GOD

your stuck in a long 3 year contract that costs so much....

i recomend a better browser, i dont use anything and just install an antivirus every half year for a check up, and i never get anything. the only time you get virus's or other stuff is when you go to shaddy websites.... so just stop going to those bad websites and stop downloading random files.

glad to have helped. if you have any more questions or concerns please feel free to pm me! the only thing i cant help you with is getting a good deal in england, but i offered some ways around the evil vat taxes in my other post. enjoy your new card (once you get it). speaking of which, when are you expecting to get the new card? also did you choose the 8800 or 9500?

hmm, the 8800 gts is good. as long as it is the g92 version. also, looking as scan the 9500 is ~63 and the 8800 is ~ 130. in the us its 130 usd aprox, perhaps you should look at another website other than scan, or think about buying in usa (i think if its a gift they dont charge vat, as long as its under 200 im not too positive about this) at the very least you can have it mailed to some on in the us and they can mail it to you. though, id highly recomend you get the 8800 even if you have to save up for it a bit longer. the 8800 will last you a much longer time and you will enjoy the added graphics alot more. also, its unclear as to what you know, and what you dont know.... if your upgrading the pc yourself you should at least have basic knowledge. im just trying to help man..... if you have any questions or concerns ill be happy to help. im also a regular at hothardware.com, and i have built 3 computers myself and perform all the maintanence and overclocking. so i can help you with that latter on if you want (i suggest a small amount of overclocking for the gpu). also, your cpu will be limiting you with the 8800, but lets take this one step at a time. heres the order i recomend in upgrading 1- video card 2- ram 3- cpu/mobo since you will notice a huge boost from the video card, and less of a boost from ram and cpu i recomend you get that first. also, im not stating this so you end up upgrading needlessly, just stating the order of what to get so that you can still use the computer the whole time, and experience as much of a gain as possible. though honestly i think you will be fine with just the video card upgrade and perhaps an extra 512mb of ram.

they are, its been stated you have pci-e x16. as long as your power supply has the right connector you should be 99.9% fine. if it doesnt you can use an adaptor. just make sure your power supply is 500 watts or more. also, if you do use an adaptor, you will have to give up at least 2 molex connections, im assuming you dont use all of your molex however. also, check which version of the 8800 you get. while they will all be better than 9500, some versions of 8800 are faster than others. if you can post which ones you are thinking of and ill tell you which i think is better and why. hope i helped.

i said vista has loads of advantages over xp, just that in the lower spec computer cases vista should be avoided. speed advantages in terms of what? vista has some speed boosts over xp, but it has more (that i know of) cases of being slower. i agree vista x64 is good. also, there generally is less ram which you also agree, and which was my point. if a person has 1gb or 512mb of ram. the extra ram vista uses make some programs run slower. if you a person like me with 4gb or more of ram then ram isnt an issue. i stated before that vista should be used on higher end pc's. also polska, yes its basically that simple. however 1- i recomend you do a clean install. 2- i would suggest just downloading a torrent. microsoft charges for you to download or mail the discs of vista. (since, im assuming you own a legal copy of vista, downloading a torrent is not illegal.)

agreed. btw polka, you dont need to buy a new cd key! as long as you use the same VERSION (ie, ultimate, home, home premium) you dont need a new cd key. your old one will work just fine for 64 bit! hopefully i just saved you 240 dollars.

efficency is getting the most done with the least resources, and/or have better speed. windows xp is basically windows 2000 with a better gui (xp had little kernell improvments) and windows 2000 is much like nt. windows nt is still highly regarded as a good os, skipping windows 2000, xp is still more efficient than vista. vista has more "bells and whistles" but most of those are useless. i could get xp to use only 88mb of ram, vista has never dipped below 700. now if a person only has 1gb of ram all of those extra mb's vista uses means less for aps (though vista can, and will use a pagefile, it will still be slower, since by the very nature of a pagefile it will not beat the ras of ram, even if you do have a nice scsi array.). i didnt state vista is bad, its just that its overall slower. there can be no arguing its slower. having more features 99% of the time means slower. xp can run great with less ram usage, and is faster (look at data transfer times using hdbench on xp vs vista, or even vista's own file transfer timer, it takes much longer compared to xp). i can go even more indepth, but i think this should suffice. basically vista is slower by nature, not worse, just slower. if you have a fast machine than the impact of vista will barely be felt and you will most likely not care about that few fps drops because vista has aero, and other usefull features. however not everyone can take that hit of fps.

heh, sorry didnt see the budget of 5-700. that whole post was a joke for the never ending cycle of upgraditis. btw, since none of you caught the headphones... the headphones alone cost 800, way out of budget anyway for 5-700 you can have a great rig. q6600 radeon 4850 4gb ram dfi motherboard this should all be whitin the budget. i am assuming though that the thread starter doesnt mind keeping the same case, same hard drive, and already has a copy of windows.

they have desktop replacments :-p there are laptops that would beat 90% of peoples desktops. anyway back to the topic, and i know its been dead for a while.... vista is slower overall. you can not argue that! - vista has higher overhead and uses more resorces from the start. you can manage to run xp on under 128mb of ram, you cant for vista. vista uses almost 1gb of ram just from start up. this increased overhead is used for features like aero, user search, and other "nifty" but useless stuff. - vista uses a better gui which increases overhead on the gpu causing lower fps overall. try to go to windows classic view, and you should notice a slight bump in fps. - vista uses a brand new kernell, something completly different than xp, thus drivers (still!) arent as optimized as xp. overall though, xp does have better performance, but the decrease in speed in vista shouldnt be more than 10% at all. plus if you actually have a decent rig the speed decrease from running vista ends up being negligible (i dont mind loosing 10 fps from my 240 )

my suggestion and this should 99% gaurante a SIGNIFICANT increase in fps is this 1- back up all data on your hdd's 2- take apart whole computer, and dust everything off (this isnt really needed but you should clean your computer out every 3 months or so, and it helps lower temps a bit) 3- reinstall windows using a clean install (full format) 4- install the newest drivers for everything. 5- install css enjoy your new faster computer-

overheating would not be the cause of that much of a drop. most video cards can safely operate into the 90c range. which is quite frankly hard to reach. another reason why his card isnt overheating is because he is experiencing a loss of ~30fps. when video cards, or cpu's for that matter get too hot they are scaled down in speed. but not by 75%. there are safe operating clock ranges for both gpu and cpu, cutting down speed by 75% is not a safe operating spec. so its not overheating, though cleaning out the hsf never hurts!

9500, i dont know how your prices in the uk are, but for that price wouldnt you have been able to get a 8800? i know its "older" but it is faster. also how about just 1 4850? or 4870? also, you really should add another gb of ram!