[omninescience]

I'm going to be upgrading my PC sometime in the future when I have enough money, but currently I want to read as much as possible and find the right hardware to upgrade too. My PC is 4 years old, since 2005, I am well aware my PC capabilities do not match up to todays standard of gaming. I can play current games, but I need to sacrifice quality over performance but even sometimes performance is sluggish. The reason why I am upgrading is because two of my favorite developers are Bethesda and Valve which the experience is much better on PC, and they both use ATI for their games.


Windows XP SP3
HP Media Center m7077c
my PC System Specs

The main hardware I want to upgrade is my RAM, Chipset, Graphics Card and Power Supply.

My power supply is a 300 watts, I know this isn't enough for extreme gaming, so what would be the recommend power wattage to run gaming today. Which company provides quality power supplies

The Pentium 4 processor seems good enough, but most recent games demand a dual core. But I know most dual core are not as fast as most Pentium 4, so how would I which dual core is actually beyond Pentium 4 without much of a price tag.

Since I'm going for ATI, I would like to know which card is available that will provide me 3-5 years of gaming from now.

I'm shooting for 2 gigs of RAM since recent games require this amount.


Again, I'm just looking for some advice, not the greatest help, but enough information to help search around the net so I can decide what to buy. If it isn't much, which companies provide quality products that is inexpensive.

 

[omninescience]

I made a mistake, mods can you move this thread to suitable section. I was gonna delete it, but I can't edit my post which is quite stupid, I should be able too. Maybe you can move it to "Building" section of the forums. Thanks

 

[grimx133]

You're probably better off starting a new thread in the buiding section.

I see you want to upgrade your chipset. You do realize that isn't possible, to go to another chipset requires a new motherboard.

If that's the case, then you decide components based on what motherboard you have. Ram needs to be checked against the motherboard manufacturer's QVL (Qualified Vendor List), or using the ram manufacturer's configurator. Say you are getting an Asus P5Q Pro for a motherboard and want to use Corsair ram. You would then go to Corsair's configurator and put in the motherboard details and get these results. http://www.corsair.com/configurator/product_results.aspx?id=589456 This way you get ram that is guaranteed compatible with your motherboard. Other ram manufacturers also have configurators.

For graphics cards, it all depends on what you want one for and how much you are willing to spend. And what you want to achieve as far as video quality and framerates. Generally the more you spend, the better the card, but it isn't always the case. By catching the right card at the right time you can get a decent card inexpensively.

PSU depends on the graphics card, the better the card the more wattage is required. However, all power supplies are not created equal. Never skimp on a psu just to shave a few bucks off of your budget. You will pay in the end, and pay dearly.

Lots of dependencies eh.

 

[Wrench97]

And to add Core2 duo's are a lot faster then P4's even though the clock speeds are slower the way they process the data is faster to over simplify it's like a bigger pipe the water moves slower but more water flows at the same time.

Here is a chart from Q1 2008 that measures frame rates in Prey same hardware different CPU's you'll find P4's towards the bottom> http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2008-q1-2008/Prey,387.html

 

[omninescience]

Thanks guys

anyone that want to reply to this thread, I recreate another thread in the "building" section. Please give me advice and help in that thread, thanks.

Cliky Linky to the thread