Upgrading Advice please

[aReda]

Hello I'm brand new to these forums so here it goes...

I have a Dell 8200 purchased in 2001 and I really want to upgrade it now that it really can't handle the games coming out.
It's stats are as follows:
GeForce2 MX 440 32MB
1.8GHz P4
640 RAMBUS memory

The types of games I play are FPS including UT200X and CS. My question is what should I upgrade this computer with?? I really have no idea as far as what it can handle. What I'm thinkin' is a GeForce FX 5700 256MB and a new P4 3.0GHz P4 800 512.

My main ordeal is that I don't know what my computer can handle. I am pretty sure that my AGP slot is a 4X, almost positive in fact. Will this be an issue? Will an 8X card work in a 4X slot? I need this upgrade to last me one more year, that's it.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!

Also please forgive my spelling errors, I am typin' this up rather quickly thank you.

~Red

[tony_j15]

First of all, welcome to TechIMO! Secondly, you may not have much luck upgrading that machine. The 1.8 P4 runs a 400mhz bus, so your mobo cant handle the 800 bus of the 3ghz P4. About the only thing you can safely swap is the vid card and ram. Yes, a 8x agp card is back-compat with 4x. no worries there. Dont get a 256mb vid card, its nothing but a marketing gimmick meant to suck money out of n00b's. Also consider the Radeon 9600 XT, its can be had for the same price and performs somewhat better. Either way you wont be dissatisfied. Still, just with upgrading the vid card (its really holding you back) the machine should last you into next year.

[John Prophet]

Also if you have XP you can do some configuring to max it out.

go to www.blackviper.com and check out his "XP service configurations"

basically he is explaining about the "services" that XP has running by default..services 99% of us dont need...like "alerter" "wireless zero config" "remote desktop help" blah blah....so basically you run "services.msc" and set the ones you dont need to "disable" or "manual".

He has a chart etc..I follow the "safe" config..except I leave the system restore on. (he turns it off but I dont)

JP

[aReda]

First of all thank you guys so much for your help!

So basically, I can upgrade my CPU (which isn't really worth it?) if I don't get a 800FSB one, is this correct? More info on this topic would be great, really : )

Also an 8X AGP card will work on a 4X AGP slot? Oh thank goodness. Is there really a noticable difference between the two? I've heard yes and no...

Also, I do have XP so that tweak reference of yours will help out a ton JP thanks.

~Red

[John Prophet]

The overwhelming opinion is that..no..8x wont make any noticeable difference.

A decent 4x video card though will have a big difference in video games..compared to your GF2. Just make sure you dont get soem sort of GF4MX..if its an "MX" then its really just a fancied up GF2...so avoid the "MX" line.

[aReda]

hehe cool JP, I'm just have to decide which one now....

Radeon 9600 XT or GeForce FX 5700 U!

Ahh decisions decisions...
Any opinions or advice between the two is very welcome indeed. The memory clock speed on the GeForce is 900 and only 600 on the Radeon, but otherwise Radeon beat's it in all other stats it looks like....please tell me why? memory sped doeasn't matter really? What are pipes? (8X1 vs 4X1?)
Also...is my processor OK? What's the best I'll probubly be able to get it at, any idea? Is it worth it?

Thanks again, you guys really are helping me out a lot!

~Red

[John Prophet]

Video cards are definitely not my specialty....I cant keep up with all the numbers they assign to them now.

Pipes are things the engineers smoke while they design the stuff....like "peace pipes" etc.....they have to get sorta high to understand the technology....

[cyclist110]

A p4 1.8 will handle pretty much anything out there so really your only big issue is your video card. If you have the money the Radeon 9800 is probably the way to go, it benchmarks higher than anything out there. The 9600 is a great card for the money. Also Saphire make a lot of reasonably priced Radeons. I'm a little biased as the last geforce I bought was an mx440 and wasn't worth the cardboard it came in.

C.