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Gamers, Upgrade your Systems

Posted by michael on from the saving-money-for-beer dept.

jbischof writes "Looking to upgrade your aging PC? Ace's Hardware has a new upgrade guide tailored specifically to gamers. The data shows exactly which upgrades - processor, motherboard, gfx card, or combination of the three - will give the best performance boost on all the latest and most popular games (according to their recent poll)."

2 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Games? by TheJesusCandle · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I've found that the hardest decision in building a box is always the motherboard. I basically know what to expect from the graphics card manufacturers and from Intel and AMD.

    I'm actually quite happy with my current ASUS motherboard, which I've had for almost 2 years now. I am sort of worried about all the reports of capacitors exploding and whatnot, but I don't seem to have any of the "warning" signs on mine.

    Either way, my system is starting to show a bit of age, and I'm thinking about building a new one come this spring. I'm expecting a fairly hefty income tax refund, so I figure it might be time to plunk down some cash I've saved up for a new box.

    I know pretty much what I want. I'll probably go with the latest and greatest offerings from nVidia or ATI, and stick with a faster AMD processor.

    But I'm not sure about the motherboard. I enjoy gaming, so I'm thinking about going for something with the nForce chipset.

    This report seems to suggest that the nForce 2 chipset will benefit your FPS. So perhaps I'll look into those. Then there is the matter of trying to avoid motherboards with the exploding capacitors...

  2. i go by the rule of three by TheJesusCandle · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Here's my little rule for upgrading my system.

    Replace every three generations, or when things are three times as fast as your current device.

    Simple, isn't it? For the past 10 (or so) I've worked on that little rule and it's lead me exactly where I want to go.

    My 486 became a Pentium II 266 became a Pentium III 800 became an Athlon 2400+.

    My something rather (I think it was an S3 Virge, but this was in the days when no one cared anyway) became a Voodoo 2 became a Geforce 256 became a Radeon 8500 (Which I bought budget at $100 canadian).

    My Gravis Ultrasound became a Sound blaster Live became a Hercules Game Theater XP became Nforce2 Dolby Digital output.

    It's strange how well this system worked out. Just as my machine became almost unbearable for games (About a 30FPS average for most games) I've upgraded because of this 3x rule. Sure, it means that you won't be at the bleeding edge for very long but the edge is too easy to fall off anyway. Only idiots would skip from a Radeon 8500 to a 9700, just as it would be stupid to ditch a 2400+ Athlon for a 2.8ghz P4. At the same time, people who tell that a 500mhz and a Voodoo 3 is enough for anyone are obviously not playing any modern games. The trick is to get caught in between the two extremes.