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What was YOUR biggest system performance jump ever?

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Max0r

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Location
Chicago Burbs
This was mine... (you will see the format, before/after)

BEFORE
Several years ago I was using a 200 MHz Pentium 2 Dell with a 20GB 5400 RPM hdd (quantums rock!) and 32 megs of PC-66 RAM... using Windows 98 SE... the video card didn't even support OpenGL... I played Starcraft on it, as well as Quake 1 and Quake 2 at like 320x200 and 320x240 respectively (ran pretty well, hehe). Diablo 1 ran awesome on it, Diablo 2... well... I tolerated the extreme lag because I loved the game so much. And this was the system I played with at LAN parties.. my friend's system, an HP 450 MHz P3 with 256MB RAM (or 128) and a voodoo 5 PCI, totally smoked mine.

This system was so bad that 80% of my time spent outside of games was waiting for the pagefile swap to clear up.

AFTER
750 MHz Duron (underclocked to 500 due to horrible cooling), ABIT KT7-A, 768MB PC-133 RAM @ 100 (the clincher!), Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, 80 GB seagate 5400 rpm, Windows 2000!

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! Completely smoked my old system... most likely it was the RAM. No more virtual memory swap lag, everything was so SMOOTH... and I could finally run the hottest new games I had to try out... Half Life, Q3A... Counter-Strike, UT!!!!!!! w000t!!!!!!! It was great having 20-30 things open and not lagging :D

Since then I've never exprienced such an insane performance jump, but I have nonetheless experienced big ones (but nothin close to this)... but I'll save those for another time :)

:beer:
 
This was a Great jump My Dad DID: (With My Help.. hehehe )

Before:
XP 1800+
512 MB Ram
Geforce3Ti500

After

AMD Athlong X2 4200+
1024 MB Ram
Geforce 7800GT


Another jump -- Using parts from This old one..


Before:
PIII 650
256MB Ram
RIVA TNT2

After:

AMD XP 1800+
512MB RAM
Radeon 9600XT
 
It is hard for me to decide but it is between the two:

286 @16MHz, 640KB ram, 30MB HD, DOS 3.1, VGA graphics w/ 15" Goldstar VGA monitor

To:

P1 @90MHz, 16MB ram, 1.6GB HD, Win 95, SVGA graphics w/1MB memory...but the same Goldstar VGA monitor :(


Or...

P1 @133MHz, 128MB ram, 1.6GB HD, win98, integrated Daytona graphics w/1MB memory, crappy 15" SVGA compaq monitor

To:

P4 @3GHz, 1GB ram, 120GB HD, winXP pro, Radeon 7200 VIVO, crappy interlaced 17" monitor
 
In a rather short time I did the following:

K6-2-450, 256mb, 20gb maxtor 7200, Riva tnt (I think a tnt) to a

P3-600B, 512mb, same 20gb drive, same vid card, to a

AthlonXP 2000+, 512mb pc2700, 80gb seagate, Ti4200.

=p
 
I usually make pretty steady large jumps, ie:
900mhz Athlon to a stock XP 2100+ (and 512mb to 1gb)
XP 2100+ to a mobile XP 2600+ at 2.4ghz
The mobile XP to my now Opteron 146 at 2.7ghz (and 1gb to 2gb)
Next jump will probably be an X2 hopefully around 3.0ghz

Video cards are kinda the same way:
Ti4200 to a 6800NU (and 6800GS when I switched to PCI-e)
Next jump will either be a high 7-series or possibly a mid-range 8-series

Granted, this covers the past 5 years or so.....I usually upgrade small stuff every 6 months, and large upgrades are usually 1-1.5 years. (large stuff usually also means an OS reinstall)
 
Before:
-Compaq Computer
-2.7ghz Celeron
-256MB system RAM
-onboard video

AFTER:
-My Sig. Rig :D

Currently, the biggest increase in performance that I've NOTICEABLY seen with my own system, is OCing my 9800XT's memory by 40mhz...I noticed a HUGE jump in FPS while playing F.E.A.R. it went up by 15-20FPS and I can now play it fairly smoothly online.
 
p4 2.4ghz
some asus board
512mb ram
TI4400
40gb hdd

To

amd 64 3700+
asrock 939dual-sataII
1gb geil pc-3200
80gb hdd
Xfx 6800GS PCI-E
450 modstream

and then to

Amd 64 X2 4400+ 89W
Dfi Lanparty Ultra-D
320gb Seagate 7200.10 Sata
2gb Gskill Extreme DDR500
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Zs
Gigabyte DVD/RW
X1800XT 512mb
OCZ 600Watt Gamexstream

:) love my current rig
 
Celeron 600 (P3 based) 64MB PC100

toooo
Pentium 4 @ 2.6 Ghz with a gig of ram

tooooo
3200+ Clawhammer with a gig of ram.. Not much of a jump there but yeah.. thats my basic computer history!
 
Before

Celeron 466mhz
256mb PC66 SDRAM

After

Athlon XP 1600+
768mb PC2100 DDR

That was the biggest jump, everything else has been incremental. I used the Celeron as my main system for a long time.
 
I think I win this one.

Before:

Pentium I 96MHz (what a beast)
Diamond Multimedia 3D Accelerator 4MB
128MB RAM

After:

Pentium 4 2.4B
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
512MB PC-2100 RAM

Although mech warrior 2 did run really smooth for quite some time. And somehow it managed to play Flight Simulator 2000. No joke.
 
I can't say for sure which my biggest was, but there where two big jumps. First from a P1 133/64mb ram/4mb gpu/6gb hdd, to a P3 850/256mb ram/16mb gpu/40gb hdd. The next big jump was from that P3 to a Celeron 2.4 at 4.2/1gb ram/120gb hdd/6600GT. The latter was probably the biggest boost I guess, but the P1 to P3 was a huge deal to me too, it let me play a ton of games that I had been drooling over.
 
Seven said:
I think I win this one.
Before:
Pentium I 96MHz (what a beast)
Diamond Multimedia 3D Accelerator 4MB
128MB RAM
After:
Pentium 4 2.4B
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
512MB PC-2100 RAM
Although mech warrior 2 did run really smooth for quite some time. And somehow it managed to play Flight Simulator 2000. No joke.
You won.

As for myself...
Before: Intel P4 1.7Ghz Radeon 7800, 700mb ram.
After: Da' current rig in ma' sig. At 2.6Ghz 24/7.
 
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ / 512mb RAM / 9600

AMD 64 3000+ / 2GB RAM / X1800GTO

Nothing amazing, really, but I did notice, especially since I could play most games on high settings with no lag :p
 
I think my biggest jump was from an AMD 486 DX4 120MHz to an AMD K6-2 450, and the next would be the k6-2 to a Duron 1GHz.
 
First:
Compaq Presario 450mhz, 64mb PC66 ram, 10 gig Quantom HD, Windows 98, 2mb video card.

Second:
AMD XP 2000+, 512mb PC2600 ram, 32 TNT2 video card, 100 gig HD, Windows 2000

Third:
Pentium 4 3ghz HT, 1.5 gig PC3200, 128MB Geforce 5200, 2x 80 gig, Windows XP

Fourth:
E6400 Core 2 Duo, 2x 1gig PC6400 ram, 1x 74 gig Raptor, 1x 250 gig, 1x 400 gig, Geforce 6800XT
 
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