Best upgrade..

[Tyreal]

Considering the rig in my signature... what would you upgrade too?

8800 GTS 320mb?
or another 1gb of DDR ram. If neither... make a suggestion.

I mainly want to play Supreme Commander at higher settings.

thanks

[simple_inhibition]

more ram before it gets even harder to find and prices go up. then get a 8600 Ultra when its released (64 pixel processors 512mb gddr3 ram, 256bit memory interface, price of slightly more than $200 usd)

[Capper]

You're in a tough spot, as both could use an upgrade.......but right now neither on its own is going to make a huge difference over what you already have (unless you are a benchmarking whore).

[Tyreal]

Thing is... FPS Justin just upgraded to 2 gb and he said it doesn't help him at all. He tried to increase some of the settings but it just lagged.
I had a hard time believing it so I'll have to see it for myself sometime.

Nah I don't care much for benchmarks. Sure it's nice to look at graphs but...

[Quakindude]

If I had to choose between the two, I'd go with the newer video card at this point. The 8800 series may not turn out significantly higher frame rates at a given resolution than some of the high end 7800/7900 cards, however, they do turn out higher frame rates, by a notable margin, with higher detail settings and resolutions.:hmmmm:

[Capper]

well, on an "older" AMD system, going from using 2 sticks to 4 means single channel, which in that system IS going to make a difference.
First of all, with 1GB and that processor, you will probably be bottlenecking that video card, and with 2GB of memory, you probably won't notice a whole lot of difference. I'd honestly wait, save up some cash and start migrating to a Core 2 Duo system

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by Capper

I'd honestly wait, save up some cash and start migrating to a Core 2 Duo system

Me too! Especially with the E6300's going down in price and the C2D motherboard selection that's out there now.

[Capper]

yeah, TY....you might want to throw your system up on the For Sale Forum and see if anyone is interested, then upgrade everything

[Dr. V]

thats the best idea. in the direction intel is going, its gonna murder AMD (so far)...LGA775 is gonna be prominent for a long time to come. Core 2 Duo now is top of the game (of course other than Core 2 Quad) and once Core 2 Quad starts becoming mainstream, u have all the support for it u dont need to upgrade ur whole system.

thing is with just minor upgrades to this system, ur holding back more and more. its not like ur upgrading to 8GB RAM, Core 2 Quad, and most expensive DX10 - u always wanna stay a step behind anyway. ur too far behind at this point and if you can upgrade to a C2D system now, its the perfect time.

in terms of the video card, waiting for the 8600 Ultra is an awesome idea!!! but i say hold on to that 7800GT for as long as u can and migrate it to your new C2D system, its a great performer still and wont disappoint you until you NEED to make a switch (probably around may-june is my guess). along with that upgrade, u can grab a C2Q for cheap around 550 USD (compared to current 800+).

i used to never look at intel, complete AMD fanboy. thing is "fanboyism" is kind of wierd since, at the end of the day, its best performance that wins no matter what you like.

Intel > AMD

thats the jist of it. until AMD > Intel again (which at one point it was) im sticking with Intel. thats why im waiting till the ATI cards come out. if ATI > nVidia, im getting an ATI (yes i favor nVidia too right now, but doesnt mean forever). if nVidia ends up beating ATI in the DX10 game, i will conform accordingly.

staying one step behind means ull have the capability of doing EVERYTHING that the insanely priced higher ends can do, but at a (95% of the time) unnoticeable slower rate. C2Q doesnt have any real enhancements yet. soon it will. its all a game. play it.

and good luck:D

[fps justin]

Originally Posted by ST!X

thats the best idea. in the direction intel is going, its gonna murder AMD (so far)...LGA775 is gonna be prominent for a long time to come. Core 2 Duo now is top of the game (of course other than Core 2 Quad) and once Core 2 Quad starts becoming mainstream, u have all the support for it u dont need to upgrade ur whole system.

in terms of the video card, waiting for the 8600 Ultra is an awesome idea!!! but i say hold on to that 7800GT for as long as u can and migrate it to your new C2D system, its a great performer still and wont disappoint you until you NEED to make a switch (probably around may-june is my guess). along with that upgrade, u can grab a C2Q for cheap around 550 USD (compared to current 800+).

I think if you wait till august, might as well buy a kuma or a penryn cpu. That way, penryn is faster and has DDR3 while the AMD side would just have a differnt archetecture in general. Intel may be greater than AMD right now, but i don't think Intel will have them for very long.