Help Two Choices

[reignking]

I have a dilema at the moment, i was going to upgrade my whole system but the money just isn't there right now. I would still like to upgrade half of my system but the question is, by doing which half will i get better performance in games like cs:s, bf2.

I currently have:
athlon 64bit 3000, socket 939
ati radeon 9800pro 8x agp video card
1 gig (2x512) pc3200 cruscial ram
good psu
good soundcard

i was going to upgrade to, a amd 64 3800 x2 (dual core), a sli-express mb, and a 7800gt video card and keep the rest of my system the same. well... the money isn't there after xmas so i'm going to have to do this in two steps.

my options are: keep everything else the same and upgrade to the 3800x2 processor and later upgrade video card and mb.

or: downgrade to a 6800gt video card and a new motherboard, keeping the old processor.

which do you think would have the most immediate impact on gaming?

thanks,
rk

[clocker]

I'll take Option #2 for the block, Monty.

The motherboard/vid card combo will give you the biggest bang per dollar.
You do realize that the train you're boarding has already left the station and will be stopping in 6-7 months don't you?

[reignking]

what train is that?

[Virtualbody1234]

The sli-express train.

[clocker]

what train is that?

The s939 train.
Q2 of 2006 comes the new AM2 platform with DDR2 support and newer, betterer CPUs.

Makes more sense for you to get a single core CPU and a non-SLI board (as long as it's nF4 chipset) with whatever nVidia 7800 variant you can afford.
If you are lucky, introduction of the new platform will coincide with a price drop in the s939 family and you can bump your CPU if you want (and end up with a better chip for less money).

[reignking]

ok... this i wasn't aware was this close away.

if i understand correctly... the sli express wont matter? will video cards still be agp then? so if i wait... i can use my current n4 board and procc, and video card upgrade (7800 w/agp?) and ddr2 ram?

edit: after looking... all 7800gt's are sli express on newegg... will this still fit in a standard agp slot and run fine? if i'm off base, please fill me in.

rk

[Virtualbody1234]

I think you are a little mixed up about SLI and PCI Express and AGP.

SLI is two PCI Express slots that can support two graphics cards combined.

You can have a mobo with just one PCI Express slot.

AGP is an older technology altogether.

[Wolfmight]

FYI: A single Nvidia 7800GT is extremely fast...even if your using it with a 1.6ghz CPU. Having two with SLI will give you higher fps, but no real visual difference to the human eye. I believe F.E.A.R is the only game right now that needs SLI to run pretty fast on MAX everything, including the 1500x1280 resoultion.

It's a card that pushes very hard to keep atleast 50-60 fps as a minumum. Normally I get an average of 60-100+ in most games using the 7800GT.
I feel as if 80% of the game is processed inside that very card.

I don't know about the 7800GTX being much better because the benchmarks sure don't show it:

It costs nearly $150 more.

[ApacNTS]

wow i never knew it was that close, i had pretty much made up my mind to wait and buy the 7800gtx, but that $150 could go to a better hdd, ram, cpu, dvdrw. thanks for the knowledge.

[reignking]

thanks for the info... think i'm going to upgrade the video card to a 7800gt pci express and overclock my current 64 bit until i get enough saved to upgrade that to a dual core or fx.

one other question... you said in teh near future the amd's will be able to run ddr2 ram... will i need a new motherboard again at that time or will a current nforce4 mb be able to handle the ram upgrades w/ a bios flash?

thanks,
rk