Ok still new to this board guys but trying to figure all of this stuff out. I read a review on the AMD Sempron 2800, it said that it isn't really a great gaming processor as is, but should perform well with an after market Video card. Is this true? My wife wants an upgrade on her PC, she plays Everquest and is currently running an AMD Duron 900 with Geforce 440/64MB(i think) and 512 mb Ram. This system is adequate but is beginning to show its age. I asked a question in another part of this forum about MBs fitting in smaller towers (packard bell) and decided to just dump the old tower and get one of the bare bones kits from Tigerdirect. My budget is kind of tight but I think I have found a decent deal. MB-85G SocketA/ AMD Sempron 2800+/ Cpu Fan/ 425W PS ($ 149.99) XFX GeForce MX4000/ 128MB DDR/ AGP 8X ($ 39.99) Do you think this setup will perform well? I currently run Everquest with my PC AMD Duron 1800 with GeForce 440 /64MB (I think) and 512 MB Ram and have very few problems other than trees looking like square blocks (the leafy parts) at times. My wifes older PC has same graphics problem. Comments encouraged . spidey
To be entirely honest that upgrade really wouldn't help too much. Some yes, but the graphics card is the really important factor. The sempron 2800 is a decent performer overall, modern graphics cards wont quite see their full potential but it should do pretty well. I'd personally look toward something along the lines of a new nForce4 motherboard for socket 939 which will be around for a little while now, on the other hand skt 754 is pretty much dead so I would ground yourself like that. A skt 939 Athlon 64 3000+ will do nicely and cost about $150 or so but you'll appreciate it. Get a gigabyte of ram or so, G-skill is a trusted brand that provides you with good prices as well, but anything from crucial, corsair, kingston etc. will do nicely, just make sure the cas latency is at the most 2.5-3-3-7, anything that begins with 3 will hold you back a tad more than you'd want. For the graphics card look for somthing along the lines of the 6600GT, that's a very good performer and should play Everquest 2 pretty well on higher settings. Though if you're on a tight budget something in the 9800pro league will be more than enough (however note it is only compatable with AGP 8x motherboards, so if you order a nForce 4 motherboard you'll have to get something for pci-express). I guess this is probably going to come over your budget but maybe give us a more or less exact figue to work with. You can at least base some of your decisions off of this.
Exfoliate is right... that upgrade isn't going to do a whole lot for you, but it'll still be an upgrade. Problem is that because you'd still not even be upgrading to current technology, you'd need to upgrade sooner than if you went with what Ex suggested. But since you're on a tight budget, making a big upgrade like that is difficult :x:
So I guess save up a little an get something that will at least last a year or two, cause if you went the socket A road you'd be upgrading to a bygone technology anyway, skt 754 is the iteration after skt A, and even that is pretty far gone. It's all about skt 939 these days, any mobo offering that should be good for a while to come now. Perhaps a more realistic graphics card for you would be the 6600 (non GT), you can manage to pick that up for a little over a hundred.
yea sck 754is good because it will be good in the future (like 3-6 years) when everything goes 64 bit, but sorry guys, unless hes a gamer, the vid card isn't that important are you?
Though then agian I don't think his wife'll be playing just everquest forever either, she may want to give Everquest 2 a go aswell, or any modern game for that matter. In my opinion there's no point in upgrading something as essential as the mobo unless you plan on getting a modern format. It would be just like getting a 20gig hard drive that would have been more than adequate in the day, when there are drives far bigger and faster on the market anyway. But upgrading to a bygone technology you're sort of digging yourself into a hole. Though I do understand that pricing is a major factor. Those are my two pennies on the matter anyway.
I agree with Ex and the rest about this "upgrade" Spidey.. You're looking at a real-time performance increase of only around 20% Max. I don't need a benchmark for this observation -- I've been there. The specs may seem doubled, but in reality, you won't get twice the performance with that setup. If you have the patience, save some more and make the whole upgrade thing worth your while. RAM is all-important, and so is the video card, and if you do it right, you'll have something that'll keep you happy for the next year or two.
