Upgrading

[old.trekker]

I think my P200MMX, 32Mb Ram, 16Mb Banshee card system is finally too small to cope with the demands of todays games. Having purchased Unreal Tournament and "attempted" to play it (even with all settings on low) I realise an upgrade is long overdue.
As money is not exactly freeflowing in my household, I was hoping to just upgrade to a 400 celeron and 64Mb ram and use my existing Banshee card.Is this sufficient? Will this be ok for Q3 Arena.Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Regards

trekker.

 

[HangTime]

sounds good to me. get a decent (read: Abit) motherboard and u should b able to clock the 400 to at least 498 (should overclocking take ure fancy)

provided u arnt too agressive with ure gfx settings q3a should b playable on a banshee. performance wont b blinding but a banshee should last u another 6months until new parts have come out, and the price of v3/tnt2 etc has fallen. the main thing limiting your current setup is the weak cpu. some1 who is still running a pentium class cpu prolly cant afford to b ditching a banshee for a new card :/

 

[old.TUG]

well id usually write loads of upgrade options for ya but today i cant be arsed cuz im goin out soon... but a C400 + banshee = slow for q3...

My c366@605 and v3 is too slow for me... gonna get a DDR geforce this week

 

[old.Maverick]

Trekker:

Your system is a bit old and won't really handle the pressures of the next gen games but there's a few things to be wary of:

Unless you have an ATX case already then you may find yourself having to also shell out for a new one. It is possible to get AT motherboards for P2/3's and celerons, but they tend to be very budget orientated so the performance may not be up to much.

You'll also find that a large bottleneck, even after upgrading, is your banshee. If I were to pick a 'bargain' card then I'd strongly suggest going for one of the Model 64 TNT2's for around £70 ish. They don't perform as well as regular TNT2s or TNT2 Ultras in high res and/or 32-bit color situations, but their performance is pretty good for the price.

I know it sucks having to upgrade a low spec system when you're short of cash, been there and done it many times while I was a student, but you'd be surprised at the number of bargains you can pick up if you're willing to shop around and be patient.

Intel are supposed to be cutting the price of all their chips around the 25th of January and I'd expect the price of celerons to plummet and you'll probably either be able to pick up a cheap chip, or a bettter spec one for the same price you'd pay now. By then GeForces and S3's Savage2000 will also be much more widely availible to a drop in gfx card prices is also a safe bet

A really good place to pick up bargains I've found is Scan's "Today Only" section (http://www.scan.co.uk/today.htm). Really it's just stock their eager to shift but I've seen some bargain TNT2s and P2/3's on those pages too.

// mav

 

[old.trekker]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Much appreciated

trekker

 

[old.TUG]

1) dont bother with M64 as its slow - might as well get a v3 2k and overclock it for 70 quid as its loads faster (and dont give me no shit mav bout 32bit etc etc cuz using dat on M64 would make the game unplayable anyway)

2)Savage 2k a bit too slow considering SDR geforce is same price and s2k has a few renderin probz... get geforce if u can afford it

Wot me would say is...get something like an abit BE6-II mobo (as it has a daft plethora of FSB's - 66, 75 and then 83-200MHz FSB's in 1MHz increments), a good slotket (msi, asus or a new iwill one which supports s370 PIII coppermines allowing future upgradeability) and a celeron 400 for about 45 quid and OC that to about 550 or maybe higher if its a good chip... Theres just a few bits of info u need to know about when OCing cellies but overall on an abit board its a piece of piss

so...
BE6-II = 100
C400 = 45ish
Slotket = 15
Get a globalwin cooler from me at www.clockspeed.co.uk - see wot i have and add appropriate price.

As mav says, u may need an atx case and possibly a higher powered PSU that u have at present if u have an atx case... but a decent one wouldnt be more than 40 - just make sure psu is situated horizontally across the top of the case so access to whole of mobo is unrestricted.

Im a bit vague cuz im soaberin up but if u wanna icq me for advice then thats fine. 26021081 is me number.

 

[old.jim]

Ive got a pII 400mhz chip you can have for 50quid if youre interested. If so just contact me on icq my number is 40452733