Worthwhile upgrade?

[Logan8252]

Is it worth it to go from:
ABIT IC7
P4 3.2E
128MB BFG 6800 OC

to

Asus A8N-E
Athlon 64 X2 3800+
256MB eVGA 7900 GT CO

for ~$730?

I mostly do heavy Photoshop work and I want to get back into gaming again. My monitor is a 2405FPW so I'd like to play at 1920x1200. TIA.

 

[George Powell]

For photoshop its a worthwhile upgrade. As for gaming the 7900gt will do very nicely.

 

[Praxis1452]

I would suggest the X1800XT imo for the 7900gt otherwise it looks fine to me heh. Not sure about it being worth it. The dual core will make multitasking easiert though.

 

[lend82]

the 7900 gt gets higher frames than the x1800xt, but not by much. Depends on which 7800 gt variant you get. I got the XFX 7900 gt Extreme edition, which is clocked 550/1630, which is much higher than the original nvidia clock

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: lend82
the 7900 gt gets higher frames than the x1800xt, but not by much.

As with many NVidia/ATi head-to-heads: it depends (on the game, resolution, AA/AF detail). I'd recommended the X1800XT: at OP's desired resolution, a card with 512MB should have the edge over a 256MB card.

 

[UptheMiddle]

Might want to consider first getting a game and see how your current rig does. IMHO, your current system is pretty decent and would certainly allow you to play all of the games out there (perhaps not at MAX eye candy, but still good quality). All depends on your comfort level with spending over $700 just to play games with higher detail.

 

[Luckyboy1]

The short answer is no, in my opinion at least. At best, we are talking about a 20% upgrade here and for me, that much just isn't compelling enough to jump technologies for, especially when the technology you are proposing will be outdated this fall.

 

[foodfightr]

Originally posted by: Luckyboy1
The short answer is no, in my opinion at least. At best, we are talking about a 20% upgrade here and for me, that much just isn't compelling enough to jump technologies for, especially when the technology you are proposing will be outdated this fall.

I would wait until AM2.... socket 939 has been finalized with the FX-60, so now we move to DDR2.

 

[EagleEye]

Originally posted by: Luckyboy1
The short answer is no, in my opinion at least. At best, we are talking about a 20% upgrade here and for me, that much just isn't compelling enough to jump technologies for, especially when the technology you are proposing will be outdated this fall.

I would tend to agree, although you would gain more than 20% in PS.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Luckyboy1
The short answer is no, in my opinion at least. At best, we are talking about a 20% upgrade here and for me, that much just isn't compelling enough to jump technologies for, especially when the technology you are proposing will be outdated this fall.

His processor will give 20% improvement in games and 100% improvement in multitasking. The graphics card will be about 3-4x as fast though. If you can sell some of your components for $200 - $300, upgrading to a new system will be worthwhile.

 

[JSFLY]

Its worth it only if your not satisfied with your current setup.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

thats not much of an upgrade, p4 3.2 is very powerful and the 6800 should be fine for many if not all games. i suggest you wait for the next generation cards to come out.. dont blow your money on something thats like 10% increase from what you have currently

 

[LW07]

Couldn't a Single Core 3200+ run photoshop well? If so, then I'd suggest getting it and a X1900XT. But if a 3200+ can't run photoshop real well, then get the X2 3800+ and get this X1800XT instead of a 7900GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102698

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
thats not much of an upgrade, p4 3.2 is very powerful and the 6800 should be fine for many if not all games. i suggest you wait for the next generation cards to come out.. dont blow your money on something thats like 10% increase from what you have currently

If it was 6800GT or Ultra, I'd agree with you. But his 6800 is a vanilla version that probably has 12 pipelines (unless he unlocked it) 350/700 clocks and only 128mb of ram. 7900GT will come 450mhz 24 pipes and 1320 ram at minimum and 256mb. It'll be a lot faster in games and it'll overclock even better. For games it'll be a huge gain since 7900GT stock is as fast as 2x 6800GTs. A 6800GT is about as fast as 2 6800nu. 7900GT OC to 7800GTX 512mb speeds will be close to the speed of 1.5 7800GTs. The cpu upgrade alone will get better than 10% minimum framerates.

OP, if you are strongly considering upgrading, I think it's better to get Conroe in July or AM2 in June so you have a longer upgrade path. If you dont mind spending $150 on DDR2 2 gigs of ram extra. If you feel like the games you play are slow today, then upgrade now and don't wait.

 

[NaOH]

Games will run a lot smoother on higher IQ settings. If you are not happy with the performance of your games now. You will be a happy camper and won't have to worry about stuttering in almost all of the games out today. Of course you will need a good amount of system memory to go a long with your new system.

 

[pelikan]

Since you have a 24" LCD and want to play games at it's native resolution, I would get the x1900xt. Save some $ on the cpu by buying a single core, like the 3200+ recommened above.