Do I need to upgrade?

[etalns]

Hi, I currently have a Dell Dimension XPS T550, a 933 mhz pentium 3, with 128 megs of ram and a geforce 2. I really dont have any problems performance wise, but on that end I haven't seen a 2.2 ghz northwood play counter-strike.

I was wondering if it'd be worth my while to spend a few thousand dollars anmd hit a 2.2 ghz northwood? Or would it be wiser to wait, if to wait, what should I be waiting for and whats the approximate wait time on it

Thanks a ton for help in advance.

 

[BFG10K]

I really dont have any problems performance wise,

Then don't upgrade unless you're on a regular upgrade schedule.

 

[murphy55d]

If all you play is Counter Strike, then christ no, save your money.

Isn't that usually the time when you upgrade...when you CAN'T play those games you love anymore?

 

[MisterDuck]

If you're not having any performance problems, why upgrade?

personally, that system should be able to fly through counter-strike, and you probably wouldn't see any wonderful benefits of going with a new northwood.

With another 128 megs of ram and maybe a Geforce 3 ti 200, that computer would probably game just fine at any resolution. That would probably only cost you 200 bucks, and would greatly extend the life of your computer....




I would WAIT until you can no longer do the things you enjoy doing with you computer. There's no reason to upgrade to something you don't need. I upgraded recently from a p2-400 because I could no longer game with it and it was just too slow for me to effectively use the programs I wanted to use. On the other hand, my brother has an Athlon 1ghz system (roughly equivalent to a p3-933 - maybe a tad bit faster) that feels plenty fast to me. Wait until a game comes out that you can't play at a good resolution and framerate, or wait until your computer feels too slow.

All I know is I wouldn't upgrade if I didn't need to...Good luck.

 

[etalns]

Well, I also want to play new games like global operations, and some of the new MMORPG"s that are coming out, butg I'd also like to have incredible graphics and blazing speed while I do it

 

[murphy55d]

Yeah, I was in the same boat... I went from a P2 350 Compaq/Voodoo Banshee/GF2MX , to my 1.4 Athlon rig with a GF3 Ti200 overclocked.

I won't have to upgrade my processor/board/vid card for quite some time.

 

[etalns]

Alright, thanks alot for your help all =)

 

[MisterDuck]

If that's what you want, then I would drop some money on that RAM and a new video card...and wait until you can't game with it effectivly anymore - then buy the northy (or whatever is out at the time)

 

[etalns]

alright, thanks alot for all your help.

 

[John]

All you need is a nice 7200 rpm HDD, GF4 TI4400 & 256MB addt'l ram for now.

 

[etalns]

woul dthat possibly give me a noticable difference graphics wise in games?

 

[MrDudeMan]

yes, you need to buy my computer and all of the parts...for a small price of 1,000,000


you can even throw in a few extra dollars for shipping..i think its fair

 

[Mavrick007]

Like everyone is saying, processor wise you're not doing too bad. I would get more ram, upgrade your video to a GF3 Ti200 minimum and then you will be fine for a long while. It's a small price to pay to stay up to date. You might want to buy a larger monitor as well, that's always a nice upgrade(unless you already have at least a 19").

 

[RanDum72]

Thats still plenty powerful for almost all games out there. The only upgrade that will be worthwhile right now is a memory upgrade (add another 128mb). Later on, you can upgrade the video card to, maybe, a GF3 Ti200 or a Radeon 8500.

 

[IgoByte]

No, you don't have to upgrade at all.

The only thing I would do is get another 256MB of RAM, and make sure I'm running a nice OS, like Win2K or XP Pro. PIII-based systems are still doing the job very very sweetly.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

ram for sure...maybe a GF3 ti 200 seeing as how they can be got on a hotdeal for about $150 or less...but the GF2 is fine