Gaming Buyer's Guide - November 2004
by Jarred Walton on November 21, 2004 5:54 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Conclusion
The past few months have been huge for gamers. First came the long-awaited Doom 3 and now we have Half-Life 2 - not to mention the numerous other titles that are eagerly awaited. Surprisingly, both games can scale down with slower systems quite well. However, those looking to get the most out of their system should now have a lot of ideas for upgrades. As our recent look at the CPU and GPU scaling of Half-Life 2 have shown, a 2.4 GHz/2400+ processor paired with a moderate graphics is sufficient for running at low to medium detail levels. Older Pentium 3 and Athlon systems will have difficulty running modern games, and for such systems, a full upgrade is in order. We have provided options to fit any budget ranging from $800 to several thousand dollars.That wraps it up for this Buyer's Guide. We are doing our best to mix things up a bit and provide different perspectives on the market. We hope that you appreciate the variation, as we often feel that things can get bogged down with repeating the same recommendations month after month. As always, let us know if we're doing the right thing or if you prefer more consistency in our Guide format. Of course, this is just our recommendation based on currently available parts, so feel free to include your own comments and suggestions if you disagree.
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JarredWalton - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
Xsilver - We really don't know when AGP will be fully phased out. It could be mostly gone in a year, or it could stick around for four more years. With NVIDIA's HSI bridge chip, they should be able to continue to support AGP as long as it's a reasonable market, and with dramatically faster processors more or less on hold for a year or so, I would expect AGP to continue to get support for at least two years. It might come a little later than the latest PCIe cards, but that's better than nothing.Regarding the choice of motherboards, right now I would have to go with the Abit or ASUS boards over the Gigabyte. Some people like Gigabyte a lot, but I'm not really one of them. The boards always seem to have issues - my one Athlon XP system with a Gigabyte board has constant "overheating" problems, even though temps never actually break 60 C. The motherboard *thinks* the CPU is running too hot. I've never been seriously disappointed by Abit or ASUS, so that's what I would take.
Moletus: the 6800LE is available, mostly in Europe, but short of unlocking the extra pipelines there's no real reason to go with it. The 6600GT is close in performance to the 6800, and the LE is going to have the same number of pipelines with a lower clockspeed. If you can't find the 6600GT, or if you want to take a chance on unlocking the extra pipelines, the 6800LE is worth a shot.
xsilver - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
Also some news on WHEN Agp is going to be phased out would be good.... are the next gen nvidia/ati products still going to be availble with AGP? if not, it would make sense to switch now?xsilver - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
I am considering the second AMD option -- want to know more about the choice of motherboardsWhere I am, only the abit, asus a8v and gigabyte "Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939" are abailable which is nf3 based...
I've heard good things about the nf3 but bad things about this particular gigabyte board.... is the abit still the way to go? the gigabyte is actually the cheapest though... marginally
The MSI nf3 is also availble but is $45 more..
Is the abit going to be the most stable with the best ability for good overclocks?
And on stock cooling/voltage how much could be extracted out of the 3000+ / 939? is 2.4ghz guaranteed?
thebluesgnr - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
This guide bothers to add an option for those who want an Intel processor because there are AT readers that prefer Intel platforms (processor+chipset), even knowing gaming performance is a little better on AMD.I'm not one of those readoers though ;)
Pollock - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
I assume stock cooling for all processors......but what about the OEM 3000+? $140 at Monarch...
moletus - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
You really cant blame Intel only machines for stability problems. (just finished playing hl2 with p3-800 and ati 8500, and no im not a masochist) And on the long run i think Intel boxes will outlive any Amd counterpart, and yes i would buy Amd too :)MAME - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
oh, the only thing I am curious about is why even bother putting the Intel counterparts in there in the first place? AMD has the clear advantage over Intel in gaming. Since Intel's offerings are more expensive and perform worse, I really don't see a reason to go that route.moletus - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
Hey where is 6800le ? i havent seen a single thing about it, even thou you can buy one.. atleast in europe, no benchies no nuttin :( i woulda bet that beats any price/performance ratio when you get those pixel pipes running (with luck:)MAME - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link
prepare to be bombarded by everyone who thinks they can save $2 and build a much better riganyway, looks pretty decent to me
Christian Fitchett - Thursday, February 20, 2020 - link
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