upgrade vs new build

[Ojannen]

My current system is an opteron 144 at 2.4 ghz, 2 gigs of ram and a geforce 6600gt. My monitor setup includes a 21" trinitron running at 1024x768x120 and a 20" widescreen lcd at 1680x1050.

I recently got the lcd and my framerates with the dual screens are too low for multiplayer games. I am looking to game at 1024x768 with all video options turned down as low as they will go (no aa, af, or hdr). Specifically, I am looking for 100 frame per second constant with no drops.

I will be buying the parts from the us. I prefer nvidia to ati due to minimizing issues in the source engine. If those have been fixed, I have no preference. I don't have an intel/amd preference but I believe intel is the better buy right now. I plan on overclocking the cpu but not the graphics card.

I am looking at a budget of about $500 if I upgrade or $750 if I buy mostly new parts.

If I upgrade my computer, I am looking at spending about 250 on a new processor and 275 on a new graphics card. Most likely, these will be an opteron 185 and nvidia 8800gts 320. I prefer nvidia, but I am willing to look at ati. The total cost would be roughly $500.

If I build a new computer, I spend the same amount for graphics, a little less on the processor but I also have to spend 120 on ram and 100 on a motherboard. I can take hard drives, optical drive, and power supply from the old computer. The total cost would be roughly $700.

Will the upgrade give the performance I am looking for? Is the second build worth $200 more?

 

[Deleted member 4644]

It depends what sort of games you want to play. Right now you are not *quite* cpu limited, but you are definitely GFX limited. A new GFX card now and maybe wait for a new system in a year is a good idea?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

If gaming is your main concern the upgrade is the best option in my opinion, the additional $200 will get you very little added gaming performance. The only way the extra $200 would be worth it, is if you do heavy encoding or graphics rendering work.

If your going to overclock I would also not spend $275 on an opteron 185, I just finished upgrading my sons machine which was almost identical to yours and I went with the 8800gts 320mb + AMD X2 4200+ ($74 at newegg). The 4200+ easily overclocked to 2.64ghz and it flys in all games. The opty 185 will clock a little higher but the higher clock will give you almost no additional gaming performance.

 

[Ojannen]

Thanks for the replies. I play valve/source engine games almost exclusively. I know the source engine is fairly processor intensive due to physics and I am also interested in the episode 2 multicore support. If you ignore the slight clockspeed bump, is it worth going to dual core right now?

 

[Nurn]

Upgrade time. Build your new high powered budget system around a $280 320 MB 8800GTS video card and a $90 dual core Pentium E2160 that you can overclock up to a 6850 equivalent, plus a $100 2 x 1gig DDR800 memory kit. Salvage what you can from your existing rig (hard drives, optical drives, floppy drive).

 

[Ojannen]

Considering that I also have to buy a motherboard, is that system $200 better than what was previously mentioned (assuming 100 for memory, 100 for motherboard)? Will the overclocked e2160 beat my opteron 144 at 2.5 ghz in game performance (specifically looking at source engine games)? Can I get the overclock you are talking about with a $100 motherboard on stock cooling? I will be playing all games a 1024x768 resolution, no aa, no af, no hdr.

 

[Nurn]

Sorry, I should have taken a closer look at your existing rig. I was thinking that your existing mobo would not support PCIe video card, but of course it does. In fact, you could forget about getting a new processor, and put all your cash into an 8800GTX. That will make a huge difference, and when and if you decide to upgrade the rest of your system, that 8800GTX will still be strong contender, especially given that you could SLI it in a future build.

Yes, the E2160 will beat your Opty 144, and even my own overclocked Opty 165. It will even give a Dual Core 6850 and a quad 6600 a good run for the money after you oc it to 3.2 or 3.4. It is one of the simplest and best overclockers out there.