2400 XP worth it?

[3dfx]

Well I know this is really a stupid question and before you ask why I'am asking it, I'll just get to the point. Do you think that I will notice a significant difference updating my 1600 xp athlon to the 2400 model for £140 sterling ?

thx

[The PIT]

Good question as always it's a question of dimishing returns. Depending also what your doing if doing imaging photoshop etc I would say yes but if your just using word not really bar it opening a bit quicker. Games will also run a bit smoother.
Does your motherboard support the 2400? Another question does that price include vat??
When I went from an Athlon 1100 to an 1800+ I didn't notice a tremdous differce a smost of the apps I used weren't stressing the 1100 anyway.

[Wombat]

No, I don't think you'd notice. Actually, for the money, you'd probably do better by upgrading your Live! to an Audigy. Better sound quality, better built, more features, and should take more load off of the CPU than you'd gain from upgrading the processor.

[3dfx]

Thanks Wombat you guys are a book of widom and I dont know what I'd do with out you I'll look into updating my sound card instead. Oh do you think a new card like the audigy 1 or 2 will make games run faster also? Yes my mobo supports such a CPU(2400XP) and that price incl. Vat

[Wombat]

Oh do you think a new card like the audigy 1 or 2 will make games run faster also?

Quite possibly. There was a big jump for people when the Live! came out (tons of benchmarks out there if you care to look, often a 10% fps boost). I think there is a similar (though smaller) boost going from Live to Audigy, but there aren't nearly as many tests this time around. The Audigy does seem to have quite a boost compared to the Live! if you turn EAX on. I haven't paid much attention to the Audigy2 yet.

[3dfx]

I'm thinking of waiting to see what the Parhelia 2 offers, what do you think Wombat?

[ZokesPro]

If you do upgrade to an XP2400 then sell me your old CPU!

[Guru]

After looking at your sig I came to the conlusion that if it were my computer I would upgrade the memory to 1024MB Bewere thou if you are using 2x 256MB it might not accept a third memory module! Also what hard disk(s) are you using?

[Wombat]

I'm thinking of waiting to see what the Parhelia 2 offers, what do you think Wombat?

This is a joke, right? I don't think we'll see Pitou. Either Parhelia is the last, or there will be some kind of P450, but I doubt there will ever be another Matrox card worth buying.

[GNEP]

What about a couple of extra 17" monitors to complement your Parhelia? Or do you have them already?

[3dfx]

Wombat I'm a DUMBASSS I meant to say audigy 2 and not parhelia 2 ..lol

[Wombat]

I haven't looked into the A2 at all. I have my Audigy, and it does everything I need from my PC sound. I certainly won't notice the incremental improvement from A to A2. What does the A2 offer besides a higher price and 6.1? (5.1 is plenty for me right now).

[3dfx]

Yeah I'm going to look into getting one also my hard drive is a bog standard 5400 rpm I think it is a samsung. Though the particular driver interestes me Western Digital Caviar 40GB Special Edition (OEM) (HD-004-WD)

[Guru]

Then forget the Audigy and Radeon and upgrade your HD (Recomend Maxtor myself)!

[Wombat]

I don't know if SE OEM drives have the 3-year warranty, so check in to that.

What are you trying to speed up? If it's games, get the sound card, probably. If it's just Windows in general, go for the hard drive.