Upgrading from Duron processor to Pentium III/AMD Athlon - how much?

[Rodgers]

Is this going to be expensive? My current processor is -

803Mhz
Authentic AMD
Duron

In order to run Battlefield 1942 the help screen says I need a Pentium III, so given that I am runnnig on the current CPU, what is the likely cost/possibility of this upgrade??

(Is it worth the bother?)

EDIT - it will also run on an AMD Athlon. Is ths muich of a step up from what I have now? I think this may be cheaper but dont want to waste my money on an expensive upgrade when it could be cheaper to buy a new PC altogether.

 

[ainwood]

Is this going to be expensive? My current processor is -

803Mhz
Authentic AMD
Duron

In order to run Battlefield 1942 the help screen says I need a Pentium III, so given that I am runnnig on the current CPU, what is the likely cost/possibility of this upgrade??

(Is it worth the bother?)

EDIT - it will also run on an AMD Athlon. Is ths muich of a step up from what I have now? I think this may be cheaper but dont want to waste my money on an expensive upgrade when it could be cheaper to buy a new PC altogether.

Well, when they say that it requires a Pentium3, they mean pentium 3 or equivalent AMD. They will normally specify a processor speed required as well, and you need to check that your AMD CPU has an equivalent. Note that the CPU speeds of the two aren't directly comparable (eg. my Athlon 2000+ runs at only 1666 MHz, IIRC, yet it performs roughly equal in speed to a pentium 2GHz => can't remember the exact details though).

In order to work out if an upgrade is possible, we'll need to know what your motherboard type and model is (to see if it can support a faster CPU). You won't be able to put a pentium CPU on it though, you'll have to stick with AMD.

 

[ainwood]

EDIT - it will also run on an AMD Athlon. Is ths muich of a step up from what I have now? I think this may be cheaper but dont want to waste my money on an expensive upgrade when it could be cheaper to buy a new PC altogether.

If you are currently running a 803 MHz Duron, then you won't be able to go much faster without chanign your motherboard. However, if you do have some room to move, then the CPU will be dirt-cheap. eg this one from scan: A 1.6 GHz duron is only GBP 30 -ish.

 

[Rodgers]

In order to work out if an upgrade is possible, we'll need to know what your motherboard type and model is (to see if it can support a faster CPU).

How do I do that? Is this something I can discover through "control panel" or something simple or would i need to take the thing apart?

 

[ainwood]

Look at this page

To use it, you will need to get your bios ID string. Link on how to do that is on that page.

Alternatively, download the program at this link. Install and run it, save teh ersults and post them back here.

 

[bobgote]

Upgrading your motherboard,CPU and RAM (all of which i think are necessary in your case, as before, i don't know the system requirements of the game you mentioned), is virtually a new computer. add a graphics card to that and its virtually an entirely new machine. you should be able to find a computer shop that does upgrade packages.

you may want to post the specs for your game up here if you have them (it should be on the box for the game, or somewhere accessible), so we get a rough idea of what your computer needs to be.

 

[Rodgers]

I'm giving up on this idea - just gonna borrow my dads for gaming on

I'll keep the current one for now though as it does everything else just fine - shame I spent £50 on a new grphics card for it, but then it cant have done me any harm can it?

 

[Kyborgi]

haha I'm in the same pit you are, Rodgers. I only have 50MHz faster processor. I'm going to buy a laptop though so I can play civ at school too They aren't actually much more expensive than normal pcs if you count the monitor in.

 

[DreadCthulhu]

An 800mhz Duron should run Battlefield 1942 reasonably well - the minimum processor is 500mhz, with the reccomended being 800mhz or better. One of my friends has a 900mhz Duron in his computer, and BF1942 runs well enough, even with a Geforce 2 video card.

Just curious, what video card do you have? That is probably the most important thing for gaming.