[SecretMaster]

Well if any of you recall, I recently got a new comp back in September (totally kickass and enjoying every second of it). However, I'm now looking at this faithful old machine which has lasted us nearly four years. I can still run games with relative decency (Oblivion at medium settings), but I want to see if I can give it that extra punch and let this baby run a little bit longer.

Currently, it's specs are:
Athlon XP 2600+
Asus NForce2 A7N8X Deluxe
1 GB CAS-2 Corsair CMX
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro

Really the only thing I can think of is updating my video card. But to what is the question? I was thinking the 9800 or the X1600.

Any suggestions? And how much longer, without updating, do you think I can use this computer for gaming (with medium settings). I'd say a year left, but who knows with the way technology developes.

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There's not a lot of difference between the 9800 and what you have now. The X1600 wouldn't fit as its a PCI-Express card and your board is only AGP. Therefore to put an X1600 in you'd have to change the lot.

In all honesty its just the age of the technology you're using that's holding you back. Things have moved on a lot in four years. Its a decent enough system, but at the same time it isn't really worth spending a lot on it when the performance increase you'll get is not very noticeable compared to spending slightly more later on for modern technology when you really will notice the difference.

[Neil Jones]

There's not a lot of difference between the 9800 and what you have now. The X1600 wouldn't fit as its a PCI-Express card and your board is only AGP. Therefore to put an X1600 in you'd have to change the lot.

In all honesty its just the age of the technology you're using that's holding you back. Things have moved on a lot in four years. Its a decent enough system, but at the same time it isn't really worth spending a lot on it when the performance increase you'll get is not very noticeable compared to spending slightly more later on for modern technology when you really will notice the difference.

[SecretMaster]

I could have sworn there was an X1600 Agp version. Or an X1850 or something with an X. Or maybe I am delusional.

Edited by SecretMaster, 02 November 2006 - 09:23 PM.

[Neil Jones]

My bad, there is an X1600 in AGP.

But having said that, everything of what I said previously still stands - the card wouldn't add much to your experience because the rest of the system wouldn't be able to keep up.

[Kurenai]

Hmm...socket A, nForce 2, decent amount of RAM...7600 GS AGP card.

[SecretMaster]

Hmm...socket A, nForce 2, decent amount of RAM...7600 GS AGP card.

Now my only question is will my CPU be fast enough for that card? Or will I end up wasting the potential of that card due to my CPU?

[Dan1887]

thats basically what neil jones was saying the cpu bottleneck will reduce the experience of that card by almost 10 times. I have the x1300 pro pci-e card and I have a p4 515j the lowest of the low in p4 procs and I find that the bottleneck i run into is noticeable.

[Kurenai]

Oh, your CPU would bottleneck a 7600 pretty badly, and you wouldn't see near the full potential. The problem is, nvidia has stopped production on a lot of the older AGP cards that would work perfectly in that system. Anything AGP 5500 or higher would work fine (not sure on ATI equivalencies).