roughly that, im guessing.

[JaKiri]

and i doubt ur gf fx 5500 will let u play HL2, Halo 2, or doom3 with bearable frame rates

 

Half Life 2 and Doom 3 run perfectly happily on my laptop, which has a lesser graphics card. The 5500 is actually a reasonably good card, it just wasn't cost effective compared to the radeon 9800 pro.

 

And if Halo 1 is anything to go by, not even SLI'd 6800's would do the job.

 

For the upgrades, you're not going to find them particularly cheaply. The best way to go, at the moment, is propably a Sempron 3100+, Socket 754 Motherboard and a stick of DDR2700/3200.

[5614]

i've got the GeForce 4 MX 420... that was about £30 (UK) about 2 years ago, and it still plays halo1 on max graphics smoothly!!!!

 

i've got a 2.53GHz processor and 1.024GB of RAM to help it though... i've never had a game where i cant play it on 1024x768 smoothly.

(that includes; halo1, need for speed underground 2, jedi academy, freelancer, GTA: vice city & toca race driver, those are recent ones i've played)

[5614]

and a stick of DDR2700/3200.

 

whilst pc2700 still runs fine, it is slowly be over taken by the superior pc3200, if you were buying a new PC i'd greatly recommend a pc3200 as the 2700 will soon become out of date.

[JaKiri]

i've got the GeForce 4 MX 420... that was about £30 (UK) about 2 years ago, and it still plays halo1 on max graphics smoothly!!!!

 

The Halo 1 problems depended on the card; for example, whilst the Radeon 9700 Pro is many times more powerful than (say) the Geforce 4400, the latter runs Halo 1 much better than the former. It's Gearbox's fault, they made a terrible conversion.

 

(that includes; halo1, need for speed underground 2, jedi academy, freelancer, GTA: vice city & toca race driver, those are recent ones i've played)

 

You do realise that, by and large, those are either running on 5 year old engines or are conversions of games running on 5 year old consoles? (Give or take a bit for sentence symmetry).

[JaKiri]

whilst pc2700 still runs fine, it is slowly be over taken by the superior pc3200, if you were buying a new PC i'd greatly recommend a pc3200 as the 2700 will soon become out of date.

 

I think you mean that it is 'being replaced as the acceptable minimum', rather than 'being over taken'. I would definitely recommend 3200, but 2700 will cause fewer problems than cutting corners on CPU/MB.