Article by Brad "BRC64" Cochran
Design by Allan "Zardon" Campbell

 

Introduction:
It is a well known fact that the computer industry is always moving forward at a rapid rate. Hardware that is top-of-the-line today may be obsolete tomorrow. Some gamers are fortunate enough to be able to keep up with these changes, but I was not. For the last couple of years, I had been using the following system:

ATI All-in-Wonder 8500DV
Intel Pentium 3 1.0 GHz (133 MHz FSB)
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2
MSI-6337 i815E Motherboard
512 MB PC100 SDRAM
Maxtor 120 GB 7200rpm ATA100 hard drive
Maxtor 40 GB 7200rpm ATA100 hard drive
Yamaha 16x10x40 CD-RW
Pioneer 105S 40x Slot-loading DVD-ROM
Generic 3.5” floppy drive
Premier ATX 300W PSU

When it comes to older games (Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and even Return to Castle Wolfenstein), this setup has been adequate. For newer games (Unreal Tournament 2003, Star Trek: Elite Forces 2, and Serious Sam 2, for example), my system was beginning to show its age. I would consider myself lucky to be able to run a game at 800x600 with most of the details turned up. Anti-aliasing? Forget that. Anisotropic filtering? No way.

After being unemployed for several months, I finally found some work. With that, came a steady paycheck. Once I paid off some bills, I decided that it was finally time to upgrade my aging computer. Looking to get the best performance for the smallest amount of money, I opted for an AMD upgrade path. This would entail getting a new processor, motherboard, RAM, and (to be safe) a new power supply:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (333 MHz FSB)
EPoX 8RDA+ nForce2 Motherboard
512 MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM (1 stick)
Antec SmartPower 400W PSU

I ran a series of benchmarks before and after the upgrade, and I found some interesting results. As I expected, the performance bottleneck on my system shifted from the CPU to my video card.

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