PC upgrade suggestions

[Gurar]

Friend made me a great deal on a Pentium D820 with an Intel 945P motherboard a while ago and it has been just sitting at home.  My current system is an AMD 64 3700 San Diego with 2 Gigs of Ram.  I am 2 and 3 boxing most of the time and even with WinEQ2 I find it laggy at times with my current system.  Will the 820 make a better system to box with?  Or should I look at an upgrade to my box? If I upgrade my system should I go with more ram or an x2 processor, kind of limited budget so can't really do both?  It's hard to find any comparison tests between the Intel dual cores and AMD that would seam to apply to running everquest.

Thank you for your time
Gurar 70 Beastlord on Tarew Marr  :-D

[Vidyne]

Athlon64 3700 San Diego
2x 1024mb dual channel PC3200
Geforce6600 256mb AGP 8x

I experience mild-moderate lag in Valdeholm/Ruins of Illisan/Plane of Knowledge with this setup with shadows, advanced lighting, radial flora, tattoos, and sky turned off.

According to everyone I talk to, there should be no lag /shrug.

Eh my system just very similar to yours, so wanted to chime in, though I really don't have anything useful to add.  I'm just playing one character too, not multiboxing.

[Gurar]

It helps.  I've got a 7800GTX PCI express video and the same ram set up x2 1 Gig sticks.  I know I have advanced lighting and shadows turned off, but I like to run simple sky.  Like you I'm seeing the lag in the same spots not all over.  I'll turn off the sky and see if that helps smoth things out.

Gurar
70 Beastlord on Tarew Marr

[Nusa]

Or you could build a second system from that. Performance issues when boxing tend to go away when each toon actually has their own box.

[Gurar]

 Doh.  It's been one of those weeks...  Nusa, thank you.  Was focused on running all the sessions on 1 PC I kind of forgot about running 2 PCs.

My thinking has been that if I didn't use the 820 for myself I was going to build the wife a new PC.  I won't be using anything out of her old PC to build the new one so I will end up with an "extra PC".  I've already got an extra monitor so I'll just set my desk up with 2 computers.  Problem solved. Thanks   

Gurar
70 Beastlord on Tarew Marr

[laissez]

I have a AMD 3600+ 2 512 mb 400mhz ram geforce 6600 256mb g-card
I experience no lag while 2 boxing cept when i'm in rss everything seems slow, who cares i never go there.  3 boxing I always have 1 char with black screen geomentry, mobs are ok windows are ok just floor and walls are black, dunno.

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 2.40GHz 4MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Service Pack 2 - With no Media Center Remote Control + TV Tuner
Memory: 2GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Graphics Processor: 256MB ATI RADEON™ X1800 XL w/ Avivo™
Monitor: Alienware Approved 17" 12ms Flat Panel - Black
Sound Card: High Definition 7.1 Audio - Standard
SubTotal: $2,299.00
Discount: $199.00

[1] Area-51® 7500

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz 2MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP
Memory: 2GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Graphics Processor: 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7900 GT
Monitor: Alienware Approved 17" 12ms Flat Panel - Black
Sound Card: High Performance 7.1 Audio - Standard
SubTotal: $2,149.00
Shipping: --Discount: $0.00

dunno you price range but these would work extremely well boxing, if you are gettin a new computer the core duo is the way to go processor wise. G-card wise I've heard rumors that ati may have major advantages over the first set of DX10 cards, so ati seems to have a good thing going right now.

[Fightclubx]

I rum Athlon 64 dual core processor runs at 2.02ghz with 1.5gig of ram
I 2box with all textures at minimum but I have ALL luclin models turned on and I rarely if ever lag even in highly graphical area's (and still 2boxing)

its not all that great runs at 20-30 frames per second but thats plenty for EQ.

I plan on getting another 512 stick of ram and that should fix any lag problems I might run across

also I run with a GeForce 7600 GS with 512 megs of ram, that helps quite a bit, if I ever get rich i'll add another and use its SLI ability

I got the whole system for $$1500 or so, was a bit pricy but it was tax refund and therefore play money =P