Processor upgrade. Worth it?

[Guest]

Hi All;I currently have an AMD 1.4gig T-Bird with 512mb DDR. I am thinking of upgrading to an AMD XP2000 (1.67gig). Will this make a marked difference in frame rates, or would I be better off going for a video upgrade from my geForce2 64mb to a GeForce4600 128mb card? I know FS2002 is a CPU hog more than a video GPU hog. Any thoughts?Thanks.

[Guest KenG]

This is just my personal opinion.You probably won't see a dramatic increase by upping the CPU from a 1.4 to a 1.67 GHz. While the AMD XP chips are nicer than the older ones, you're not going to see a lot by this upgrade. The XP2000 hype by AMD relates to Intel chips, not other AMD chips. You usually need to increase processor speed by a factor of at least 2 to see a dramatic difference.Upgrading the video card isn't probably going to result in huge framerate increases either. FS2002 doesn't utilize many of the features of the GF4 cards. You would be able to enable some more eye candy (higher FSAA, AF), but you won't be able to increase FS sliders above where they are and see increases.Now I'm using a PIII 800 with a GF2 32MB card. I'm planning on upgrading to a PIV 2.X with a Granite Bay motherboard soon. After that, I'll get a new video card, but probably not a GF4 4600. That's overkill considering I don't play fps games and 3DMark scores don't impress me. The new Radeon 9700 (not Pro) cards look nice, but are still pretty expensive. The Ti4200 seems to overclock to pretty nice levels and should give more than sufficient performance if FS is what you play around with the most.

[Guest outtatimeiii]

Based on past exerience flying in FS2002 with a AMD K6-400 up until this month, I can definately tell that a CPU upgrade is worth it.My new system, a AMD 1.2GHz with 256MB RAM, had a nVidia Vanta 8MB in it, FS2002 ran smooth (15-20FPS mostly). I purchased a Radeon 7200 64MB a few weeks ago and it only made the fps go up to 30 at ground level with all sliders maxed, but improved the eye candy a LOT.Hope this helps

[Guest]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll probably OC the 1.4 a little. I should be able to get at least 1.5 easy. The 4200 cards look like a better deal right now than the 4600. Maybe for christmas. :D

[MKaprocki 3]

The 2000+ would be a great upgrade, but the XP 2800+ is right around the corner. If I were you, I would wait for that!MattAsus A7V333Athlon XP 2000+512MB Samsung PC2700Gainward Geforce4 4600 GS

[michal 44]

Just read recently in a computer magazine that upgrade that won't at least double your CPU speed makes absolutely no sense from the financial standpoint.Michael J.