Bottleneck for what purposes? I imagine the CPU is enough for regular game play but it'd choke if you tried say a 16 man super sized armies match, meanwhile it is probably making your editor experience miserable along with the (I'm guessing DDR2) ram's quantity and speed. Your video card is the strongest part of that computer, but also the biggest influence on how pretty you can choose the graphics settings to be. For making the game prettier your video card is your bottle neck, for the editor its all the rest of the components.
In general the CPU carries the heaviest burden in Sc2. The game doesn't use more than 2 cores, but a 2Ghz rate isn't exceptionally high.
A good CPU can drastically improve performance in said 16 man super sized army matches.
The 8800 GTS is good enough, I have one myself and I can fluently play everything on High graphics.
The RAM is still just about enough I'd say. Sc2 can eat up a lot lot of RAM, so I'd make sure not to have memory intensive programs running in the background (e.g. firefox. Mine's just having 300MB memory for dinner..) while playing to get some more performance in some cases.
I'd upgrade the RAM. Virtually any dual-core processor would be more or less on par with a 8800 GTS, I reckon, but 2 gigs of RAM is low in that combination. I'm also assuming you're running Vista or Windows 7, for which you really need more than 2 gigs. If you're running XP, you might want to consider the CPU or video card instead, though.
Thank you all for your replies! I think I've decided to upgrade Mobo, Processor and RAM since changing one means I have to change all. And seriously, DDR1 RAM and the AMD Athlon are very outdated anyway.
I think the graphics card will still be adequate for a few months.
Primarily for SC2 and Gothic 4: Arcania.
Of course, when Diablo 3 comes out, that's a whole different situation. :)
hmm i would upgrade your graphics card, your RAM is weird cos your say its only DDR dats old, but does your MBO only take DDR or will it take DDR3?, the thing about upgrading your ram its a wast of time to go over 4gbs of ram if you only have a 32bit os, and your CPU is all goody cos AMD are the best =P,
so if you don't have a 64bit OS don't wast of your time upgrading RAM, that isn't dat much different from 2 to 4 any way not for the cos,
question how much cache's is do you have??
a different thing u could upgrade if u want is your cpu lol only if you want to a 3.1 dual core, but those are the 2 things i would work on, so graphics card and cpu if u can
ram is meh dw if you only have 32bit OS
sigh you posted well i was typing this up oo well
AMD Athlon are very outdated anyway.
lol the Athlons are not old dated they can run must new games easily if u get a 3.0 or 3.2 one
i would't buy a new mobo just yet check if the mobo u got can read DDR3
Good plan and valid solution for sure, yah those higher end 8 series nvidia cards are still quite relevant for gaming. I'm using a 2x8800GTX pair myself and having nothing but praises for them. Just to ask though, do you know off hand if that 8800GTS & motherboard are PCIe or AGP? Its very likely PCIe but you really don't wanna find out too late it was actually an older AGP based board and more importantly card (card wouldn't work in newer motherboard if that's the case). I only ask because that era of AMD chips and especially learning the board is DDR1 there is a slight chance it might be oldschool about the video port as well.
@KiwiWarrior: Go
"MBO only take DDR or will it take DDR3?"
... :|
I'd uhm, don't worry we can handle this but really appreciate your enthusiasm. :)
what you need is to buy a desktop. xD My laptop has higher specs than that. Uhm, ram is probably your bottleneck because 8800 has only 256 mb video ram. Also, starcraft should run on high in your computer perfectly. If it doesnt you need to get rid of alot of laggy software running in the background.
Just to point something out, there are different variations of 8800 video cards...for instance his is a GTS which has 320mb of ram, you're thinking of the 8800GT which has yes 256, mine are GTXes and each have 768mb as another example. There are further differences between them that greatly widen the gap in performance you'd see from them all, but yah you can't really lump them into the same performance bracket by a long shot.
ED: and then you can find some crazy manufacturers like Palit who for some reason really like putting twice the spec'ed ram on their versions of the cards...
What should I upgrade:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (dual core at 2Ghz)
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS (320 mb graphics memory)
2 GB RAM (DDR at 1552 MB/s)
Thanks :)
I'd get a better graphics card, but you'd better listen to someone who actually knows something about hardware. :o
Bottleneck for what purposes? I imagine the CPU is enough for regular game play but it'd choke if you tried say a 16 man super sized armies match, meanwhile it is probably making your editor experience miserable along with the (I'm guessing DDR2) ram's quantity and speed. Your video card is the strongest part of that computer, but also the biggest influence on how pretty you can choose the graphics settings to be. For making the game prettier your video card is your bottle neck, for the editor its all the rest of the components.
@xytor: Go
In general the CPU carries the heaviest burden in Sc2. The game doesn't use more than 2 cores, but a 2Ghz rate isn't exceptionally high.
A good CPU can drastically improve performance in said 16 man super sized army matches.
The 8800 GTS is good enough, I have one myself and I can fluently play everything on High graphics.
The RAM is still just about enough I'd say. Sc2 can eat up a lot lot of RAM, so I'd make sure not to have memory intensive programs running in the background (e.g. firefox. Mine's just having 300MB memory for dinner..) while playing to get some more performance in some cases.
I'd upgrade the RAM. Virtually any dual-core processor would be more or less on par with a 8800 GTS, I reckon, but 2 gigs of RAM is low in that combination. I'm also assuming you're running Vista or Windows 7, for which you really need more than 2 gigs. If you're running XP, you might want to consider the CPU or video card instead, though.
Thank you all for your replies! I think I've decided to upgrade Mobo, Processor and RAM since changing one means I have to change all. And seriously, DDR1 RAM and the AMD Athlon are very outdated anyway. I think the graphics card will still be adequate for a few months. Primarily for SC2 and Gothic 4: Arcania.
Of course, when Diablo 3 comes out, that's a whole different situation. :)
@xytor:
hmm i would upgrade your graphics card, your RAM is weird cos your say its only DDR dats old, but does your MBO only take DDR or will it take DDR3?, the thing about upgrading your ram its a wast of time to go over 4gbs of ram if you only have a 32bit os, and your CPU is all goody cos AMD are the best =P,
so if you don't have a 64bit OS don't wast of your time upgrading RAM, that isn't dat much different from 2 to 4 any way not for the cos,
question how much cache's is do you have??
a different thing u could upgrade if u want is your cpu lol only if you want to a 3.1 dual core, but those are the 2 things i would work on, so graphics card and cpu if u can
ram is meh dw if you only have 32bit OS
sigh you posted well i was typing this up oo well
lol the Athlons are not old dated they can run must new games easily if u get a 3.0 or 3.2 one
i would't buy a new mobo just yet check if the mobo u got can read DDR3
Good plan and valid solution for sure, yah those higher end 8 series nvidia cards are still quite relevant for gaming. I'm using a 2x8800GTX pair myself and having nothing but praises for them. Just to ask though, do you know off hand if that 8800GTS & motherboard are PCIe or AGP? Its very likely PCIe but you really don't wanna find out too late it was actually an older AGP based board and more importantly card (card wouldn't work in newer motherboard if that's the case). I only ask because that era of AMD chips and especially learning the board is DDR1 there is a slight chance it might be oldschool about the video port as well.
@KiwiWarrior: Go "MBO only take DDR or will it take DDR3?"
... :|
I'd uhm, don't worry we can handle this but really appreciate your enthusiasm. :)
@xytor: Go
what you need is to buy a desktop. xD My laptop has higher specs than that. Uhm, ram is probably your bottleneck because 8800 has only 256 mb video ram. Also, starcraft should run on high in your computer perfectly. If it doesnt you need to get rid of alot of laggy software running in the background.
@happy04: Go
Just to point something out, there are different variations of 8800 video cards...for instance his is a GTS which has 320mb of ram, you're thinking of the 8800GT which has yes 256, mine are GTXes and each have 768mb as another example. There are further differences between them that greatly widen the gap in performance you'd see from them all, but yah you can't really lump them into the same performance bracket by a long shot.
ED: and then you can find some crazy manufacturers like Palit who for some reason really like putting twice the spec'ed ram on their versions of the cards...