HOWEVER, I had just replaced my mobo when my graphics card died, and knew i wasn't going to have the money to upgrade to 939 or am2, so I went for it. If you can upgrade your system, then do it First! If you can't, then it's not a bad option as long as you can deal with the fact that it will be harded to warrent an upgrade for a long time. My 2 cents.
I'm getting a 7800GS next week (God willing) to replace my 9800P. I was wondering what all the noise was coming out of my machine and it's the lil iceberq4 fan... it's dying. The 9800P is still good, I just need to replace the fan and I'll keep it around for a spare, or for a folding rig. I hear nothing but good things things about the 7800GS. I can expect to almost double my current framerates. I can't afford to go to PCI-E yet and besides, I didn't pay a thing for the card, it was an addon for a job I did. (Thx Mat!!!!!)
Depending on what CPU's you guys are using you should be able to find a PCI-E equivalent (or something very close) for your current motherboard.
The money you save on buying a PCI-E card and not to mention the better performance/value would make it worthwhile.
I recently upgraded a socket 754 3000+ that was running with an AGP 6800GT to a PCI-E board and 1900XT for less than the price of an AGP 7800.
Ended up being cheaper, running Oblivion so much better and means I have a half decent graphics card when I go for the new system before the end of the year.
Socket 754 machines are obsolete. Your machine won for two reasons:
1. 3DMark is not an SMP-aware program, which means you had his CPU beat by more than 400MHz. He had just one 2.2GHz core working for 3DMark.
2. Your video card is significantly faster than his is. His was a budget video card no faster than a 9700 Pro, yours is designed to be three generations faster.
Socket 754 is obsolete because it's not natively PCI-Express, it's now strictly a Sempron platform, and no further development will be done on chipsets for it. It's deader than a doornail for anyone other than budget-conscious people today.
I know "doctah thrax" is essentially right! I would never recommend to anyone to build a 754 platform pc. However not every 754 is useless for today's environment, and by no means are they POS's.
I recently upgraded a socket 754 3000+ that was running with an AGP 6800GT to a PCI-E board and 1900XT for less than the price of an AGP 7800.
Ended up being cheaper, running Oblivion so much better and means I have a half decent graphics card when I go for the new system before the end of the year.
Can you explain more please! A 1900XT is more then a 7800GS.
I would never recommend to anyone to build a 754 platform pc. However not every 754 is useless for today's environment, and by no means are they POS's
They are only dead as far as "upgradeability"
I agree, Zuntar.. 754 is still a very capable platform with a decent chip in it. Not a whole lot slower than single-core 939 for the most part. Not a good choice for a new machine as you mentioned, but still very capable.
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In my book if you are looking to go over $150 you need to seriously think about the rest of the system.
HOWEVER, I had just replaced my mobo when my graphics card died, and knew i wasn't going to have the money to upgrade to 939 or am2, so I went for it. If you can upgrade your system, then do it First! If you can't, then it's not a bad option as long as you can deal with the fact that it will be harded to warrent an upgrade for a long time. My 2 cents.
The money you save on buying a PCI-E card and not to mention the better performance/value would make it worthwhile.
I recently upgraded a socket 754 3000+ that was running with an AGP 6800GT to a PCI-E board and 1900XT for less than the price of an AGP 7800.
Ended up being cheaper, running Oblivion so much better and means I have a half decent graphics card when I go for the new system before the end of the year.
Athlon X2 4200+, A8N-SLI NF4 mobo , 2Gb OCZ EL DDR Platinum ram, and an XFX 7600GT graphics card.
My rig beat his in 3dmark 05 and in 06. My rig specs are in sig. Socket 754's are not obsolete.
1. 3DMark is not an SMP-aware program, which means you had his CPU beat by more than 400MHz. He had just one 2.2GHz core working for 3DMark.
2. Your video card is significantly faster than his is. His was a budget video card no faster than a 9700 Pro, yours is designed to be three generations faster.
Socket 754 is obsolete because it's not natively PCI-Express, it's now strictly a Sempron platform, and no further development will be done on chipsets for it. It's deader than a doornail for anyone other than budget-conscious people today.
I know "doctah thrax" is essentially right! I would never recommend to anyone to build a 754 platform pc. However not every 754 is useless for today's environment, and by no means are they POS's.
They are only dead as far as "upgradeability".;)
Can you explain more please! A 1900XT is more then a 7800GS.
I agree, Zuntar.. 754 is still a very capable platform with a decent chip in it. Not a whole lot slower than single-core 939 for the most part. Not a good choice for a new machine as you mentioned, but still very capable.