Harleqin
Hippo Power
Right, my old comp is reaching the stage where I can't relay delay replacing it anymore. I mean... I can't even really run a standard huge Civ3 Conquests map without intolerable delays and I'd really like to run the new Civ4 and also Rome Total War... and most likely the new Medieval TW as well.
So, I've been looking into upgrading. I'm on a really, really tight budget, so I need to get hold of something that will do the trick for me and function for some 4-5 years. I realize that the games demand more and more power, but I do have less and less time to play and when I do it's primarily strategy and not FPS games, so I should be able to get by.
Originally I considered an AMD Athlon 3000, 939 socket Venice core as that could later be upgraded quite a bit. I'm locked in on wanting a GeForce 6600 as the newer are too expensive and the older seems to have trouble with Civ4... possibly with the 6200 as an exception. I don't know that much about ATI, but think it would need to be at least a 9800 card.
I'll be looking a 1 GB of RAM, but the mb needs to be able to upgrade up to 3 GB. That seems standard now anyway though.
I looked at the Asus 939dual-sata2 board which runs both AGP and PCIe slots for the graphicscard as I could then get an AGP and later upgrade to a PCIe.
And then I got thinking. My comps usually have a lifeexpectancy of about 5 years. My current is about 6 years I think and has only been upgraded with a larger harddrive... so it's still clocking in with an awesome 800MHz CPU and an old TNT2 Riva gpx card
So, about my thoughts... considering the time before I'm planning on upgrading again... is there any point to get a 939socket? I know my budget will be very, very small the next 4 years, so I most likely wont be able to upgrade even if I want and once I will, then considering the development in prices it shouldn't be too bad to replace the motherboard and get whatever basic CPU is out at the time. Most likely dual-core CPUs will be so cheap by then that I'll need to replace the board anyway...
So, keeping that in mind, is there really any good reason to choose a 3000+ 939 socket over a 754socket with the same speed considering the 939 is twice as expensive? The mb will also be slightly cheaper while the gpxcard will be the same. It should be a saving of something like 100US$ with which I could then get Civ4 and 1-2 other games as well
What would you do if you knew you needed to upgrade about now and have it last for some 4-5 years? Your budget prevents you from getting anything better than the AMD Athlon 3000 Venice CPU... and even that is close to stretching it.
I'm thinking more and more that it is better to go cheap and adequate now rather than spend more and still have to replace the same stuff later.
So... maybe some AMD Athlon 3000+ 754, 1 GB ram (later more) and a GF6600 AGP card? Remember, no fast moving shooting games. Just strategy and maybe a good adventure game if something in the Monkey Island style comes out.
So, I've been looking into upgrading. I'm on a really, really tight budget, so I need to get hold of something that will do the trick for me and function for some 4-5 years. I realize that the games demand more and more power, but I do have less and less time to play and when I do it's primarily strategy and not FPS games, so I should be able to get by.
Originally I considered an AMD Athlon 3000, 939 socket Venice core as that could later be upgraded quite a bit. I'm locked in on wanting a GeForce 6600 as the newer are too expensive and the older seems to have trouble with Civ4... possibly with the 6200 as an exception. I don't know that much about ATI, but think it would need to be at least a 9800 card.
I'll be looking a 1 GB of RAM, but the mb needs to be able to upgrade up to 3 GB. That seems standard now anyway though.
I looked at the Asus 939dual-sata2 board which runs both AGP and PCIe slots for the graphicscard as I could then get an AGP and later upgrade to a PCIe.
And then I got thinking. My comps usually have a lifeexpectancy of about 5 years. My current is about 6 years I think and has only been upgraded with a larger harddrive... so it's still clocking in with an awesome 800MHz CPU and an old TNT2 Riva gpx card
So, about my thoughts... considering the time before I'm planning on upgrading again... is there any point to get a 939socket? I know my budget will be very, very small the next 4 years, so I most likely wont be able to upgrade even if I want and once I will, then considering the development in prices it shouldn't be too bad to replace the motherboard and get whatever basic CPU is out at the time. Most likely dual-core CPUs will be so cheap by then that I'll need to replace the board anyway...
So, keeping that in mind, is there really any good reason to choose a 3000+ 939 socket over a 754socket with the same speed considering the 939 is twice as expensive? The mb will also be slightly cheaper while the gpxcard will be the same. It should be a saving of something like 100US$ with which I could then get Civ4 and 1-2 other games as well
What would you do if you knew you needed to upgrade about now and have it last for some 4-5 years? Your budget prevents you from getting anything better than the AMD Athlon 3000 Venice CPU... and even that is close to stretching it.
I'm thinking more and more that it is better to go cheap and adequate now rather than spend more and still have to replace the same stuff later.
So... maybe some AMD Athlon 3000+ 754, 1 GB ram (later more) and a GF6600 AGP card? Remember, no fast moving shooting games. Just strategy and maybe a good adventure game if something in the Monkey Island style comes out.
