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View Full Version : 300$ to burn

jltor
05-16-2003, 03:09 PM
Ok, I have about 300(plus maybe a little more if I do well in vegas this weekend) to spend on a new processor and G-card. I have an asus azn8x deluxe mobo and 2x256 geil 3500 ram. what to do, what to do...?
Thanks for any suggestion.
Budfred
05-16-2003, 03:44 PM
Chances are good that when you get back from Vegas you will have about $30, so you could buy a nice CDRW (after rebates)....:D
jltor
05-16-2003, 03:49 PM
Chances are...but lets say I blow it all in vegas but come back and am able to earn 300$ by selling myself on the streets, then what parts would ya recommend? I am thinking ATI RADEON 9500 PRO $181 and ATHLON XP 2500 "Barton" 333 FSB PROCESSOR CPU $123. HOws that sound?
Budfred
05-16-2003, 03:51 PM
The Barton sounds good if your motherboard will support it. The video card will have to wait for someone more knowledgeable about such things to stop by....
saphalline
05-16-2003, 04:22 PM
The 9500 Pro is quite an impressive video card, certainly better than the 9600/Pro (more pipelines), but I will make another suggestion.

The 9500 Pro's are around $175-205 on Newegg. For about $240, you can snag a 9700 (non-Pro) and get a nice boost in games! Probably not regular games at normal settings, but once you start doing 1280 x 1024 with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the 9700 takes command! :D
jltor
05-16-2003, 05:32 PM
Isnt it possible to oclock the 9500 pro to 9700 speeds?
saphalline
05-16-2003, 09:23 PM
You can get it up to the speeds, yes, but the 9500 Pro only has a 128-bit RAM width while the 9700's have 256-bit. So even at the same speeds, the 9500 Pro would have half the RAM bandwidth of the 9700! For the price, the 9700 is more future-proof.

And hey, you can OC the 9700 to 9700 Pro speeds! :D
jltor
05-16-2003, 09:38 PM
I got the 9500 pro and the xp 2500. Thanks!
killercow
05-16-2003, 11:28 PM
How do you overclock the gcards speeds. I got a gforce3 ti200. I can overclock the processor which I found out quite easily. But I haven't really found a way to overclock the gcard.
saphalline
05-20-2003, 06:21 AM
I use Powerstrip (http://www.entechtaiwan.com/ps.htm). Handy little utility that does much more than overclock your graphics card. Well worth the DL.