Good system for DE IW?

[mgeorge]

Hey all. I am trying to upgrade my HP 1.3 athlon, fx5200 PCI< w/768 megs of 133 ram, and went to a local computer place. He told me that if he uses my Hard drive and cd rom, he will add a new case, Athlon 2700+ processor, MSI motherboard, 512 Crucial 2700 memory, 350 watt power supply and a connect3d 64 meg video card of some kind. He said the vid card was basically a radeon 8500, but when I went to the site there was no such thing. I want to play DE IW at better than the everything low settings I'm using now as well as HL 2 when it comes out etc. Will this system run newer games such as DE IW and say vampire bloodlines. He says it will run anything, but I don't know. I would appreciate any help that anyone could give me!

BTW He's charging me 600 bucks for this stuff. Am I taking it up the wazoo??
Thanks again.

[oohwha]

Here's what I bought and put together 1 or 2 months ago:

Athlon 64 3200+ OEM: $270.00 from newegg.com
Gigabyte 64-bit mobo: $129.99 from newegg
Crucial ECC RAM (512MB): $118.00 from newegg
Aspire Turbo case: $67.00 from newegg (inc. $15 shipping)
Aopen DVD/CD-RW combo: $49.99 from newegg

Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro: $223.00 from GameVE.com
Audigy 2 ZS Gamer: $126.00 from GameVE

Much like you, I already had the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and hard drive.

This system runs DX2 at 1024x768 with FSAA and high details/low shadows. I stay mostly above 30FPS with the 1.2 patch.

Also, I went with somewhat pricey RAM and mobo - and of course you may already have a sound card you can use - or you might not want to buy the Gamer package and just go with a $70'ish sound card. Whatever the case, you can see what kind of a deal can be found if you search the web for great deals.

Not sure if you can put a PC together from scratch, but if you can, there's money to be saved. For instance, you can get a $70'ish mobo with a $70 AMD 2500+ and then OC the FSB to 400 from 333 and have a system that is every bit as good as an AMD 3200+ system!

By the way, my rig runs UT2004 at 30FPS+ set to 1600x1200 with all details maxed out - so it's not a dog, even though DX2 makes it look like one

Click the link in my sig to check out more detailed FPS info for UT2004, DX2, and Halo

[Mr. Perfect]

The machine he's trying to sell you is decent enough, I'd call it a midrange system. Couple things to ask about though. First, is it a dual channel memory system? Gotta have dual channel. Second, does he have a Radeon 9600 Pro or above? The 8500 first competed with the last GeForce 3s and first GeForce 4 cards, and really isn't so hot these days. I've got a 8500 on a 2700+, and even at 640x480 DE:IW is choppy(I also have a 9800 on a 2600+, and IW is playable at 800x600). Also, who made the powersupply? Antec is a good brand, but there are other manufacturers that make iffy stuff.

Here's prices off of Newegg for the system he's suggesting.
$ 84 2600+
$111 512MB PC2700 Kingston Dual Channel kit
$ 43 Antec 350watt PS
$ 72 MSI K7N2 Delta-L motherboard, Nforce 2 Ultra 400 chipset

The 8500 isn't for sale at Newegg anymore, but I Imagine it's about $70 these days. Newegg has a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro for $129 though.

So with a 8500 the parts would probably be about $400 with shipping, and with the 9600 Pro it'd be around $450. I guess he's charging $200 or so for labor.

[mgeorge]

Ya see. that's my problem. I have no idea about any of this stuff really. According to him, all you need for any gaming nowadays is a 64 meg vid card. He tells me that anything over that is overkill unless you want to max everything out, which I don't really care about. Is that true? But, I am sick of playing a lot of my games at 640 X 480 and having to turn off shadows, AA etc. I downloaded the Painkiller demo and while the game looks pretty good in 800 X 600 there is stll some lag. Do you guys think this type of system would be able to handle most of today's newer games at 1024 X 768 with at least med. details? This guy is supposed to order the parts tomorrow and I don't really know anyone else to ask so I would really appreciate any input you guys could give me.

[thegrommit]

Get him to give you a detailed list of the parts, then post them here. The important thing about the video card is the type of chip on it. FYI, just about every decent card now comes with 128MB of RAM. You will notice the difference with games that have highly detailed textures (DX:IW isn't one of them).

Or you can compare prices with those charged by newegg.com

[mgeorge]

Thanks all. I will post the exact specs tomorrow if I can.

[oohwha]

He tells me that anything over that is overkill unless you want to max everything out, which I don't really care about. Is that true?

It is true - for every game but Deus Ex 2

Still, I've always been the type to get one-offs. That is to say, whatever the best, most expensive component currently on the market when I build a new PC... I get the next highest.

I have purchased heat sinks for my Radeon and I now have it overclocked to 9800XT specs. I payed $233 for the card and heatsinks. The cheapest XT's are still over $400.

Still, even if you don't build your own system you can still get a good deal if you are informed. With today's PC games the most important 2 parts of your system are the CPU and the video card. It sounds like this dude is going to sell you a good CPU but it sounds like he is really trying to screw you on the video card. Perhaps you should have him build the system for you and test it but NOT put a video card in?

Then just go buy your own video card. If I were you I would look for one with 256-bit RAM. The GeForce 5900 series and Radeon 9800 series both use 256-bit RAM. If you look at www.tomshardware.com you will see that the 256-bit varieties perform about 30% better on average than the 128-bit varieties (Geforce 5700, Radeon 9600, etc.)

This alone could add another YEAR of gaming playability to your rig - if you are looking to stay economical (which you strike me as the type who is).

Hope this helps. Also, any time you want to know rock bottom prices, just check www.pricewatch.com. You can find out real quick if someone is yankin yer chain

[mgeorge]

Thanks oohwha. The vid card has me worried as well. The rest of the system sounds OK. I can't get a hold of him today, but it seems to me that if he tells me that it's based on the Radeon 8500 series the card is quite old, and Connect3d doesn't even make one of those that I could find on their site. Not in 64 meg anyway. He tells me that whatever the card is, it will do what I want, which is basically be able to play newer games at a decent res, ie; 1024 X 768 with med settings. If I can get that, I'll be happy. DE IW, I'm not that concerned with right now as I'm almost done with it. BTW, I personally like IW myself, other than having to play at lowest res with absolutely nothing on. Whatever he gives me it will be interesting to see how it compares to my current setup, and if I'm getting porked on the card, I'll just do as you say and get my own. You're right, I am a bit strapped for cash right now and can't afford a really good card. What do you think would be a good mid-range card for what I'm looking for? Thanks very much for your help!

[mgeorge]

Sorry to bother everyone again, but I just went to Pricewatch and noticed what to me are some odd things going on. There are some 8500 Radeon cards there . The thing I'm wondering about is that there are 128 mb cards for about 80 bucks, and then there are a couple 64 mb cards for the same money. Why would that be? It seems if you're doubling the ram on the card that the 128 would be a bit more expensive. I'm confused. Thanks again

[Athlon64]

I don't think that there is a PC on Earth that is powerful enough to run Deus Ex : Invisible War at 1024x768 resolution, with maximum details, dynamic shadows, and 4x multi sampling without experiencing at least some slowdown. The framerates on my PC are fine......until someone starts shooting.

[thegrommit]

Originally posted by mgeorge
Sorry to bother everyone again, but I just went to Pricewatch and noticed what to me are some odd things going on. There are some 8500 Radeon cards there . The thing I'm wondering about is that there are 128 mb cards for about 80 bucks, and then there are a couple 64 mb cards for the same money. Why would that be? It seems if you're doubling the ram on the card that the 128 would be a bit more expensive. I'm confused. Thanks again

The cards with more memory usually use cheaper, slower memory.

Run, don't walk away from this guy. A 8500 will NOT run most modern games at 1024x768 with medium/high details smoothly. If you need proof, get him to run the DX demo on those settings on a system with that card.

[oohwha]

Also, there is the issue of supply and demand. The 8500's are going bye bye as the newer cards come out and the older 9000 series cards drop in price and increase in demand. The reason those really old 8500's are the same price no matter the amount of memory is the same reason that it costs about the same for a crappy stick of 64MB EDO RAM as it does for a 512MB stick of DDR400 RAM. The factories are cranking out the DDR400 chips so feverishly that the prices are rock bottom.

Those 8500 cards are getting old and no one is making them any more. They are too busy turning out 9600's and 9800's. That dude is trying to get rid of his stock. If he can give you a 9800 for a decent price, even an SE with slower RAM, it would be enough for you to consider 1024x768 in DX2. Provided you don't have insane requirements for frame rate. Most Radeon 9800 users can get 25+ frames per second at 1024x768 with shadows low or off.

Of course the 5900 series nVidia cards are pretty much just as good - I'm just partial to ATi since I used to be an nVidia man but ATi has really impressed me with the 8 pixel pipes on their 9800 series cards.

[Mr. Perfect]

The 9800 SE only has 4 pipes though. For a budget 9800, look for the non-pro 9800(it's simply labled Radeon 9800).

[oohwha]

Originally posted by Mr. Perfect
The 9800 SE only has 4 pipes though. For a budget 9800, look for the non-pro 9800(it's simply labled Radeon 9800).

OOPS - I did not know that.

Thanks for correcting me. I thought it was just slower clock speeds.

[mgeorge]

Thanks guys. I haven't been on in a couple of days cause my comp was in his shop. I got the new setup today and he put a radeon 9200 se in there. He says he paid 100 bucks for it but I don't believe him. I put the card in there and it does run all my games better, but I'm not a happy camper. I can now play DE IW with low shadows and everything else on high, and the game is definately smoother, but I still have to set the res at 640 X 480. Plus he charged me an extra 40 bucks cause the card was 128 megs.

I know this isn't a gen. tech forum, but you guys seem to know your stuff so I'd like to ask a couple more questions if you guys have the time to answer. First, once I got the new setup home I was browsing around and decided to check on defragging, not thinking that it would really need it, but once I got there, it needed it real bad. It took over 4 hrs. to defrag the thing. Is that normal? I mean he did take my old hard drive and re-install Win. XP, but it seems to me if he did that, it shouldn't need to be defragged as it was a fresh install. And second, do you guys know a card I could get around 120 or 130 bucks that would set me up for DE IW and other newer games coming out. I really appreciate all the help you guys have given me. Thanks again.

[Mr. Perfect]

Heh. The Irony here is the 9200 is based on the 8500, and SE versions are slower then the full version. 9200 SE is probably around a 8500 LE... Go smack that tech guy upside the head with your new video card when you get one. Maybe the bastige will take the card back though.

As far as a good card in that price range, look for a 9600 Pro or a 5700 Ultra.

Defraging after installing windows isn't uncommon. Windows Installer puts some stuff in the middle of my drive, and then when I install other programs it puts them after those Windows files in the middle. So I get to defrag after installing Windows...

[mgeorge]

Thanks mr. P. I can get a deal on a 9500 radeon. is that a decent card? Thanks

[Darkhound_5678]

I have a 5700 Ultra and its a good card, but if you have the money for that (£100-150), you want to pick up a 5900XT, it wees all over the competition because of its 256 bit Memory (all the others in the <£150 price range have 128 bit). Its about 30-40% faster than the 5700U and 9600XT.

[Mr. Perfect]

The 9500s where pretty good cards. Many people could turn them into 9700 Pros with software tweaks, so ATI stoped making them. Is it Pro?

[mgeorge]

No, I just found out it's a 9600 SE and I heard the're not that great. I found a 9600 Pro on pricewatch for 128 bucks though. Is that a good deal? One other question too. Will I see that much of a difference between the 9200se and the 9600 pro, as this new card seems to me OK. The real reason I upgraded was to be able to play the newer games such as DE IW and HL 2 when it comes out. Thanks again.

[thegrommit]

Originally posted by mgeorge
No, I just found out it's a 9600 SE and I heard the're not that great. I found a 9600 Pro on pricewatch for 128 bucks though. Is that a good deal? One other question too. Will I see that much of a difference between the 9200se and the 9600 pro, as this new card seems to me OK. The real reason I upgraded was to be able to play the newer games such as DE IW and HL 2 when it comes out. Thanks again.

Yes, that's a good deal. It's also substantially faster than the 9200 - something you'll notice whenever HL2 comes out.

FYI - newegg has one for $129 (including free shipping. They are a well respected online retailer - something you may want to consider before going with some unknown small shop.

[mgeorge]

My wife is going to freakin KILL me but I'm gonna order it tomorrow. Thanks

[Darkhound_5678]

hehe nice

[oohwha]

Originally posted by mgeorge
My wife is going to freakin KILL me but I'm gonna order it tomorrow. Thanks

ROFL - just tell her something like "Baby, I thought this video card could render the most beautiful things mankind has every laid eyes on, but then I looked into your eyes and realised all that pales in comparison to your beauty".

Problem solved

[Darkhound_5678]

Originally posted by oohwha
ROFL - just tell her something like "Baby, I thought this video card could render the most beautiful things mankind has every laid eyes on, but then I looked into your eyes and realised all that pales in comparison to your beauty".

Problem solved

LMAO