$240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

[Sir. MatDef]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

I think it means dual channel, so it should work in your board.

[dash]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

wow. a completely new mobo and processor. will i get an increase in performance from the AMD? is it far better than my current DEVIL pentium?

i also cant find any corsair RAM over here (Philippines). The best i see so far is:
1GB DDR2 533 Gell Dual.... its cost about $94 a stick. This is the best RAM i see so far. is this any good?

YAY Philippines in Bf2! hehe anyways I'm a Pinoy in NYC...but anyways pare your best bet is to upgrade your RAM, and if you can AMD seems to be performing better than intel in the gaming category nowadays.

GO PACMAN!

[DrunkenPirate]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

Moved to Hardware.

[AlphexHunter]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

get the same exact kind of ram you have in your pc!
You dont need to get all that special overcloacking ram sticks bs...
just get the all the same 4xsticks of your kingston ram...

Btw: i did a speed test with my friends rig and mine he had OCZ gold platium 2gigs and i hade mine (in sig) he beat me by 4sec..and he payed 70$ more for thos 4sec..

[Death Merchant]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

yeh gaming ram is not better unless you plan to overclock your processor

get 2x1gb value sticks of either kingston or geil

[Eternal-Souljah]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

What is so bad about Intel?, I have 3.4ghz dual cpu ht processor stock, and it runs fine.

BF2 for some reason lags a lil, like when I enter a map no matter how big the server is usually 32 player I play on, and it lags at the start like all slow and sticks, but I think its because the computern needs reformatted.

[signa]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

Intel is the DEVIL, the DEVIL I TELL YOU !!! so buy that stick of ram and that proc and you're all set :) 1 gig of ram is enough... or you can buy another 2 512 mb ram sticks in dual channel

so your saying for $240 he can buy a new mobo, cpu and a gig of ram?

[dash]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

What is so bad about Intel?, I have 3.4ghz dual cpu ht processor stock, and it runs fine.

BF2 for some reason lags a lil, like when I enter a map no matter how big the server is usually 32 player I play on, and it lags at the start like all slow and sticks, but I think its because the computern needs reformatted.

same for me...used to lag a little longer (5 secs) when I used to have 1GB of Ram, just got 2 GB and it doesnt lag every time it loads a map atleast now.

[CaptJordus]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

Wrong, nowadays almost any amd proc (except for low end) is much better than its intel counterpart, especially when it comes to dual core or ultra high end.Hell, a new 950 oc'ed to 4.25ghz is barely tied with my stock x2. Amd chips run cooler, faster, use less power, and are wayyy more stable than people give them credit for. Just because intel was better in the past doesn't mean it is now. But for you, get the ram, its the cheapest upgrade out there.

I never said AMD didnt make a great chip, never said they werent fast.

Benchmarks still show Intel being the better chip for business type settings. As far as spreadsheets and other business related tasking goes.

Also, I will firmly beleive in intel being a better constructed chip until NASA and the rest of the government and fortune500 companies stop using Intel exclusively.

[Eternal-Souljah]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

I would get 2GB of RAM, but I have 1 GB already that has 4 x 256mb, using up all the available slots, so it would be a waste, when I want to get 2x 1GB. I can't sell to no one because no one needs it.

[Hephaistion]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

AMD outperforms a similar Intel on gaming applications by a decent margin. But on nothing else.

Intel makes a FANTASTIC chip for reliability and power in everything else but gaming.

I use a AMD Athlon64 3400+ myself, but there is no denying that Intels chips are much more reliable, and much better built.

Well duh, even marginal (which it is more than marginal) performance is a bonus.
This is a forum about gaming. He is not trying to upgrade to make power point run better, he is trying to make BF2 run faster. Explain to me how AMD is more or less reliable?
Is it history?
Here is AMD's:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) NYSE: AMD is a manufacturer of integrated circuits based in Sunnyvale, California. It is the second-largest supplier of x86-compatible processors, and a leading supplier of non-volatile flash memory. It was founded in 1969 by a group of defectors from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders. AMD's current CEO is Dr. Héctor Ruiz. The current president and Chief Operating Officer is Dirk Meyer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amd)

Here is Intel's:
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC, HKEx: 4335), founded in 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation, is a U.S.-based multinational corporation that is best known for designing and manufacturing microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits. Intel also makes network cards, motherboard chipsets, components, and other devices. Intel has advanced research projects in all aspects of semiconductor manufacturing, including MEMS.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel)

So Intel has been in business for 1 year longer than AMD.

AMD has always made killer products and it seems finally broken free of Intel's tractor beam, AMD was the 1st to release a non-commercial stable 64bit chip with an on-die memory controller. AMD chips run cooler, are less expensive, use less energy, produce less EMI, less radiation, and do it at a lower frequency. It might take awhile, but AMD is poised to take intel down. Hell there are now servers being built by IBM, HP/Compaq and other top manufactures what are running Opteron CPU's. They are cheaper, more stable, run cooler, require less juice and SUPPORT 64-BIT O/S'es. When will Intel stop playing in the shallow end of the pool and venture out? The Itanium has been around for years, yet it is not a viable consumer CPU, and there is little driver/HW support if any for it. Hell AMD is on their 3rd Socket Type for the Athlon 64, and subsquent advances in AMD chips are real break throughs, not just more overclocking to achieve the mythical 5GHz. Stay on the Bench Intel, your too old to play now, rest awhile, well will always let you run our legacy software. This will be like when you were the young upstart in the 90's what with your revolutionary 386DX core (which actually lasted all the way through Pentium 266MMX), when you replaced RISC and POWERPC processors (which now run our legacy). You had a good run Intel, but now it is time to throw in the towel old man!:laugh:

[CaptJordus]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

a marginal gain might be nice.

But not compared to the potentially massive gains from the extra gig of ram (not to mention faster ram depending on what he has now, and whathe buys.)

The RAM is the best way to go, because the 3.0 or 3.2 whatever he had Intel is going to run BF2 perfectly fine.

BF2 is a ram hog, not a CPU hog.

[SFR-MAINE]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

intel chips do not run as hot as you think, prolly even cooler than AMD.

But being an INTEL fanboy and all i can not dissmiss the fact that AMD is better with gaming and power consumption however on most games the differance is not all that much. Take the advice that you have got from the people here and get the extra ram.

[imported_Wreck]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

intel chips do not run as hot as you think, prolly even cooler than AMD.

But being an INTEL fanboy and all i can not dissmiss the fact that AMD is better with gaming and power consumption however on most games the differance is not all that much. Take the advice that you have got from the people here and get the extra ram.

The difference isn't much because we run the games at such high resolutions with stress the video card. If we ran the games at 800x600 you would see what a commanding lead AMD actually has in games.

[Flanker]

Re: $240 to spend on a PC upgrade. WHAT SHOULD I GET?

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ = Pentium 4 3.6GHz, but that huge difference is only for BF2. AMD is always ahead, but not by quite as much.

Anyways, the processor-mobo combo in a nice deal and you'd get the most out of that, but a 2 x 1GB upgrade is nice too. I know you can find Corsair, but don't get Corsair XMS. Its a waste of money for nothing more then ValueRAM with fancy heatspreaders and a fancy name. It RARELY overclocks well and that defeats the whole purpose of expensive RAM.