Computer Upgrade Recommendations

Hey gents, am taking this over to another Forum but I always appreciate the helpfulness of people on this forum. I'm seeking to add some enhancements to a computer I have in my 'man cave', study, hobbyroom, etc. We, as a family, bought a new computer at Christmas that's downstairs, but I was able to move the Gateway upstairs for some computer applications, such as Rocksim, MS Professional, Jane's Games, Battlefield, etc. My intent is to simply add a newer video card and some extra memory and would like some recommendations on what to buy. All I'd like to do is play some more recent games such as MS Flight Sim X, Age of Empires III, etc.

So can anyone recommend a fairly decent video board and what type of memory I should buy? Here's the specs:

Gateway 3200XL/CTO/QS
XP Home - 5.1 Build 2600
Intel Celeron 2.93 GhZ
502 MB RAM
Direct X9.0
122 GB Free Space
Video: Intel (R) 82 845G/GLI/GE/PE/PVI/GV Graphics (64mb video ram)

Your thoughts?

It appears that the video is integrated into the mothboard. If there isn't a method to disable it, you may run into problems trying to upgrade to a new video card. You'll need to know what kind of bus you have (PCI, PCI-e, PCI-X, etc) when you select the video card. Any rebarded GeForce chipset should be an upgrade for you.

Memory should be upgradable but again, you'll need to know exactly what kind you have now. Is it DDR, DDR2, DDR3, what speed? More than likely you should be able to use any DDR2 type memory.

If you're planning on keeping this around for more than a year or two, get the best you can afford at the time you're purchasing.

-Aaron

akpilot said:

games such as MS Flight Sim X

Click to expand...

You play FS? Whodathunkit?

akpilot:

the 1st thing to always do before you upgrade is to check the specs.

Iwnet to the gateway site and looked at the specs and discovered the following:

1. You stated you have 512mb of memory.

The specs state that you have 2 memory slots and the max memory is 2 gb

recommendation: purchase 2 igb sticks of memory to max the memory

it states the memory type as: PC2700 333Mhz SDRAM

check out www.crucial.com

they have 1gb for $46.00 per

2. the spec also state that you have 3 internal PCI slots with 2 available; It appears this motherboard has NO AGP slot.

Assuming you can "pop the top" and look inside, can you tell the difference between pci and agp slots?

If you can then you would have to get a PCI graphics card.

I would first contact Gateway Support at their website to verify this. I would also verify how to disbale the onboard Intel graphics. More modern boars allow you to do this in the BIOS; older one's may require you to move a jumper on the motherboard.

If this is true, then I would look for a PCI (not PCI-E) card that has modern chipsets in it: I do beleive both Nvidai and ATI have such. Try and get one with at least 256 or more memory.

check out either www.pricegrabber.com or www.pricewatch.com and you can filter for what you need.

here's one you might want to consider:

https://computers.pricegrabber.com/video-cards/m/47800561/st=product_tab/



Finally, although it sounds like you have more than enough free space on your disk, you might want to consider spending a modest $60 or so for a newer 7200 rpm ata100-133 16mb cache disk drive as that would also speed things up. This assumes your drives are eide and not sata.

so for $92 (memory) + $40 (graphics) + $60(disk) you could havee a much faster older computer .

good luck

terry dean

DaveCombs said:

You play FS? Whodathunkit?

Click to expand...

No, haven't played that in a while. I think FS98 was my last. I was really into the EA Jane's Combat sims before they quit making them. My current system should be able to easily handle them, but I'm also looking for some current stuff as well.

I have a great CH Products F-16 Joystick that I need to get back into. Always a stress reliever.

That and flying Boeing FMS sims down a few buildings; -15s, -18s (yes I can ace a carrier landing), AV-8s, etc.

I'm not sure what you can get for $40 of graphics cards, but FSX wants as much as you can throw at it. Going from personal experience, anything less than an nVidia 7900GS and you'd be better off with fs2004. Not sure if it comes in PCI flavour, but the best performance/value card at the moment is the 8800GT which should have no problems with FSX.

Phil

akpilot said:

That and flying Boeing FMS sims down a few buildings; -15s, -18s (yes I can ace a carrier landing), AV-8s, etc.

Click to expand...

< joker >
Where does he get all those fabulous TOYS?
< /joker >

Good stuff. I wonder why they haven't ported FS over to the 360 console. Sure, it takes more hardware (both in the console and for UI), but I think it would be a great way for us grown-ups to steal the 360 back from our kids.

DaveCombs said:

Where does he get all those fabulous TOYS?

Click to expand...

You should see the ones I can't mention . . .

Here's a look at one that's in the open now, named after the Klingon Cruiser . . . and, yes, it really did fly.

Boeing Bird of Prey

Boeing Bird of Prey II

This thing? Dude, you have a cool job...

View attachment Boeing Bird of Prey.JPG

You won't find modern video cards with PCI bus anymore. You can barely find AGP cards. Everything is now PCI-e or something newer.

Check pricewatch for video cards. I had a radeon 8500 PCI card back in the day that was pretty awesome on the latest games (back then.)

If you have an AGP slot, then find out what speed it runs at, 2x, 4x or 8x. Hopefully 8x. Radeon X800XL is a pretty good card for that. It's what I run now and it handles most of the latest games.

Also, definitely max out your ram. If your board will support 2 gb, then get 2 gb. You will notice a definite performance boost.

With that, good luck!

If you only have a PCI bus, well, to put it mildly, you need a new motherboard before anything else is worth it. For AGP, the ATI HD3850 (the AGP version) is a decent card, and comes in an AGP version. For PCI-E (also known as PCI-X), you want either an ATI HD3870 or Nvidia 9600GT (I'd go with the 9600, though both are good cards). Really anything more is not worth it given your current CPU.

PCI video cards are still available. This will be a significant upgrade from what you have. You are always able to disable onboard video as well.:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130289

If you have an AGP slot (don't worry about 2x, 4x or 8x...it's been a million years since anything was less than 8x), I'd recommend this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102734

A Radeon 8500 is way too underpowered and probably less effective than your onboard video at this point.

A motherboard upgrade and/or upgrade to an 8800GT (not to mention the 9600 or HD3870) are ridiculous for your system. You're going to run into chokepoints LONG before you hit the stride of those cards and they're a waste of your money. If you're replacing a motherboard on a system older than 2 years, you're better off building a whole new computer from scratch.

2 gigs of RAM is probably overkill as well. For what you describe as your usage, you should be more than fine with 1GB. I'd suggest grabbing 2 of these:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145407

cjl said:

For PCI-E (also known as PCI-X)

Click to expand...

PCI-e and PCI-X are NOT the same thing.

PCI-e or PCIExpress was designed by Intel to replace the general purpose PCI, the high end PCI-X and the specialty video AGP. It is vastly different from all previous buses as it isn't a bus but rather a serial point-to-point link (aka lane).

-Aaron

Thanks everyone for the commendations.

When I got home last night I looked up my serial number on my Gateway and chatted on-line to customer service. Here's what I found out. My video slot is PCI, not PCIe.

So they've recommended (two techs, I chatted twice to make sure I got the same answer) recommended the NVIDIA Verto GeForce FX 5200-256mb. My power supply is only 250, so anything more and I'd have to upgrade that as well. Price from them is 65.99

For memory I've been told it's DDR. 512mb through Gateway is 47.99, 1GB is 79.99.

Will probably try Amazon or another on-line vendor before purchasing through Gateway. Any recommendations on where to buy?

akpilot said:

For memory I've been told it's DDR. 512mb through Gateway is 47.99, 1GB is 79.99.

Click to expand...

Yeah, don't buy it there, it's way too expensive.

Try https://www.1stchoicememory.com/. They have a memory configurator so you can plug in the model number of your mother board and find something that is guaranteed to work for it. And a full gig of ram is like $45 or so.

Otherwise check out www.pricewatch.com for all of your computer component needs. Here's a link directly to video cards: https://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/

You can upgrade to a 350 or 400W PSU for like 20 bucks @ newegg.

Naw, it's a four year old computer. Going minimal to make it run better. I've got the new computer downstairs.

This is just to satisfy my gaming needs up in my man cave. Which, BTW, is being finished up quite nicely. I'll have to post pics so you guys can drool. That, and will wait for you guys to tell me I have OCD when it comes to organization.

heada said:

PCI-e and PCI-X are NOT the same thing.

PCI-e or PCIExpress was designed by Intel to replace the general purpose PCI, the high end PCI-X and the specialty video AGP. It is vastly different from all previous buses as it isn't a bus but rather a serial point-to-point link (aka lane).

-Aaron

Click to expand...

Crud.

Yeah, you're right. Major brain failure right there

akpilot said:

For memory I've been told it's DDR. 512 MB through Gateway is 47.99, 1GB is 79.99.

Will probably try Amazon or another on-line vendor before purchasing through Gateway. Any recommendations on where to buy?

Click to expand...

I've had really good experiences with Crucial memory (www.crucial.com), and their prices are good. They too have a memory configurator on the web site, based on the make and model of your computer.

(EDIT) $45.99 for a 1 GB DIMM, DDR PC2700

The first thing you should do is put more ram in. You will get a huge increase in performance with this. The pci video card might not be that big a difference in terms of frame rates with the slow pci bus speed but wont be anyworse. I had a 5200 agp card for a long time and the chipset really had some legs on it as far as games go, and in fact i put it in my mothers computer i built for her, she doesnt play computer games though.

Crucial is always the best and generally outperforms the same rated sticks from other companies but that isnt really going to matter much unless your twitch gaming.

I would check Best Buy for sales on ram... corsair, kingston or pny are good enough for home use and have put them in many systems for friends and family and thought they had 1 gig sticks for less than 40 at some point but i havnt checked a month or so.

DOH 2700!! ram... yup thats actually more expensive now than ddr2 ram that the put on sale at Best buy

poke44 said:

Crucial is always the best and generally outperforms the same rated sticks from other companies but that isnt really going to matter much unless your twitch gaming.

Click to expand...

Is Crucial *always* the best, or does it only *generally* outperform the same rated sticks from other companies?

Crucial seems like a good place to find memory.

Just having a tough time with the video card. Seems with it being PCI it's going to be around $60 no matter where I go. Any suggestions?

I'm sure to get thrashed by someone for saying this but...

try ebay.


Hotshot kids have to have the newest, baddest, fastest, super duperest video cards so there always seem to be plenty of even *slightly* older ones available at seriously inexpensive prices.

JRThro said:

Is Crucial *always* the best, or does it only *generally* outperform the same rated sticks from other companies?

Click to expand...

Crucial is a higher quality memory that was designed mostly for gamers. They have a technology that makes it operate at faster speeds than your typical ram.

akpilot said:

Crucial seems like a good place to find memory.

Just having a tough time with the video card. Seems with it being PCI it's going to be around $60 no matter where I go. Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

No one makes PCI cards anymore, so you're kinda stuck there. But if you're planning on keeping the computer for the longer term, you might just consider finding a motherboard with an agp slot that will work with your CPU.

I know, a lot of crap to find. Just depends on what you want.

SpartaChris said:

No one makes PCI cards anymore, so you're kinda stuck there. But if you're planning on keeping the computer for the longer term, you might just consider finding a motherboard with an agp slot that will work with your CPU.

I know, a lot of crap to find. Just depends on what you want.

Click to expand...

Replacing the motherboard in a "name brand" PC like Gateway (or Dell, HP, emachines, etc.) can be a royal pain.

Newegg has great prices on RAM. I just upgraded from 1 to 2 Gigs.

I got my RAM upgrade, a kit containing two PC4200 512 sticks for $22.99.

Think $47.99 from Gateway for a 512 is nuts, HP wanted $69.99 for a 512.:surprised:

don't neglect the idea of just replacing the box too. with some of the prices I've seen lately at newegg and woot.com, it could be cheaper to replace than it is to upgrade.

my sister just got a refurb dual-core Gateway laptop at woot.com for $499! I've seen Quad-core refurb desktops on woot in the $300 range! :surprised:

Crucial is a higher quality memory that was designed mostly for gamers. They have a technology that makes it operate at faster speeds than your typical ram.

Oh really.....and you know this how?
They do trend toward fast/good parts, but I've not heard they have any unique technology from my JEDEC committee member....

Not to nit pick, but let's keep to facts and not hype....

Also, if you need any computer advice, go here.

https://www.pcguide.com/vb/

Very helpful and knowledgeable folks. I've asked a few questions and always got some helpful advice.

It's the same over there as it is here. You'll need to register before you can post.