How long will this system last

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-12-14 11:35pm

I think I might've asked this before but anyway,

I have a 3 GHz P4 on a motherboard with a 512k FSB, with 1 gig of DDR333 RAM. The motherboard is a D845PEBT2. Power supply is 420 watts. I'm getting a BFGTech 7800GS OC AGP to replace my totally obsolete Gf Ti4800 SE.

I have the money to get that new card but not enough to get a whole new system.

How long can my system marginally keep up with games?

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-12-14 11:46pm

More RAM, but that's cheap as chips.

The key thing nowadays appears to be SM3 enabled cards as more and more games appear to be SM3 only.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-12-15 01:02am

What's SM3?

EDIT: Shader model 3? I'm sure the 7800 GS I'm planning to get would cover that.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-12-15 01:21am

You should be fine. You could upgrade the system and still keep the card for a while after, but I think it would be pretty pointless to upgrade a system while staying on an AGP platform. I have a very similar system with a 7600 GT AGP, which is about the same performance-wise as the 7800 GS, and I expect to be able to run new games at 1280 x 960 with medium settings and no AA or AF until roughly this time next year. Right now I can run them at medium-high settings with about 2 x AA and 4 x AF. By 'them' I'm mainly talking about Medieval 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-15 06:56am

I'll join in with a somewhat similar question:

I've got a Radeon 9800Pro, 128mb, 256-bit AGP version. How long will it last? I realize that its fairly obsolete by today's standarts, but I don't want to spend money on a new card before DX10's stabilise on the market. Will my card hold?

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-12-15 06:00pm

I just replaced my 9800 Pro, so my answer is that it will last 0 days, but it all depends on the lowest settings you'll accept. I upgrade when I can't play the latest games at 1280 x 960 at medium to low settings, but you might be happy at 1024 x 768 or even 800 x 600, in which case you can hold out 6-12 months longer than me. Other people can't stand anything less than max settings with 16 x CSAA and 16 x AF at 1920 x 1200 resolution. They're the ones that upgrade every 6 months to a new $600 card.