prankster959
Newcomer
Alright first of all my stats:
MSI 915P Neo2 Platinum or something motherboard
LGA 775 intel 2.8E ghz CPU (one of the first ones released, I got it right when it came out last year)
512mb x2 dual channel Kingston Value Ram at I THINK 4-4-4-10or15 timings (it doesn't say but I'm reasonably sure)
2 SATA 80 gb western digital hard drives in a raid 0 config
Windows XP SP 2
Pci express
And here's the punch, a 7800gt. Yes 400 dollars on something that probably won't help my computer anymore than a 6800gt. So my question is what's a cheap effective way to boost performance? I ran 3dmark05 and I only got 3000 as opposed to the 7300 I should get with the XFX card I have. I wouldn't want my hardearned dollars to go to waste so I researched a little bit and I'm considering getting a nice cooler for my CPU and raising it to 3.4 ghz and buying new gold OCZ ram at 3-3-3-8 timings in a dual channel config.
Also my cpu seems somewhat handicapped in tests. It got about a 1500 in the 3dmark05 test as well as less than satisfactory results in some others including PcMark04 and Sandra Lite. And to remove the possibility, I have to spyware/malware on this computer. McAfee, Ad-aware, and Spybot Search and Destroy protect me. I don't even mind a 6000 in 3dmark05, I just want to be able to play games at a good framerate and high settings in 1024x768 resolution.
My goal would be to play Battlefield 2. I can play it at decent settings but the frame rate drops randomly making it unplayable. I assume this is the ram or the CPU or both. My drivers and BIOSes are all updated for everything.
I would also consider screwing my Intel platform and going for an AMD but that would cost alot of money. The goal here is 200 dollars or less. So what do you guys think?
MSI 915P Neo2 Platinum or something motherboard
LGA 775 intel 2.8E ghz CPU (one of the first ones released, I got it right when it came out last year)
512mb x2 dual channel Kingston Value Ram at I THINK 4-4-4-10or15 timings (it doesn't say but I'm reasonably sure)
2 SATA 80 gb western digital hard drives in a raid 0 config
Windows XP SP 2
Pci express
And here's the punch, a 7800gt. Yes 400 dollars on something that probably won't help my computer anymore than a 6800gt. So my question is what's a cheap effective way to boost performance? I ran 3dmark05 and I only got 3000 as opposed to the 7300 I should get with the XFX card I have. I wouldn't want my hardearned dollars to go to waste so I researched a little bit and I'm considering getting a nice cooler for my CPU and raising it to 3.4 ghz and buying new gold OCZ ram at 3-3-3-8 timings in a dual channel config.
Also my cpu seems somewhat handicapped in tests. It got about a 1500 in the 3dmark05 test as well as less than satisfactory results in some others including PcMark04 and Sandra Lite. And to remove the possibility, I have to spyware/malware on this computer. McAfee, Ad-aware, and Spybot Search and Destroy protect me. I don't even mind a 6000 in 3dmark05, I just want to be able to play games at a good framerate and high settings in 1024x768 resolution.
My goal would be to play Battlefield 2. I can play it at decent settings but the frame rate drops randomly making it unplayable. I assume this is the ram or the CPU or both. My drivers and BIOSes are all updated for everything.
I would also consider screwing my Intel platform and going for an AMD but that would cost alot of money. The goal here is 200 dollars or less. So what do you guys think?