3 Year Old Rig in need of an upgrade - ready for Witcher 2 and Skyrim

Van.Mildert

Van.Mildert

Van.Mildert

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Joined
30 May 2011
Posts
5
Hi All,
I have been a watcher of the site for a few years now, and would greatly appreciate some advice with regards to a few upgrades I need to make. I have a budget of £250 and am currently intending on getting a new GPU and some DDR3 ram.

The current system is:
Q6600 - 2.4
nVidia 8800 GTS
4gb DDR2 ram
850 watt Antec PSU
Asus P5KC Mobo

What do you guys suggest?

In terms of GPU I am thinking about:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-114-MS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341

And for RAM:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-298-CS

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hamish
 
If spending close to £200 on a gfx card it will soon be limited by your cpu. Might be worth saving up for a bit more.
 
Welcome to the forums.

Firstly, I had that same motherboard. I was cheeky when a customer of mine bought some DDR3 and i slipped into my own rig to see if it made any difference. I made none at all.

Secondly, there is nothing really much wrong with the Q6600 you have already. A new cooler and a few setting and you can have that up to 3.2 GHZ in no time.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-038-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

The 8800GTS is a bit old now, depending on what resolution you game at a GTX 560 may do the job nicely for you for the budget you have set.

None ti is on special this week
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-256-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341

ti version
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-247-AS&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1341
 
Thanks, I meant to ask about bottlenecks. Basically, I am intending to upgrade gradually throughout the next 18 months...going for the best piece of kit i can afford each time.

I am a student, so saving anymore than £250 at any one time is unfeasible. The intention is to slowly, but surely, build the rig back up to scratch.
 
Van.Mildert said:
Thanks, I meant to ask about bottlenecks. Basically, I am intending to upgrade gradually throughout the next 18 months...going for the best piece of kit i can afford each time.

I am a student, so saving anymore than £250 at any one time is unfeasible. The intention is to slowly, but surely, build the rig back up to scratch.
Click to expand...

Listen to admiral huddy and update your graphics card first as there's nothing wrong with your CPU yet, its still got some life in it :)
 
Wow, quick responses.

Admiral Huddy - Interesting what you say about the P5kc mobo, the whole reason I bought that one was so that I could upgrade to DDR3 in the future? In which case I will hold off buying some new DDR3 ram.

My only reasoning for the GTX 560 TI is on the advice of a well known PC updgade magazine.
 
Me too :) I always felt the P5KC memory controller was a bit flaky probably owing to it's support of DDr2 and DDR3 memory. I couldn't get it to 3.6GHz no matter what i tried so I swapped it out. £.2 and 3.4 where no problems for it though.

I would say def go for the 560ti and get a new CPU cooler.

I'm still running my Q6600 (albeit at 3.7 GHz) with a 5870 .. Even at 3.2GHz it experiences no slowdowns as of yet.
 
Brilliant, thanks for the advice. I have never actually 'overclocked' before, but I suppose better late than never. The Q6600 has currently got a an 'arctic cooling freezer 7' on it. Will that be sufficient to crank it up a bit.

And are there any 'overclocking' guides on the forum?
 
you already have a great power supply, and as everyone has said, the processor is good with a bit of an overclock.

your best upgrade would be to get a massive graphics card, along with a ~£25 cooler for the processor.

as i always do with these things, im going to ask you what case you have, because the last thing you want is to get a shiny new graphics card or cooler, and it not to fit
 
Van.Mildert said:
Brilliant, thanks for the advice. I have never actually 'overclocked' before, but I suppose better late than never. The Q6600 has currently got a an 'arctic cooling freezer 7' on it. Will that be sufficient to crank it up a bit.

And are there any 'overclocking' guides on the forum?
Click to expand...

That's a great cooler for the job :)


This may help you, done this some time ago now but used the same cooler. I wouldn't suggest going above 3.2GHz. This was also done on a GO stepping ...

Overclocking # 1 - Stock to 2.7GHz

Overclocking # 2 - 2.7GHz to 3.0GHz

Overclocking # 3 - 3.0GHz to 3.2GHz
 
Reaper 392 - I am currently using an Antec P182 case, will that be sufficiently big to house the GTX 560ti gpu?

Admiral Huddy - thanks again, I am also using the go stepping edition. So will follow your advice.
 
well 1st off i would got for a 470 at £150 aposed to the 560ti due to higher ram so should last a fair bit longer and will gain well with overclockingor if you can strech a 2gb 6950 plus 4gb ddr3 ram will come under £250 and would be a more worth while gpu for the long run

and get some ddr3 as when you get another £250 you could buy say a 2500k and a mobo which would you could use the ddr3 ram in and get working straight away

have you already thought what you would get for selling you componants ?

also with over clocking the q6600 are you running 2x2gb or 4x1gb ram ?
 
Van.Mildert said:
Reaper 392 - I am currently using an Antec P182 case, will that be sufficiently big to house the GTX 560ti gpu?

Admiral Huddy - thanks again, I am also using the go stepping edition. So will follow your advice.
Click to expand...

thats plenty big enough to house any card you'll get form here. if you find its a bit of a squeeze you could always remove the hard drive cage thats in the way, because i see you have two of them

its also wide enough to fit a stupidly sized cooler as well. looks like you chose your case well (unlike me :()
 
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