- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Heyyo,
Err yeah dude, there's AMD Ahtlon 64 boards... or selse me bud wouldn't have one in his comp cause it requires a whole new socket setup (Socket A).
Geting an Ahtlon 64, IMHO, right now is a little useless unless you get Windows XP the 64-bit edition, and games and programs that are 64-bit optimized. The only game I know is Far Cry. Most games right now are 32-bit, so your frames wouldn't be boosted that much higer dude. Wait a while for 64-bit technology to become more mainstream, then you can spend a helluva lot of cash onnit. ;)
Yeah, I forgot to mention this, the only part that might not handle that vid card is your power supply unit (PSU). Make sure it has enough wattage to be able to hand it, cause that vid card's gonna sap up a lot of power. Just post it's Watt's here on these forums, that should give us a better idea. So yeah, as long as your PSU is big enough, you can handle any vid card dude. =D
So yeah, buy the x800 card, it'll work fine, just remember for newer games you need usually 1gig of ram to keep a smooth framerate. Halo's fine on 512mb of RAM, but Tribes: Vengeance? well, I've gotta order of another stick of 512mb of generic PC3200 RAM on the way, to be delivered this thursday. =)
That makes me think, are you worried aboot constant framerates? (like, frames go on new games normal at 60F/S, and then every once inna while, drop down to 4F/S?) or is it that you want a higher quality gaming experience? (Like, crank that rez, and textures, shadows, specular lighting, the works in other words)
For constant framerates, get another stick of ram like me, but for a higher quality gaming experience get a bigger vid card (and maybe a bigger PSU to support it..).
That vidcard is plenty good btw, I have a 9600 PRO myself, sure, you can't crank the rez, but you can at least see the game with nice graphics settings. ;)
BTW, I dug up that Tom's Hardware link up myself, cause I'mma nice guy. On the left under related links, you can see VGA Charts III, that one has the Halo benchmark. Here's the IV chart link starting with 3Dmark 03 tests:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-0 4.html#3dmark_2003
[Edited on 10/20/2004 10:06:35 AM]