Buying pcie gfx, stay on s754 or go for budget s939 cpu?

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mange_

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Jan 1, 2001
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I'm thinking of getting a 7900GT soon which means I'm gonna have to get a pcie mobo, if I stay with my current s754 cpu I'm saving some money, but will it bottleneck the gfx too much? If I went with s939 I couldn't afford a megahypercpu so it might not be that big of a upgrade.. Advice anyone? :)

My specs right now are as follows:
s754 A64 2800+ @ 2,03GHz
6800LE 128MB, 360core/875mem, 12,6 pipes.
2x512MB pc3200
 
If you cant get anything better than a 3200+ in 939 I dont think it would be worth it to upgrade to it unless you can get a really good overclock out of it.
 
A retail 3200+ Venice on newegg is a bit over $150 and comes stock at 2.00GHz. Granted you could overclock it well, you'd have to fork out for a good 939 motherboard to really let the Venice shine. Your cpu is already running at around 2.00GHz, so I would say that you could squeak by with that video card.

A lot of the latest tests show that CPU's don't play as much of a role in gaming as a lot of people like to believe. If you wanna save the cash, just get a good 754 PCI-express board and call it a day. If you want marginal performance increases, you can spend three times as much for a new 939 processor and motherboard.
 
stick with the s754. i was in the same boat as you a while back, a s754 3200 newcastle, a msi mobo, and a 6800gt. i picked up a biostar tforce and a x800 gto2 and now my sytem flies in most games i play (minus oblivion haha). granted i've gotten lucky and got great overclocks from my components, i'd have to say for the amount i've spent on my setup, its doing rather well.
 
I bought a refurbished T-Force for s754 the other day for $40 or so. Spending $40 for a PCIe motherboard and then getting a PCIe video card was actually cheaper than getting the AGP version of the same video card I was looking to get :).
 
I think you are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. The 2800+ at only 2.03 is a bit light on the cpu side, but if, as you said, you are going to switch to a hotter PCI-e video card you are going to need a new mobo. If you could get more oc out of your cpu it would certainly help. If you wanted more cpu power I'd recommend the s754 3000+ Venice at $116.00 from Newegg along with your new mobo and video card. As you can see from my sig, the little beast oc's very well. Get a DFI or Biostar Tforce6100 mobo with PCI-e and you will do well.
However, if you are going to consider doing this you might as well consider s939 with a 3000+ or 3200+ Venice. You'll be able to upgrade later to dual core and get good performance right now. Like I said, you seem to be in a "no-man's land" situation ATM. No matter what you do its going to cost you to upgrade to the kind of performance it sounds like you want.
 
In the past it made sense to upgrade your cpu as you went along. Of course back then they were all intel and they had a steady roadmap.

But nowadays, cpus drop in price so fast that you should build the best system with the money you have and possibly upgrade the video card once to keep up. In this case, if you had chosen a pci-e motherboard you'd be set.

If you're tight on money like me, then I would buy the best overclockable 754 motherboard with a pci-e slot and get your graphics card. Then sell your old motherboard for whatever you can get. Maybe $40? I personally have a abit nv8

I noticed that putting more RAM in does wonders to how well a system can run. So if you can, put another gig in there and I think your system will be good for a while. Believe it or not, I got this super cheap ram to run at 250, 3-3-8-2T wintec 1gb ram
 
amdbldr said:
In the past it made sense to upgrade your cpu as you went along. Of course back then they were all intel and they had a steady roadmap.

But nowadays, cpus drop in price so fast that you should build the best system with the money you have and possibly upgrade the video card once to keep up. In this case, if you had chosen a pci-e motherboard you'd be set.

If you're tight on money like me, then I would buy the best overclockable 754 motherboard with a pci-e slot and get your graphics card. Then sell your old motherboard for whatever you can get. Maybe $40? I personally have a abit nv8

I noticed that putting more RAM in does wonders to how well a system can run. So if you can, put another gig in there and I think your system will be good for a while. Believe it or not, I got this super cheap ram to run at 250, 3-3-8-2T wintec 1gb ram
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Hey amdbldr
How do you like your NV8? I have one myself and have noticed some quirks with it. Can I email you and chat it over with you? Maybe you have expereinced some of the things I have noticed and figured out what to do to solve these issues.
Thanks
 
sure, my email is ...

pm sent

I think the nv8 is an excellent inexpensive board for overclocking. I'm eager to compare notes though.

amdbldr
 
Thanks for the input guys! I'm gonna go with a s754 pcie mobo, preferably with 4 ddr slots to be cheaply upgradable. Now if just the tax return could arrive! ;)
 
mange_ said:
Thanks for the input guys! I'm gonna go with a s754 pcie mobo, preferably with 4 ddr slots to be cheaply upgradable. Now if just the tax return could arrive! ;)
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that s754 only comes with up to 3 DIMM slots (and you can only really use two of them anyway if using double sided memory).
 
It ended with a refurbished Abit mobo and a x1900gt card, didn't uppgrade the cpu or ram or anything and still Fear runs very, very nice at 1024x768 with everything except soft shadows on max. I'm very happy :)
 
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