Upgrade advice

Ryan0r

Ryan0r

Ryan0r

Associate
Joined
27 Feb 2009
Posts
498
Location
Angus
Hi gents. Long-time lurker, first-time poster. No better place for advice.


I'm desperate to upgrade my aging setup, but am unsure where to start.

Current setup:
Pentium D 820 2.8GHz @ 3.23GHz
Alpine 7 Pro HSF
2GB Crucial Ballistix
ASRock 4Core-Dual VSTA board
AGP ATI X1950 Pro 256MB
480w Hiper PSU

It plays GRID and Left 4 Dead adequately, but i'd really like to play GTA IV. It's quietly gathering dust, being completely unplayable at the mo.

I'm inclined to start with a CPU, as it's pretty bloody old. "Dual core!" I thought...:(
I'd love a Q6600, but they're still out of my budget, so have been looking at the new C2Duo Wolfdale E7500; found one for £98. That should drop right into my board. A newer generation of CPU should make a lot of difference right? Should i also try and replace that board or will it do me just now if i plop a newer CPU in it?

I've also been offered an 8800 GTS 320MB. Is it pointless to put one of those into my current setup? The Pentium D won't do it justice, will it?

Many thanks for your thoughts :)
 
upgrade the board to an asus p5q pro and reject the 8800. get eithier a 48501gb or a 48701gb instead. change the psu to a corsair or enermax one of the same voltage, hiper psu's are known to go bang and if this happens as you proberbly know damage could occur to your new hardware also get another 2gb of ram. thats where i would start with this upgrade
 
Yeah, to be honest it's not really worth upgrading. You're better off saving another month and getting a whole new comp.

With i7 out prices are pretty low for older gen processors so you can get amazing deals.
 
PCDave said:
upgrade the board to an asus p5q pro and reject the 8800. get eithier a 48501gb or a 48701gb instead. change the psu to a corsair or enermax one of the same voltage, hiper psu's are known to go bang and if this happens as you proberbly know damage could occur to your new hardware also get another 2gb of ram. thats where i would start with this upgrade
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Thanks buddy, but woaaaah there :) That little lot will set me back a few bob. I'm only looking to spend between £100 - £200 at the moment. Stupidly big mortgage means i have to upgrade iteratively. I'm looking for the weakest link to replace i suppose :)
 
Ryan0r said:
Thanks buddy, but woaaaah there :) That little lot will set me back a few bob. I'm only looking to spend between £100 - £200 at the moment. Stupidly big mortgage means i have to upgrade iteratively. I'm looking for the weakest link to replace i suppose :)
Click to expand...

in which case id do the boring upgrade first of a psu, and add another 2gb of ram. then when you have some spare cash left over one month upgrade the rest
 
Is a PSU upgrade that necessary? That Hiper aint all that old and appears to be doing its job :( I'm thinking, from my digging over the last few days, that i'll get most noticeable difference with a CPU upgrade, no? Pent D 820's seem to be notoriously power-hungry, so a newer, more energy efficient CPU will help? And then i can clock the arse out of it.

Edit: Oh, and the board can only take 2GB max. Apparently you can squeeze 4GB into it with some German BIOS update :/ Running XP Pro, so not fussed.
 
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Ended up getting a Wolfdale E7400. Very nice it is too; chewing up everything i've thrown at it. Plan now is to go PCIe graphics card, then a decent motherboard. (Can't get a motherboard first, even though it needs replaced most, as card is AGP, so would have nothing to put in it!)


Can i ask for a recommendation for a video card? As mentioned, i'm currently using an X1950 Pro AGP. Board can handle PCIe. Have got a Samsung 19" widescreen monitor, so aint going to stupid resolutions (native is 1440x900). From doing some reading on here, it seems to be a toss-up between a 4670 for about £60 or a 4830 for £80.

Which will give me most bang for buck while lasting me a wee while? Don't really want to spend more than £80 at the mo, so looks to be one of these. Would rather not get one of these 2nd hand, would prefer a warranty.

Also, the clocks on the 4830 appear to be slower? Does being a newer generation trump this?

- ATI Radeon HD 4830 GPU @ 575MHz
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory @ 1800MHz

- Powered by Radeon® HD 4670 GPU @ 750MHz
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory @ 2000MHz


Many thanks
 
Ryan0r said:
Just spotted the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 "XXX Edition" 512MB GDDR5 on This Week Only. Worth the extra dosh in the long-term?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-127-XF&groupid=701&catid=701&subcat=
Click to expand...

Yep I'd go for that if you can stretch to it - from what I've read up on the 4850 it's about parallel to my 8800GT card in most things, and it's slightly newer generation as well. My card does fine for 1440x900 in pretty much everything, only Crysis makes it seem a little on the weak side.
 
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