[Riquelme]

Hey all,

I got this really old HP Pavilion a400n:

http://h10025.www1.h...=reg_R1002_USEN

-Intel Celeron 2.7 GHz
-256 MB RAM
-80 GB hard drive
-Integrated graphics with up to 64 MB shared memory for video

I plan of getting 2 x 512 sticks of corsair RAM and a new video card. Someone told me about eVGA geforce 6600GT but I read mix reviews. Some people say this card is very good and some says it heats up and burns. I would like to know if this is a good card and how to keep it from burning, or if I should get a different card. I also read something about the card needing another power supply or something...

Please keep in mind that im going for the lowest possible price, and this is all so I can play Counter-Strike 1.6, a very old game , oh and I'm really new to this compuer stuff so be nice!! . If you have any other tips or comments be free to tell me!

thx in advance

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Cs source or 1.6? At any rate, the only things you should need are a nice 256 ram vid card (check out BFG technologies), and more ram, which you already have planned.
Im running a BFG geforce 6200 over clocked, (comp specs below), Im able to run Battlefield 2 on the High video setting with a pretty good frame rate. I also run HL2 on the high setting resolution 1024x768 @120.
Also another improvement you can make is getting a faster, better hard drive. The one you have is probably 2mb cache, when I switched to this seagate (16mb cache) I immediatly noticed how much faster the comp. was at loading games, applications, etc.
Hope that helps,
-Pete.

[p-zero]

Cs source or 1.6? At any rate, the only things you should need are a nice 256 ram vid card (check out BFG technologies), and more ram, which you already have planned.
Im running a BFG geforce 6200 over clocked, (comp specs below), Im able to run Battlefield 2 on the High video setting with a pretty good frame rate. I also run HL2 on the high setting resolution 1024x768 @120.
Also another improvement you can make is getting a faster, better hard drive. The one you have is probably 2mb cache, when I switched to this seagate (16mb cache) I immediatly noticed how much faster the comp. was at loading games, applications, etc.
Hope that helps,
-Pete.

[jrm20]

Hey all,

I got this really old HP Pavilion a400n:

http://h10025.www1.h...=reg_R1002_USEN

-Intel Celeron 2.7 GHz
-256 MB RAM
-80 GB hard drive
-Integrated graphics with up to 64 MB shared memory for video

I plan of getting 2 x 512 sticks of corsair RAM and a new video card. Someone told me about eVGA geforce 6600GT but I read mix reviews. Some people say this card is very good and some says it heats up and burns. I would like to know if this is a good card and how to keep it from burning, or if I should get a different card. I also read something about the card needing another power supply or something...

Please keep in mind that im going for the lowest possible price, and this is all so I can play Counter-Strike 1.6, a very old game , oh and I'm really new to this compuer stuff so be nice!! . If you have any other tips or comments be free to tell me!

thx in advance

I wouldnt get a 6600gt because of the price to performance ratio. I definately would not get anything slower than it either. Look into the 6800gs by nvidia. Good manufacturers are evga, xfx bfg and pny. Goto www.newegg.com if you live in the usa or www.monarchcomputer.com or www.zipzoomfly.com
Try newegg first because they are running specials right now on the 6800gs by evga. You can get one around $170 after rebates or less if its for a pci express slot. They normally run anywhere from $180-$220. You can find one under $185 no problem for pci express slot. They are the best price to performance ratio as they are twice as fast as the 6600gt and they only run 1-2% slower than the 6800gt would. Get a 6800gs trust me.... I know all about hardware.

You need to find out which graphics slot you have. Its either going to be a agp or pci express. It will more than likely be an agp slot. The 6800gs now makes versions for the agp slot. They might be a few dollars more. The agp version of the 6800gs runs $209-$219. So find out what you have.

Edited by jrm20, 16 February 2006 - 10:04 PM.

[Hammm]

yeah, i think the CS is into ATI though so i'd get the X800GTO which is really nice, the X800GTO is defiantly no slouch at the hard work.

[comanighttrain]

Hmmm....For CS u want ATi simply because it is a general rule that ATI pwn Source and Nvidia kicks Battlefield 2.

[warriorscot]

All of that totally depends on which cards you compare and using which drivers. No good to start oh this card is good with these games and this is good with that its all useless natter.

If you only want to play 1.6 then even a PCI 5200 would work well as 1.6 is not a demanding game. Also high settings on a 6200 on BF2 is rubbish its not possible.

[Hammm]

CS works with a Radeon 9550 but on high settings, it's at 25FPS, exactly borderline. So when the action hots up i miss a few shots lol. but the Radeon has been with me over 3 years now and it still takes the grunt. Not FEAR our COD2 but a few recent games. I really think anything above 6800GS or X800GTO right now is just for show unless you have FEAR and COD2 with a 21in LCD. And if you do, congrats, you are a rich geek. I wonder if Bill Gates gets the latest tech everytime it comes out, so he could have had a week ago an Intel Extreme Edition Dual core with 512Mb 7800GTX but now he'll change to a FX-60 with two X1900XTX crossfire? I would if i were that rich, hehe.

[mrdrphil007]

All of that totally depends on which cards you compare and using which drivers. No good to start oh this card is good with these games and this is good with that its all useless natter.

If you only want to play 1.6 then even a PCI 5200 would work well as 1.6 is not a demanding game. Also high settings on a 6200 on BF2 is rubbish its not possible.

Yeah really. I can barely play BF2 on high with a 6800 GT.

[warriorscot]

Yeah games arent dumb, they are made by very very clever software engineers, if you set the settings too high alot of games automatically reset them to more appropriate levels or turn it to DX7 mode which makes alot of people think they play at high settings when they dont actually.

Hammm are you sure you are talking about 1.6 and not source 1.6 should run a bit better than that its very old.

[comanighttrain]

[bleep] those sneaky software developers.

[Hammm]

sorry i was talking about source. CS 1.6 old one runs like silk on my machine and with my CPU problem still not fixed i still have no lag with 14 bots. I think game developers delibrately make the recommended system higher and higher so we upgrade more and more often. It seems that way because i have Brothers In Arms and i have just over the minium specs but it runs smoothly. i seriously doubt the CPU will do much at the higher res, it's all about the gfx card and yet they're asking for more and more Ghz to play? Do you think game developers are in agreement with Intel, AMD, Mircosoft and all those to make the minimum specs high enough every new generation of games to force and upgrade?

[warriorscot]

Ahh but if you started a large server it would need more power, the minimum is usually in fact to low to get more people o play, it brothers in arms is interesting as its ot actually a wholly new game, it uses the UT2004 game engine which inst phenomenally demanding, the reccomended is often a bit o low on some games as its often what the minimum should be as there si a difference in starting a game and playing a game with half decent settings to really enjoy a game it has to play well otherwise the experience isnt as good.

[Hammm]

ya, BIA was really good, i had the settings set on high mostly. really well worth playing and i guess UT2004 would run ok on mine. mine's no super PC but it does it's job well enough to earn my respect

[warriorscot]

UT2004 is getting on now, it runs on even quite slow systems, my grandparents pc can play it and it uses a dreaded s3 pro savage.

[comanighttrain]

lmao @ the S3.