MB Upgrade 1

[rumpletumpskin]

i'm looking to replace my fatal1ty an8. this system is only for gaming, i would like to play the latest (bioshock,crysis,UT3 ect)at least close to their best performance.

i have a athlon 3500 and 1g of corsair xms on it now. i assume it its not worth it to save my ram since it is not ddr2 but is my processor still good enough to be worth keeping?

i've never had a dual core motherboard, do the processors on the board have to be identical or just of the same socket?

price is an issue, i would only like to spend a few hundred. thanks for any advice you feel like giving.

 

[Nelviticus]

A few hundred for the whole system or just the motherboard? And dollars or pounds?

'Dual core' is different to 'dual processor'. A dual-core CPU is a single CPU package, i.e. it looks like one CPU but it's actually two processors on the same die (the tiny bit of silicon at the centre of the square CPU package). So for a dual-core motherboard you'd just buy a single dual-core CPU.

To be honest if you want to play games like Crysis with decent performance then you're going to have to upgrade your whole system. An Athlon 3500 might just about cut it but it will be struggling, and for a fairly small amount of money you can get a faster CPU.

Unfortunately there's just no way you can build a PC that will play games like Crysis at decent speeds without spending a fair amount of money. If you check out sites like Tom's Hardware they have articles on how to build a budget gaming PC. They also have a recent article showing how Crysis performs on various platforms.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[paparazi]

rumpletumpskin
I agree you need an upgrade and as Nelviticus has stated, that isn't going to be cheap if you want reasonable game play with these titles.
I put together this list (UK?)

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128047

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130485

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/116755

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134871

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124926

£405.00 Some future proofing and should cope with Crisis/UT3 etc about as cheap as it's gonna be if you want to play these titles.
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[Nelviticus]

Martin, have a star from me for going the extra mile (as always)!

Nelviticus