PC Upgrade
- Thread starter Mick_Berg
- Start date
johnwhelan
Well-known member
www.tomshardware.com benchmarks show AMD cpus to be at the lower end of the market. Intel is better for performance at the moment. Also on the graphic front have a look at their price performance benchmarks.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-price,2323.html
I get the impression this is low end of the market. Compare it to a Dell XPS, i7 core, 3 gigs of memory, 500 mb hard drive, with an Ati 4850 and acheap sound blaster card comes with upgrade to Windows 7. $924.
You can spend more.
Cheerio John
Stagefright
Joined Feb 21, 2001
I am really afraid of buying stuff from Ebay, but that's just me. My thoughts:
- The hard drive is way too small.
- Windows Basic is only 32-bit and cannot use all of the 4 gb of RAM.
- Save your money - don't get the floppy drive unless you absolutely need it for legacy diskettes.
- $507 is way too much for this pc. Keep looking.
Darrel
johnwhelan
Well-known member
I think you can do better than this for the price and I think its low end for Trainz.
Cheerio John
If that is low end fot Trainz, what is mine? (see below). Now 6.5 years old and I am still satisfied with it. I did upgrade the memory and video. It replaced the computer I started Trainz with, 450MHz, ~385 meg of RAM and a Voodoo3 16meg video card. That was a bit below Trainz spec.
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johnwhelan
Well-known member
If that is low end fot Trainz, what is mine? (see below). Now 6.5 years old and I am still satisfied with it. I did upgrade the memory and video. It replaced the computer I started Trainz with, 450MHz, ~385 meg of RAM and a Voodoo3 16meg video card. That was a bit below Trainz spec.
Yes but if you were buying today it would be considered on the low end, you have to remember that it has to last the next 6 years. Mine is about 4 or 5 years old these days it struggles with the full route in TC3.
Cheerio John
Okay then. I only have like, maybe, one hundred some dollard with me, and most of it is going towards my college fund. But, I am writing a book. Maybe I can make enough money to earn one of THESE:
CyberPower Black Pearl
But then again, by the time the book would be published and I would have enough money, there would be an even BETTER gaming pc out on the market. What say you.
CyberPower Black Pearl
But then again, by the time the book would be published and I would have enough money, there would be an even BETTER gaming pc out on the market. What say you.
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Instead of custom build have a look for standard machines in your price range, HP / Dell. The other thing might be to build your own. If you are doing the college thing you'll probably need a note book so why not research note books that can run Trainz? That way you can kill two birds with one stone. How long before you go to college?
Cheerio John
johnwhelan
Well-known member
OK what exactly do you have at the moment? Perhaps we can spot a bottleneck on that.
Cheerio John
Don't laugh, but a Compaq Presario Windows XP Home Edition 2002 at 2.13GHz, 756MB of RAM, 40 GB of free hard drive space, and a 32MB S3 ProSavagge DDR Video card with DirectX 9. This computer is WAYYY too old to run a program like TS2009, so that's why I'm trying to get a new one.
Here's the specs on the computer I run Trainz 2006 on:
Asus M3A76 Motherboard w/ built in AMD 760G graphics 700 mb.
AMD Athlon 7750 Black Edition 2.71
4 GB DDR2 memory
512GB SATA H/D
I run XP Pro on mine but will upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out in October.
The Motherboard is a "micro" board so it is small compared to some others. I put it in a Foxconn TW-01 case.
I was using another system to run this program but I built this system dedicated to Trainz. The other system cost me almost 4 grand. I can run Crysis on it and it doesn't even blink. The CPU, and 16GB of memory are all liquid cooled. I'll post a picture of it sometime.
Asus M3A76 Motherboard w/ built in AMD 760G graphics 700 mb.
AMD Athlon 7750 Black Edition 2.71
4 GB DDR2 memory
512GB SATA H/D
I run XP Pro on mine but will upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out in October.
The Motherboard is a "micro" board so it is small compared to some others. I put it in a Foxconn TW-01 case.
I was using another system to run this program but I built this system dedicated to Trainz. The other system cost me almost 4 grand. I can run Crysis on it and it doesn't even blink. The CPU, and 16GB of memory are all liquid cooled. I'll post a picture of it sometime.
Hot_Box_Detector
Member
don't forget the power supply ...
Seems as though most folks overlook the power supply. A 450 watt supply is inadequate, in my opinion. ANY PC should have 650W minimum. I have found that most graphics cards suck power, especially ATI. When they do, as in when you are running Trainz, it impacts the performance of the whole machine.
And, don't buy the cheap chinese ones. Buy a well known brand. Google or otherwise look around on the net. You get what you pay for.
Seems as though most folks overlook the power supply. A 450 watt supply is inadequate, in my opinion. ANY PC should have 650W minimum. I have found that most graphics cards suck power, especially ATI. When they do, as in when you are running Trainz, it impacts the performance of the whole machine.
And, don't buy the cheap chinese ones. Buy a well known brand. Google or otherwise look around on the net. You get what you pay for.
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Go to www.crucial.com and get their scanner for checking memory. See if it will go to 2 or 3 gigs. Hopefully it might even tell you if its an ATI video card or a pci express card. Even if its an AGP video card a new card will cost about $100-$120 from newegg and something like a 3850 might even squeeze in your power supply.
Hard drives are cheap. What monitor do you have and what do you run it at?
We need to figure out exactly what you have. The precise model number of HP and the style of case. The 2.13 GHz sounds like an AMD cpu which would put it at around P4 2.4 which is not impossible for Trainz.
Upgrading means you don't have to buy a new copy of Windows for a start.
Cheerio John
In my not so humble opinion, get a better video card. I suspect you have an AGP video slot on your mother board. I do(see below). Six months ago I replaced my video card with the best I could find for AGP. That was merely an NVidea 6200. Still, I suspect that is a major step up from what you have now. Next, 2G of RAM.
Well, I can tell you this, its WAYYY too old for upgrading. I mean, a seven year old computer upgraded to the gaming pc of my fancy? I don't think that'll happen. The previous owner of this computer I'm using now upgraded it all he could, but now its just too old and I've not much money. EDIT: Well, I just went to Crucial, and all I can upgrade to is 1GB of memory. You see now why I'm trying to get a new computer? This one is WAYYY too old.
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Rougespear7mm
Canadian DEM Provider
Maybe head out for a summer job? I know I was working full-time out on the dairy farm at 14/15...
johnwhelan
Well-known member
Try kingston.com for a second opinion. Have you found the link on the HP site to the max memory etc?
Cheerio John
I received all the bits today. Very quick free shipping from Newegg. I'd just like some assurance from one of you computer geek types. I have to use a IDE-SATA adapter on my HDD, as the new motherboards only have one IDE connector, and I need to keep my CDROM and DVD drives. Am I likely to encounter problems when I start the new rig up, in terms of the computer finding the HDD? I guess I will have to alter the BIOS to point it to the first SATA connector, right?
Thanks,
Mick Berg.
Mick: You can alter the setup to point it to your drive if you want. As a default, most boards point to the CD drive first.
In answer to your questions regarding problems at start up, there should be none as long as you have your jumpers set correctly, which most come preset and you shouldn't have to change.
If you have any problems, shoot me a PM and I'll do what I can to help you
In answer to your questions regarding problems at start up, there should be none as long as you have your jumpers set correctly, which most come preset and you shouldn't have to change.
If you have any problems, shoot me a PM and I'll do what I can to help you