[Dragon306]

okay so this morning i made a nice find: intact and working socket a 2200+ 'Microtel' computer in the trash! running Xandros, strangely enough. it beats my current P3 1.0ghz so i wish to biuld it up as my "good" system. by "wannabe gamer" i mean that i wannabe able to play most modern games on it, even if i have to lower the settings to do so. the games Far Cry and NFS Underground 2 are pushing the limits of my current setup.

it had/has:
- ASROCK K7S41GX motherboard
- AMD Sempron 2200+ socket a CPU
- 128mb DDR333 PC2700 RAM (single stick)
- 18gb Seagate hard drive (soon to be pulled for 500mhz machine that needs HDD)
- integreated sound, network, and video
- 52x CD-ROM
- 300 watt power supply

plans so far:
- AMD Athlon XP 2800+ socket A CPU (possibly 3000+ or 3200+ depending on how much is cost)
- 2x 1gb DDR333 PC2700 RAM sticks
- 200gb 7200rpm IDE hard drive (maybe 16mb cache if cost isnt too much more then 8mb)
- 16x DVD+/-RW drive and 16x DVD-ROM drive
- 450 watt power supply

my big questions for you guys is:

a) does this thing have any potential or am i just throwing cash away??

b) what graphcis card should i use?? definitely not the biult in 64 shared. i was consider a Radeon 9700 or 9800 series 256mb card, or maybe a Nvidia geforce 6600 series 256mb. AGP 8x interface. what do you guys think??

motherboard specs, if interested:
http://www.asrock.co...UCT/K7S41GX.htm

i do not have more then a couple hundred dollars to work with maybe three or four and since i got the thing for free and currently i am running a P3 it is a good place to start plus anything will be an improvement over my game-tired P3 1.0ghz.

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ps. i buy everything off eBay, for lower prices 95% of the time.

and do 3200+ Socket A processors with a 333mhz FSB even exist?? because the highest 333mhz bus processor i could find was 3000+ on eBay and you can find almost anything on there. the board only supports up to 333mhz bus speed and lists highest processor for A-XP as 3200+ 333mhz FSB.

guess i go with 3000+ or maybe just 2800+ depending on cost

Edited by Dragon306, 23 July 2006 - 09:31 PM.

[Dragon306]

ps. i buy everything off eBay, for lower prices 95% of the time.

and do 3200+ Socket A processors with a 333mhz FSB even exist?? because the highest 333mhz bus processor i could find was 3000+ on eBay and you can find almost anything on there. the board only supports up to 333mhz bus speed and lists highest processor for A-XP as 3200+ 333mhz FSB.

guess i go with 3000+ or maybe just 2800+ depending on cost

Edited by Dragon306, 23 July 2006 - 09:31 PM.

[rumble291]

If you are looking for gaming I wouldnt bother with that stuff as it is getting on now with socket AM2 being introduced. This means you can get half price socket 939 CPUs as like i did i got a Socket 939 athlon 64 3800+ for £90. The last time I checked the Athlon XP 3200+ was about £100 on ebay so theres not much point as you can get double the speed and 64 bit ready CPU for the same price.

If your only wanting to run older games like counter strike 1.6, half life etc. Then a Geforce 6600 would be fine for the job but if you are looking to run newer games your gonna need to upgrade pretty much everything even my pc atm is only just good enough to run the latest games. Far Cry will be deffinatly pushing your system.

If i was you i would save up some cash and buy some of the latest stuff as you wont be updating with buying that stuff.

[Dragon306]

Far Cry runs okay on lowest gfx settings but the cut-scenes skip

hmm...

GeForce 6600GT 128mb or GeForce 6600 (plain) 256mb??

which yields better performance?? how about the plain 6600 versus ATI 9800XT 256mb??

[BlackPandemic]

This is not about the hardware but mainly where you are getting it from. Unless you've bought electronics from eBay before I would not recommend it at all. It's just too iffy for me and there are plenty of sites out there that offer the low prices you need but have a respectable backing so you know you aren't getting junk (and if you do get junk you can exchange/return it).

In terms of card, a Radeon 9600 will run Far Cry near the top. But for more modern games (FEAR, BF2, etc.) I would say you need at least a Radeon X800 (which is what I have) or the nVidia equivilant. FEAR looks pretty good, Oblivion has to be played on all medium, and BF2 I have nearly everything on high.

Also, I would change your power supply from 450 to either a 500 or 550 watt power supply.

[rumble291]

There is no point in upgrading to a X800 or higher because your CPU will hold it back so you wont be able to play FEAR or BF2 on high with a decent fps you need to have a CPU that doesnt hold back the gfx card. You could get a high wattage PSU but it wouldn't do much for your frame rate.

[warriorscot]

Its is pretty much a losing battle your never going to get that anywhere close to what you want, youll just be flogging a dead horse save your money and buy something better new when you can afford it.

Rumble 939 is cheap now but AM2 is actually cheaper in many cases or the price difference is negligible with the price drops and DDR2 ram is cheap and getting cheaper(the reason AMD switched to AM2) new AM2 systems are surprisingly cheap.

[rumble291]

But doesnt DDR2 RAM do nothing for Athlon 64s I read in a magazine and the AM2 FX-62 is traling behind the 939 FX-60. Yeah true when i was upgrading AM2 CPUs were quite a bit.

If you upgrade to a resonable standard your pc can most probably play the next games for a couple of years but if you only upgrade to a card that plays games at a low frame rate theres not much point of upgrading as your outdated already as long as your pc is cabable of playing the games you want to play at 30+ fps you should be fine.

[SuperSam]

I had an AMD Athlon 3200+ @ 2.4GHz (The 3200+ is 400FSB BTW) with a Radeon 9800XT with 1GB DDR400 RAM, 2 x 120GB HDDs and 1 x 300GB S-ATA. It ran ALL of the games, Far Cry, UT2004, Quake4, Counter-Strike:Source, Need For Speed: MW. I had all of these on it on some of the highest settings with no lag.

I think you'll find the 9800XT is an amazing card, I'm still using mine until the DX10 cards are released.

[stillbaddad]

I buy all my hardware and software from www.savastore.com
They usually have some good bargains on and they are an honest firm with fast and reliable delivery.