PC hardware/CPU advice

[jasonb885]

Originally Posted by ExMachina

Who here thinks they're running the slowest processor?

I'm trying to decide whether buying a new video card would allow my 4 year old 1.3GHz Athlon to run SH3 w/o frame rate problems...

The computer is (unfortunately) a Compaq, so upgrading the processor might be too tricky for my tastes since it's an OEM board

I guess it depends.

I find the TC compression lag unbearable on my Athlon XP 1800+, so I finally bought parts for a new rig.

I went with the cheaper Socket 754 and bought a 64-bit Sempron, a 1GB RAM, and a 6600GT AGP.

If that's not your thing, you'd need to buy a whole system from whoever.

If you're just having framerate issues, you could try to upgrade your video card, but with such an old machine that might be hit and miss. There's no guarantee the newest, AGP v3.0 cards will work in your machine. You'd have to check the specs and see if it supports AGP 3.0 cards or only AGP 2.0 and earlier cards.

Also, the PSU might not be powerful enough for a 6600 or 6800 or whatever the ATI equivalent cards are.

It might help if you mentioned what kind of video hardware is on your system?

In either case, Socket A is dead, so I wouldn't suggest paying a lot of money for a faster Socket A CPU. You'd want to either buy a new box or build a new system. (I'm partial to Socket 754 or 939, with 939 being the best for future proofing, but I'm sure someone has a favorite Intel equivalent, too.)