Upgrade Time (A.K.A. Help)

[duhwht]

Well as the title suggests its that time. These are my specs.(Pretty sad , but shes mine.)

2.6G,800FSB,Socket 478
1G,2X512,Non-ECC, pc3200
Hard Drive,120G Seagate Barracuda 7.2K
Hard drive,20G Quantum Fireball 4.5K
Intel 875p MoBo
128MB Geforce FX5200
SBlive value
DVD Drive,16X,LiteOn
Dvd Drive,DVD+R/RW, NEC
MS Intellimouse explorer 4.0
Some made in taiwan PSU
Some made in taiwan keyboard (I eat these things)

The main parts I want to change out are the GFX card , the psu And the mobo. The parts i want to go with are...

MGE XG Vortec 500 watt
ABIT IC7-G MAXII
BFG 6600GT

So to the point of it all , Does this sound liek a worthwhile thing to do , Or would i be better off going with a PCI-X board.
Maybe you may even see something i dont that would be better to swap out.
Opinions , ideas , suggestions , all is welcome.

[furious trout]

I've been mulling over the same thoughts myself, and I've pretty much decided to go for PCI-E as it's unlikley i'll be upgrading after this effort for a couple of years. As i see it if you're going to replace your mobo and GFX you may as well save yourself the trouble and to go to PCI-e you'll probably have to in a year or so anyway. (that's my theroy and i'm sticking to it :p )

[ỒĊBłůē]

Depends what you've got to spend.

A decent PSU is a must and your graphics card looks like the sensible thing to spend money on.

I'm gonna resist the jump to PCI-X for as long as I can. It's far too easy to convince yourself that you've gotta have the latest kit.

[duhwht]

I would love to go PCI-X. But i think then i would have to drop the cash for a new cpu as well. That would most definately put the vid card on hold and the main reason im even upgrading is to get the new card.

Is there really that much performance difference between the two?Other than the next big thing.

On to that psu , Ive seen it has some decent reviews , but do any of you guys have hands on with it?

As for that MoBo , Main reason i want to swap out is for the 6.1 integrated that the ABIT has. (I'm one of the lucky people that get the wonderful P16X errors that go roundabout from manufacturer to game company to drivers and so on.)
Or would i be better off just getting an audigy?

[Fibbles]

I would love to go PCI-X. But i think then i would have to drop the cash for a new cpu as well. That would most definately put the vid card on hold and the main reason im even upgrading is to get the new card.

Is there really that much performance difference between the two?Other than the next big thing.

On to that psu , Ive seen it has some decent reviews , but do any of you guys have hands on with it?

As for that MoBo , Main reason i want to swap out is for the 6.1 integrated that the ABIT has. (I'm one of the lucky people that get the wonderful P16X errors that go roundabout from manufacturer to game company to drivers and so on.)
Or would i be better off just getting an audigy?Creative Audigy 2's aren't that expensive, and an OEM one would be better than swapping the whole board.

Buy the PSU, the 6600GT and the SB Audigy 2 ZS or just a regualr Audigy 2 for way less, and just as good, if not better sound.

An Audigy 2 Value is $47 (OEM)
An Audigy 2 ZS is $69

Compared to the cost of a new mobo @ $100+...

Right now, there is no diffy between PCI-E and AGP. Later there will be, but if you can't afford buying a new CPU for a PCI-E board, stay with what you have. That's probably the biggest reason I don't have a PCI-E board, because my 6800GT is AGP, and I don't want to ditch it or have to re-buy it for the new format. Besides, with the jump form 5200 to 6600, you'll see a huge imcrease in performance, given that your setup is good enough.

[Starbuck3733T]

I don't trust creative worth a damn, they screwed me over too much with the Live series and not playing nice with my board (not implementing PCI wait state properly).

Buy the turtle beach equivalent.

And PCI-X is not PCI-E (PCI-Express).

[Fibbles]

I don't trust creative worth a damn, they screwed me over too much with the Live series and not playing nice with my board (not implementing PCI wait state properly).

Buy the turtle beach equivalent.

And PCI-X is not PCI-E (PCI-Express).
I've had Creatives all my life, even speakers, and they're nvever caused any problems. :huh:

[Starbuck3733T]

Never again, bro, never again. http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT042201222938

This is also why i'm so pissed off that nvidia canned soundstorm.

[duhwht]

Whoops , your exactly right and I even did it more than once.

I have always used a creative and this is the first one with any problems.And this is a problem with teh lives , certain games , and the hyper threading P4's

But out of curiosity has anyone heard anything about the new catalinas yet?

[fillip]

I've only ever had Creative equipment for my PC's incl. speakers and no probs either.
Though I must confess, when I can afford to upgrade i'm after the Logitech Z 5500's. Ooooh baby! http://wizdforums.co.uk/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

IMO and expeirience surround sound speakers for PCs tend to be a bit of a gimmick as the set up options are limited and the surround field not very convincing. It also bugged the hell out of me having all these speakers on stands around the computer but thats more to how i had my setup.

I find good pair of headphones will give you much better sense of direction when playing games and have the bennefit of being more musical to boot.

On the sound card issue i've only ever had sound blasters as i only really need sound for games. My Sound Blaster Live player card has been going strong for the last 5 years although i am always meaning to upgrade to an audigy.

[fivecheebs]

Im with star. Creative sucks...... well at least the drivers do. They arent what they used to be. Soundstorm is amazing IMO. I hope they put it back in the next gen nForce chipset.

Ive got 4.1 cambrige soundworks speakers and they look exactly like the creative ones of the same generation - nothing special but they sound OK. I hardly ever use them though because my sennhieser cordless headphones are soo goddamn good B) ... to be honest the ought to be for the money i paid!:huh:

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Yeah i had the same speakers you have cheebs and also replaced them with Sennheisers although mine aren't wireless.

[Vis]

I used Creative stuff for years and was happy with it until I tried a Turtle Beach card. Now they'll take my Santa Cruz when they pry my cold dead fingers off it. The Santa Cruz and a pair of Grado SR60s will make a believer of anyone.

[Fibbles]

Wow, I had the Creative Digital 4.1's and I LOVED them!!! I used them about every day until I blew one speaker and the sub, and by then the cost of fixing was more than buying new, and since new was no more :( After them, the Logitech Z560's came in, but they were so freakin loud everyone complained. I wasn't a fan of the power, since it was sort of pointless to have high powered speakers and only use them on really low volume levels, so I stuck them in the shed out back. Next, I picked up the Logitech z640's, which were the value 5.1's and they were fine, until I was at a friends house and used his Senns... Goodbye speakers!!! Its been my trusty pair of Sennheiser HD470's ever since. I do want to pick up the HD 555's, since they sound even better in games than these do.

I've tried the Zalman 5.1 phones, but I can't stand them. Until Sennheiser makes a paair, I won't bother.

I did have a non Creative sound card once, the Diamond Monster Sound 300 (maybe). It had the Aurreal A3D chip and was OK< but I had lotsa driver problems that went away with my SB Live 5.1 ^_^

[Vis]

Just my opinion of course but try out the Grado SR125 before you buy the Sennheisers. I cant say for sure that theyre better since I've never auditioned the 555 but the detail on the 125s is incredible for the price.

[zer0]

dosent a pcie card like the 6600gt use some extra chip to talk with agp or was that just for going from agp to pcie (as the pcx line of cards all had extra chips...)

also dosent this chip cause a proformance loss?

anyways sounds like a good setup to me...

btw i use an audigy 2 zs and besides the cost its a good card... however for windows it does seem to have bulky drivers...

i even have a creative mp3 player and love it (however it broke but its under woranty so they are replaceing it free of charge or hassel... (just had to send an email...))

[toby]

i love creative stuff! they make good kit! a shame their software is all rubbish and always has been! not too sure on my zalman headphones they sound good but im not to sure about the build quality, i have a standalone mic now so some grado sr60s may be in order in the future

[fillip]

dosent a pcie card like the 6600gt use some extra chip to talk with agp or was that just for going from agp to pcie (as the pcx line of cards all had extra chips...)

also dosent this chip cause a proformance loss?

The PCI-E cards have a bridge chip to the bottom right of the GPU heatsink that converts the signal created for a PCI-E slot back to one suitable for AGP.
It has a very slight impact on performance, nothing that you'd really notice but the manufacturers seem to have dropped the core speeds on the AGP versions of their cards and pushed the prices up slightly higher in an effort to force ppl onto PCI-E. The cards are fundamentally the same though.

[Marquee]

All though the chip does create that much difference other then evens more latency. The limited bandwidth of AGP slot it what makes them so different. If you have a choice all was go for PCI-E because you further control the speed of the PCI-E and voltage.

[fivecheebs]

Are you talking about bus speeds there marquee?

I have 2 nForce 2 chipset boards that can cahnge AGP bus speed and voltages. It doesnt do much though to be honest. Apparently Nvidias can like/take a higher AGP bus speed than the ATI cards but i saw no performance boost. And upping the voltage just heats up the ram.

[Fibbles]

Are you talking about bus speeds there marquee?

I have 2 nForce 2 chipset boards that can cahnge AGP bus speed and voltages. It doesnt do much though to be honest. Apparently Nvidias can like/take a higher AGP bus speed than the ATI cards but i saw no performance boost. And upping the voltage just heats up the ram.
Back in the days of P3's, I used to run my Hercules 3D Prophet 2 at 80MHz or so because there was no PCI/AGP lock. The card never had a problem with the increase and I never noticed any speed difference between 66 and 8X.

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

I didnt think we were near hitting the bus speeds of AGP yet anyway. Isn't memory speed still the big bottle neck?

Excuse my ignorance but i only pay attention to such things when i need to upgrade otherwise i feel compelled to spend more money on my PC then is good for me.

[fillip]

AFAIK the current PCI-E slots don't run much quicker than 8x AGP. The next crop of PCI-E will bump it upto x32 which offers double the b/width compared to AGP.
There is a slight difference in PCI over AGP but you only have to compare benchmarks to see it's very small. As I mentioned previously the main thing that manufacturers are doing is deliberately lowering clock speeds for AGP variants of their cards - the 6600GT is an example of this @900mhz effective for most AGP variants and 1000mhz effective for PCI-E.
The legacy chip that converts the signal back to AGP also plays a small part but this is even less significant that the AGP v PCI-E debate.

[Vis]

I've found the same thing Cheebs. Playing with the AGP bus speeds on my GA-7N400 pretty much does nothing.

Of course now we get into the whole thorny issue of benchmarks vs real world use. "Wow! X is ten percent faster than Y!" Really? Can you see the difference between 100fps and 110fps? I sure as hell can't. Of course some would argue that bragging rights to the fastest this, that or the other is an end in itself. Personally I don't need to spend a lot of extra money just so I can strut about on various forums waving my benchmark numbers in people's faces. I'm not that insecure!

By the way - nobody EVER beat my 3Dmark 2001 score for an XP1800+ with a Ti4200....:p

[fivecheebs]

There are some situations where there is a big difference (not visual) between frame rates. Quake 3 is the best example i know of. Its engine has sweet spots at certain places where you can fall a bit higher or jump a bit further / higher, generally you can move around easier. such sweat spots are not all as sweet as each other. 76 is the lowest one i have experianced with 125 being the most acceptable "low" framerate. Back in the day i tried everything, short of making it look like a 2d mario platform game to get to that elusive 125. These days 300, or higher is reachable and has given more benefits for mods such as defrag that test your ablity to move about. Many punkbuster enabled servers i have used (at least fairly local ones) have frame rate limited to prevent the use of really high rates.

[Vis]

Good thing I was too busy playing Unreal Tournament to have to worry about stuff like that! :lol: