When to upgrade?

[Liquid Snake]

Yup this question comes up a lot. My current system (see sig) is fine for games, but the newer ones, especially UT2003, run pretty bad. Originally I was going to get a Hammer system when AMD has that ready, but then I thought it might be a better idea to just get Barton when that comes out.

My reasoning was that:
Barton is basically an Athlon XP with 512K of L2 and a 200MHz FSB. The Athlon XP's been around for a while, so it's a mature chip, and VIA, SiS etc have been making chipsets for the Athlon XP for a while. So the chance of problems or incompatibilities is pretty low. But the Hammer is going to be a brand new core, and we don't know what problems could go along with it. And I could get screwed by socket/mobo incompatibilities. Like what happened with the original Athlon (Slot A to Socket A) and the P4 (Socket 423 to Socket 478).

What do you guys think?

[thop]

the hammer will be fast, no doubt about it (i sound like bush ). a quantispeed rating of ~3300+ is estimated for the 2Ghz one. if the barton gets a similar rating i see no reason to get a hammer unless you really need the 64bit (which you most likely dont).

the reason for the bad UT2003 performance is not your cpu though, but the MAX time to retire it

[bsdgeek]

Why don't you switch the 7500 in "Main System" into the "Game Server", and change tasks.

[Liquid Snake]

The G400MAX is in my game server

I've considered switching the game server and main system around, but the P3-750 actually gets maxed out if I try running two game servers on it (which I've had to do on some occasions). Besides, I want a faster system than my game server, and I'm planning on replacing the 7500 when I upgrade my CPU and mobo.

[Nowhere]

I think the hammer will be pretty mature when it comes out: just look for how long there are samples of cpu's, chipsets and motherboards.

[Kurt]

Re: When to upgrade?

Originally posted by Liquid Snake
Yup this question comes up a lot. My current system (see sig) is fine for games, but the newer ones, especially UT2003, run pretty bad. Originally I was going to get a Hammer system when AMD has that ready, but then I thought it might be a better idea to just get Barton when that comes out.

My reasoning was that:
Barton is basically an Athlon XP with 512K of L2 and a 200MHz FSB. The Athlon XP's been around for a while, so it's a mature chip, and VIA, SiS etc have been making chipsets for the Athlon XP for a while. So the chance of problems or incompatibilities is pretty low. But the Hammer is going to be a brand new core, and we don't know what problems could go along with it. And I could get screwed by socket/mobo incompatibilities. Like what happened with the original Athlon (Slot A to Socket A) and the P4 (Socket 423 to Socket 478).

What do you guys think?

I wouldn't wait for the Athlon64 if I were you. You'll get a good boost by moving to an Athlon 2000 or 2200 for not much money.

The Athlon64 might be a success but it's not here yet so who can say? Besides, it's will be very easy to resell the XP2000+ for the price you bought it -or about, as it's already so cheap....

You can get a combo cpu mobo ram (512MB) for less than 300 EUR (or 300 $US). Pricing on the new athlon is likely to be above the 300 mark for the chip only.

[Kruzin]

I gave up waiting for the "right time" to upgrade many years ago.
There will ALWAYS be something out in the next few months that will make you wish you had waited. It's an endless loop.
I've generally gone for the "when I NEED to upgrade" approach, and just get the best I can afford at that time (I just recently went from my old P3-700 to an XP2000+, just cause the the 700 couldn't cut it in today's games). Otherwise, you're always waiting for the next hot item (wether you want to get that hot new item, or just want it to drive down the price of the current hot item).

[CHHAS]

I just picked up an XP 1800+ to replace my Duron 650, and another 512 MB of DDR ram, Athlon XPs are dirt cheap now and this one should last me quite a while

[Paddy]

I picked up a second XP1800 today for my dualie rig.

Cheap and cheerful!