New PC getting what it should be?

[Chrono21]

My specs are as follows:

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology 630 (3GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB Cache)

1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)

256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X850 XT Platinum Edition (Latest ATI drivers 5.5)

Sound Blaster Audigy™2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, and IEEE 1394 capability(I have not gotten the latest drivers, would this matter?)

I score 6900-7000 on Low and 5250 on High. Are these the scores I should be getting. Paid $2500(CAD) for this rig. =|

Its probably the CPU, but still think I should be pullin a lil more.

[Pounce]

It's more than good enough.

I'm running a 2 year old Athlon XP 2000, 128MB GeForce Ti4600, 1GB RAM, and can run FFXI as well as most modern, non-FPS games at maximum or near maximum settings.

[Chrono21]

But I'm not just talking about running FFXI, this sappose to last me a while. o.O

Just wondering if this the score I should be getting.

[gaidensensei]

look in the Computers section of this forum. Then check the last page of the topic Benchmark 2 scores pinned on the top.

I posted my results for middle-middle upper tier systems there, and links to other benchmarks.

You seem fine in your scores.

[Frumply]

If it's running fast enough for you now, I dont see any reason why you'd need to upgrade the CPU (which does stick out alongside some of the faster crap you got yourself) unless you're within a 30-day return period or something of that sort now. Prices constantly drop anyway, so I never found it a problem to just upgrade when I felt it was needed; last time I did that was spring last year, going from XP1700 with GF4200 to a XP2500@3200 with a Radeon9700 and a stick of 512MB ram. It still plays everything I want just fine, so unless Battlefield2 chunks up like crazy I'll be saving up my money to buy more gil at IGE.

Kidding, of course.

[Macht]

You do know with how technology advances. If you got technology that is the absolute highest it'll technically be outdated after 3 years, but will be supported for about 5 years or something around that. So money wise it does save you some to go for stuff that is a year past and should support you for at least 4 years without much change.

[Yashin]

i get 5 from 6000 on high with my rig...

6600GT pci-e
1 gig ram
AMD 3000+

and yeah you got ripped a little...i bet you could get that rig for a little less

[Manatra]

I wouldn't get a new computer. If you get a new computer I'd wait for the 'next generation' of graphics per se. Which is more or less going to be a year to two years from now when UT2k7 and those games start getting released. That's when one should upgrade in my opinion. Because you should be fine with that computer for now

[Kitsune]

Should be fine, though SDRAM can be annoying sometimes.

[Chrono21]

Its DDR2 RAM, currently the best RAM out there...

[Shiro_Hayate]

Originally posted by Manatra
I wouldn't get a new computer. If you get a new computer I'd wait for the 'next generation' of graphics per se. Which is more or less going to be a year to two years from now when UT2k7 and those games start getting released. That's when one should upgrade in my opinion. Because you should be fine with that computer for now

He's right, Unreal Tournament games have been one of the most CPU/graphics card heavy games. If you really want to strain your PC, take out doom3, run it at 1600x1200 (or lower if your monitor can't supprot it but go as high as you can) put settings at max and see your FPS. If you hit 30, you got an insanely good computer, if you got 30 during large battles I'm gonna steal your computer. And if you get 60 during large battles or 60 at all on those settings you're a lying prick =P

3DMark is pretty good at testing graphics as well, try that instead of FFXI's benchmark unless FFXI is the only game you will be playing.

[Chrono21]

Well I play HalfLife2 at 1600x1200 everything maxed, plus maxing my ATI control panel 3D tab, with no lag(FPS wise).

Maybe FFXI isn't ATI friendly? Doom3 prob won't be good example because its a game based on Nvidia video cards. If you check some becnhmark scores you'll see what I mean.

[Manatra]

You don't need a new computer then, besides, last I recalled FFXI's framerate is limited to 30.

As for the Unreal thing, I'm just saying that every few years graphics will take a rather large leap, and looks like the next leap is going to happen around the time of Unreal Tournament 2007, since many developers will be using that engine for their own games.

[fuz]

Well, you spent more than you needed for maybe a 10-20% performance boost from a cheaper system, but this system will work fine for a couple years at the very least. Future games aren't going to look much more detailed than what they are currently since if a game maker wants to sell enough of a game, it has to run on 'average' gaming computer specs. Besides, the load times off a HDD are killer already. They will probably increase lighting effects in future games which are more processor intensive than memory, and don't require significantly more development time.

For anyone else considering a computer:

High speed RAM is... basically the worst performance to dollar ratio you can get. The performance difference with 533DDR2 vs. normal 400DDR is marginal at best, but the price difference is large. Even high speed 2-2-2-5-1T ram barely eeks out 5% more performance over standard cas 2.5 or 3--usually less in games. If you're feeling lucky, you can pick up some of the inexpensive remade winbond BH5 equiped sticks (OCZ gold) which overclock well. They look seksi too.

Athlon 64s run faster for the money spent, use less power, need less cooling, and overclock very well. Intel... uh... I guess if you work in video encoding they do well. HT is... very useless, games in particular. CPU power isn't what it used to be, so the need for a top dog processor doesn't really exist unless you're using it for math intensive workstation apps. Other stuff like games are more bottlenecked by the VGA card.

The creative sound card is kind of... meh. Spending $60-100 for just a few more fps in a game and enhanced EAX effects (windows already does EAX 2.0 anyhow) that could go to a better VGA card that makes a bigger gaming difference is a better choice IMO. I prefer to rely on onboard sound since the recent implementations are quite good, absent of the hum and static that plagued them before. Not to mention the lack of widespread support for EAX 3.0+. The Audigy2 sill uses the old EMU 10k chip the last I checked, just has some better DAC filters. XFi is comming soon, maybe that will be significantly better with the 98khz upsampling--albeit, likely very expensive.

IMO Tis better to get the 'second best' gear, and keep upgrading it than to get the best gear and have it for a long time. Especially with the new multi-core cpus, next gen graphics cards, btx case standards, and widespread NCQ SATA just around the corner which will provide a pretty good raise to the performance minimum for a PC for the same $. Frankly the people who just shelled out for a top of the line SLI/Crossfire system are going to cry when all this new stuff comes out. Of course if you have $ to burn, go right ahead.

[Yashin]

Originally posted by Manatra
You don't need a new computer then, besides, last I recalled FFXI's framerate is limited to 30.

I cant get it over 29...even in my mog house...if it is 30 i have no idea why...I can play CS:S at higest settings with 4aa/8af and get 70-90 fps...But if i only got 29 with ffxi in my mog house...

But im pretty sure the cap is 29