What to upgrade to?

[fearjet]

Greetings all,

I have decided to upgrade my system soon. I have been a an AMD man for approx 2 years, but I am starting to see Intel might be the way to go for FS. When it comes to Intel, I am completely ignorant. I do plan on building my own system from scratch (did this with my AMD). Does anyone know of some websites where I can educate myself. Any recommendations of motherboard/cpu/ram/video card to get? Any help appreciated!

Jason

[gdub2611]

im also an amd man but im wanting a p4 3.06GHz due to the raw clock( even though this isnt really a good measure) and i think intel are gonna get back a lot of business from amd soon. anyway, back to your system. there are a lot of factors that affect reccomendations. for example, i would recommend a GeForce FX card but they're extorsionate and not really within everyones limits. So how much are you willing to spend?

G-Dub
http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...6a1be047df.jpg
My Future Employer!:D

[sean377]

Try these for a start:

http://www.tomshardware.com/

http://www.anandtech.com/

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/

Sean
EGNT

[cascadesss]

Before you go off and recommend the FX video card, take a look at the reviews of the ATI 9800. It basically beats the FX in performance in almost all of the different tests. Most of the reviewers are disappointed with the FX results. Nvidia made a good product, but is 9 months too late.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic...s/image045.gif


Rick - KPDX - Private Pilot
P4-3.06GHz @ 3.4GHz 1GB-1066MHz
Water-Cooled & 3 Monitors

[faosfx]

I used to be an AMD fan too but stopped after a while. I started building P4 systems then and noticed that they were indeed more realiable then AMD systems.

I finished building one about a week ago...here are the specs;

ASusTek P4t533-C motherboard
1 Gb of RDRAM clocked at 800MHz ECC (Four 256mb chips)
ATI Radeon 9700 PRO 8X AGP

those are just the good specs...the 8X version of the Radeon 9700 is really good so go for that if you can.

[ilove2ski42]

I disagree, dont go with the FX! It's basically on par with the performance of the Ati Radeon 9700 Pro (the Ati is *slightly* slower), but the FX is MUCH louder, and requires an additional PCI slot. I beleive it will retail for 400 as well, while you can get the 9700 for sub-300. Also, with the new Ati 9800 coming out, the FX really is "old" technology! The 9800 has support for Open GL 2.0 (important if you run other graphics programs/games besides FS), 256 mb of memory, and basically kicks the FX in performance.

==============
Ben Peters
WWA6605
VATSIM KZLC
Senior Student
Visit my Round the World website:
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[Bigshot]

The FX can't compete with ATI. www.hardocp.com just posted their new review of the upcoming line of Nvidia cards compared to what ATI has to offer. They really slammed Nvidia bigtime.

Part of the conclusion:
_________________________________________________________________
Without question, the term "cinematic graphics" has a very positive connotation. Upon hearing this term you think of words such as "power", "speed", and "quality". Even more you think about how all those CG movies look on the big screen. Unfortunately, the only word that should come to mind when hearing about GeForceFX cinematic graphics in the future is "marketing", because that is the situation we are faced with.

Placing all of the new features aside, how on earth can anyone look at a card whose image quality must be lowered to remain competitive and declare it "cinematic"? Furthermore, it is a bit alarming to see NVIDIA claim that gamers will be "experiencing cinematic graphics the way it’s meant to be played" with their $79 card.

Although NVIDIA has taken two steps forward in terms of features and functionality, they have seemingly taken a step backwards for both image quality and performance. As we score things, that would make NVIDIA's current position stagnant at best. Should the "cinematic computing era" be taking place, it is happening with ATI's product line, as we have seen first hand that the current GeForceFX product line simply cannot compete with ATI products released last year.
_________________________________________________________________

[burnside]

The Intel P4 2.53 GB is going for about $200 (w/fan). There are a bunch of good motherboards for it, but I have had excellent results with Gigabyte. I would probably go for a model that uses DDR memory rather than the more expensive RDRAM. The best graphics board around is the ATI 9700. ATI is bringing out new models, so prices on the 9700 are becoming more reasonable.

Dale
http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...813d588695.jpg
P4 2.53 ABIT TI4600
512 RDRAM 1066
Gigabyte GA-8IHXP
Windows XP Home w/SP1