Considering a computer upgrade..

[SylasGaunt]

Okay so a few years back I bought myself my first real gaming PC which I've enhanced a few times. Currently it's got:

Nvidia 9600GT 512MB graphics card
Core 2 Duo 2.13 gigahertz
2x 320 GB hard drives
4 gigs of RAM
500 watt power supply

Currently running on Windows XP since I bought this thing just before Vista came out and knew better than to jump on that bandwagon.

The processor is the only thing I haven't upgraded in this thing in some way. I've basically been putting it off because I know that when I do upgrade I'm probably going to have to get a new MOBO as well.

Thing is, I haven't been keeping up with Intel's newer processors so I have no idea if they're any good or worth the money so I decided to check and see if anyone else could give me a hand. Should I bother upgrading it at this point? Or maybe just plunk down and upgrade my graphics card again?

[Stark]

Every time someone brags about 'knowing' not to upgrade to Vista I laugh. XP is such a worthless piece of shit and Vista so superior you've just been wearing a hat made of shit for years.

Depending on what games you play, there may be no point upgrading your video card. There are good very cheap cards out there anyway.

[SylasGaunt]

Every time someone brags about 'knowing' not to upgrade to Vista I laugh. XP is such a worthless piece of shit and Vista so superior you've just been wearing a hat made of shit for years.

Depending on what games you play, there may be no point upgrading your video card. There are good very cheap cards out there anyway.

I know too many people who've had bad experiences going to the 'new' operating system. I was mainly thinking in the sense of 'wait until they've had a chance to fix it before upgrading'.

My current loadout runs Bad Company 2 on medium pretty easily, and really I haven't actually tried cranking it up to see how it would run since it looks fine and runs fine as is.

[Edward Yee]

Haven't gone back from Windows 7, personally. My hardware doesn't seem much different from yours on the three basics (Athlon X2 64-bit 2.1 GHz, 9500 GT w/ 512 MB VRAM, 4 GB RAM). I'd recommend Newegg if you're looking for any component upgrades, but as long as you can see whatever you need to see (i.e. stuff not outright disappearing once you're further away even with unbroken LOS) and your games consistently run smoothly, you should be fine.

[Dominus Atheos]

Every time someone brags about 'knowing' not to upgrade to Vista I laugh. XP is such a worthless piece of shit and Vista so superior you've just been wearing a hat made of shit for years.

Depending on what games you play, there may be no point upgrading your video card. There are good very cheap cards out there anyway.

I know too many people who've had bad experiences going to the 'new' operating system.

Nearly all of those people are idiots. Any problem or "bad experience" was almost certainly caused by their own stupidity. A clean install of Vista with well-written programs installed will work fine. If it crashes or otherwise doesn't work right it's because of a poorly written driver, poorly-written program, or someone mucking about with settings they shouldn't mucking about with.

XP on the other hand is 10 year-old shit so riddled with security holes I wouldn't use it for anything more important then... Actually I can't think of anything I'd use it for.

[Stark]

Since I don't really keep up with PC gaming these days, are there games that push high-end video cards these days? My shitty 8800 still goes fine even on modern games, even if I have to tweak it a bit, and 240s seem to be totally fine.

[General Zod]

Since I don't really keep up with PC gaming these days, are there games that push high-end video cards these days? My shitty 8800 still goes fine even on modern games, even if I have to tweak it a bit, and 240s seem to be totally fine.

I have a two year old laptop with a 1gb Nvidia 9800m discrete graphics chip, and it's been able to run virtually every game I've thrown on it from Arkham Asylum to Crysis at somewhat reduced settings. I'd be hard pressed to name any popular title that can push a "high-end" desktop card these days without turning on all the useless crap that nobody cares about.

[Isil`Zha]

Yeah, the only thing you'd really need to upgrade is your video card. The i7 is definitely nice, but the minor benefits to gaming would most likely not be worth it to you.

On XP and Vista: I'm mostly in agreement with Stark and Atheos here. Most of the problems with Vista didn't come from Vista itself. And like I've always pointed out, XP had far more compatibility issues than Vista did at launch (mostly due to XP eliminating Dos.) Vista's kind of irrelevant now, Windows 7 is much better, and this is coming from someone that liked Vista - heck, Vista never crashed on me - never.

Now, among other things, XP is full of security holes - it is, quite simply, very outdated, made at a time when security wasn't nearly the issue it is today. Second, many technologies that exist today didn't exist when XP came out, and had to be "duct taped" onto XP (like SATA support.) Finally, 64-bit XP sucks. Again, this was at a time when the common user having 2+ GB of RAM was unthinkable, nevermind breaking that 3-4 GB memory barrier; so like the other things, 64-bit XP was somewhat of an afterthought.

Now, I won't go so far as to say XP is worthless - it's a lot more functional than previous versions of Windows, such as 98, 95, or *shudder*, ME. And it's a bit more secure than Win2k. Support for XP is being phased out, and soon there will be no more security updates, leaving XP users as big, bright, vulnerable, targets.

[Starglider]

Nearly all of those people are idiots. Any problem or "bad experience" was almost certainly caused by their own stupidity.

Not necessarily. A lot of Vista drivers were buggy in the first 6 months or so, longer for the 64-bit versions. The problems are long gone now, but back when Vista first launched a lot of hardware didn't like it.

[Commander 598]

That was because hardware manufacturers didn't actually bother to start writing drivers for it until about a month before release or something like that.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Regarding processors, IIRC AMD has the better performance/price ratio currently with processors. It looks like any upgrade to the processor is going to need a new mobo, as none of the current ones from Intel use the LGA-775/Socket T, unless you got one of the faster Core 2 Duos which apparently are ceasing manufacture this year. The i7 chipsets while nice are ludicrously expensive, particularly since Intel axed the i7 920 prior to launching the i5 line. Also, I can tell you the socket the i7 chips used won't be used by future chipsets (at least the non 800 series i7 as I'm unaware of Intels plans for LGA-1156/Socket H) , thus definitely necessitating a new mobo next upgrade. Presumably, AMD's socket AM3 will be around abit longer seeing as it was just released with the Phenom II line of processors and they seem to change sockets less frequently than Intel. I know thats why I went with AMD last year when I upgraded, despite the i7s generally having better performance than the Phenom IIs. I figured I might as well take the gamble, as any chance I can use the mobo for the next upgrade is better than zero.

Hope this helps.

[Alyeska]

The majority of publicized Vista woes come almost entirely from bundled software from the manufacturer, or the manufacturer deliberately putting Vista on computers that were marginal to the specs. There were additional issues of people figuring out a new operating system. Windows 7 rolls around. Microsoft lays down the law on the manufacturers telling them to cut the crap and stop overloading PCs with bundled shit.

[Stark]

Yeah, a lot of consumer hardware took 6+ months to get decent bundled software support. All gone now, of course; there were Win7 versions before Win7 even came out.

[Isil`Zha]

A year later later and my Win7 still hasn't crashed and starts up lightning fast, much faster than any other GUI based OS. Basically, the desktop appears, I wait literally 3-4 seconds, and it's 100% idle.

[Stark]

Are there really no games that tax modern video cards? Why do people buy 5850s then?

[Alyeska]

There are certainly games that can tax video cards. You just gotta crank the settings up and let things rip with as much action on the screen at once.

[Starglider]

Are there really no games that tax modern video cards? Why do people buy 5850s then?

Eyefinity?

[Stark]

Nose hair slider to maximum? Grass density 100%?

[Commander 598]

I hear 16x AA + FUCKHUGExJESUSCHRIST resolution + max dynamic shadows + 2 gigs of poorly implemented textures that wouldn't be 2 gigs if it wasn't poorly implemented are what you might consider "taxing".

My 8600 GTS still does a decent job for most games.

[Uraniun235]

The people dropping huge coin on video cards these days have probably already dropped a bunch of money on a 27" or 30" monitor to go with it - that would definitely tax modern video cards to run modern games at native resolution in high detail mode.


If I remember right going from the 8800GT to the GTX260 gave me a noticeable performance bump in games like WIC and Supreme Commander, and I just run at 1680x1050. But I think it's been somewhat of a plateau since then.

[Stark]

Yeah, my 8800 is fine but I use 1680. I'd never be able to push enough for a big monitor... but that just saves me a thousand bucks.

[JointStrikeFighter]

and my 8600 is fine at 1280*1024

[Commander 598]

and my 8600 is fine at 1280*1024

The 256mb really hurts in some games though...