Best Bang for My Buck

**elkhartadam** · 09-12-09, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by ...bigdog...

Finished building elkhartadam's box.

8633 3DMark06's.

FX-62
8800GTS
2gigs corsair XMS DDR2
Asus M2N SLI
2 WD caviars 80-gigs
7.1 X-fi
In one bad ass brushed aluminum, black Lian Li case. Bad ass.

8633.....pretty damn fine.

What could I change/add to better my overall performance. I use this unit for general internet play, BF2, and occasionally TF2. What's going to provide me with the best bang for my buck?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions

elkhartadam

**Xavsnipe** · 09-12-09, 01:49 PM

The best bang for my buck was the one I got in Miami with a delicious colombian broad.

**Mcstrange** · 09-12-09, 02:03 PM

videocard. Maybe a ati 4770 or 4850 for around 100-120, or an Nvidia 260 for 175ish

**HeavyG** · 09-12-09, 02:45 PM

What kind of FPS are you getting in BF2 and TF2. Also, are you looking to play any newer games? Going from an 8800GTS to a 4870 will give you some performance increases, but do you need them for the games you are playing? Just some food for thought.

You could try to get two less expensive nVidia cards and run them in SLI. But I guess it depends on what you want to do. I am running dual ATI 4850s, and they blow away my friends single 4870 (doing an actual side by side comparison).

Honestly, your system is 2 years old, and that means it is at the point where an upgrade might be necessary to play the latest and greatest games on the market. You can go with the video card now, but some time next year, I recommend moving to an updated CPU/motherboard and memory.

**elkhartadam** · 09-13-09, 12:33 PM

What would I gain my adding a couple of gig of RAM?

**Imisnew2** · 09-13-09, 12:37 PM

my desktop had an 8800 nvidia geforce whatever... and it ran PR on almost all high settings just fine.

dual core, 2gig ram...

And personally, you don't need a real big Graphics card for bf2 now anyway. 8800 is perfect.

Get more ram imho, anything else and you gotta rebuild the comp - lol.

Also, if you're lucky, memory can be moved over into your next computer... saving you a few bucks.

The video card will also go with you.

As for mobo, cpu, and whatnot, they're basically co-dependent (I'm not a computer genius, this is just my best educated guess, so ask someone who knows before you commit to anything.)

**deputyfestus** · 09-13-09, 12:37 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir

**HeavyG** · 09-13-09, 02:25 PM

Originally Posted by elkhartadam

What would I gain my adding a couple of gig of RAM?

Depends on what OS you are running. If Vista 64, you might see a bump in performance. If XP 32, you probably won't see any difference at all.

**Mcstrange** · 09-14-09, 02:52 PM

I would advise against buying any video card from NVIDIA under the 260. The 250 are just rebranded 9800gtx cards and are only marginally better than a 8800gts.
If you simply cannot spend the 150-175 a 260 will cost you look in the ATI 4850-4770 range.

2 more gig of ram will help, but not as much as a newer video card. Though RAM is cheap as shit so you could get a 4850 and the ram for under 200

**FireAtWill** · 09-14-09, 03:26 PM

Do nothing and save $1000 and go with the i7 and X58 architecture. The only reason that I built my new rig was that I had a 3800X2 adn was bogging down. Ram won't increase you FPS unless you are taxing it and 32 bit will only really read 3 GB anyway.

I did go from a 8800 GT to a 4890 1GB card. It upped my FPS to 200+ constantly and 299 usually. That is complete overkill for TF2 or BF2 but it is fun to see. If you can keep a card at 60+FPS at the lowest you won't see a difference.

FAW