Advice from you pc Gods for a noob :)

Mr Ribz

Mr Ribz

Mr Ribz

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20 Jan 2013
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18
Ok guys, I purchased an old rig two years ago for £500 and it was oc to 4 ghz but reset after crashing. I've since used YouTube to oc it bact to 3.2ghz and run tests to see how it was. It's stable and temps are 66 under full load after 2 hours.

Specs are
Intel I7 920 2.67ghz oc to 3.2ghz with decent cooling
Mo bo gigabyte Ex58-ud3r
Gpu radeon 5850
700watt psu
16gb ddr3 vengeance ram @ 1600mhz
1tb hard drive

It also came with a really good Samsung hd wide screen.

Question is.........can this be upgraded or as the parts are kinda old now should I just purchase a new pc. It needs to be a gaming oc 1st and then the usual web stuff. I don't use it for work or making videos ect.

Really would like some help as I'm confused with all the diff graphics cards and CPU's out there.

Cash for upgrades £600 or new pc £900-£1000 after sell old one for parts and ps3 lol

Thanks in advance guys
 
I would look to upgrade your computer rather than replacing it as many of the parts you have can be reused.

Case
PSU (depending on make and model)
RAM (depending on voltages)
HDD
DVD drive

Your CPU is still fine for gaming although I would look at OCing it back up to 4GHz.

Your GPU is starting to show its age and an upgrade would give a good performance increase in game.

What resolution is the screen?

You could also add an SSD, it will make the computer boot-up faster and feel quicker.
 
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Really! Is the 920 not to old for today. Will that card play bf3 and another games in utlra? Thanks for a quick response. I was think the specs were poor for what's out there.
 
Res is.........er lol I though it was good but as it was £500 all in I would look for a decent screen. SSD was on my mind and I wanted to put it back up to 4ghz but I really only got the 3.2ghz but following a video on how to oc the i7 920. Do you know the correct volts ect for the 4ghz oc?

So new screen, ssd and Gpu would be a safe bet to keep the pc playing at high setting for the near feature?

Thanks again guys
 
a 7950 or 670 and above will be fine for bf3 on ultra. id suggest a 7950 as they are way cheaper than a 670 and are just as if not slightly more powerful. you could even buy 2 but id get the one and then overclock the cpu
 
Mr Ribz said:
Really! Is the 920 not to old for today. Will that card play bf3 and another games in utlra? Thanks for a quick response. I was think the specs were poor for what's out there.
Click to expand...

the g-card probably wont do bf3 on ultra if you want to do bf3 and games similar to it on ultra you would need atleast a 6950, 7850 upwards in the amd range and in the nvidia range a 2gb card would do nicely, your cpu should do if you overclock it although if you wanted you could go for a newer i7 like the ivybridge ones but a 920 should be fine at 4ghz
 
A well Overclocked 920 is still a good gaming CPU.

That WF 7950 that Overkill linked to is an excellent GPU, that will also overclock well.

What make and model is your PSU?
 
What was the error message when it crashed on the OCUK profile? The BSOD should come with an error code and depending on the error code will mean different things need tweaking.

101 error = increase vcore
124 error = increase QPI or VTT

I would load the OCUK profile and nudge both of these up a couple of notches and test from there. You could also post in the OCUK customer services section for further help but we should certainly be able to get you stable at 4ghz
 
Somthing Else said:
a 7950 or 670 and above will be fine for bf3 on ultra. id suggest a 7950 as they are way cheaper than a 670 and are just as if not slightly more powerful. you could even buy 2 but id get the one and then overclock the cpu
Click to expand...

I can play BF3 on Ultra with 45 - 60FPS in 1080P with a GTX660 OC :)
 
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PaulyD said:
What was the error message when it crashed on the OCUK profile? The BSOD should come with an error code and depending on the error code will mean different things need tweaking.

101 error = increase vcore
124 error = increase QPI or VTT

I would load the OCUK profile and nudge both of these up a couple of notches and test from there. You could also post in the OCUK customer services section for further help but we should certainly be able to get you stable at 4ghz
Click to expand...

Load the OCUK profile.......sorry I'm lost lol I hate sounding like a scrub but where can I find the profile.
 
When I say crashed I meant when I went into the bios it said that in red when some fields were highlighted. ( system crashed due to overclock )It never crashed on myself when in use. Might of been from the previous owner.
 
Apologies, thought with it coming clocked at 4ghz it was a pre-built machine from OCUK where they save the profile in the bios.

Still unstable at whatever settings you have at the moment though. You will need to go into the bios and adjust a few things, we need to know the following though:

Vcore you are using - voltage for the CPU, should be near the top
QPI/VTT voltage - should be just below
vDimm - voltage for your RAM
BCLK and Ratio - for 4ghz you should be either on 200bclk with 20x ratio or 190x21

With you having 16gb of RAM installed you will need a fair whack of QPI voltage. I would try the following:

vcore: 1.3v
QPI/VTT: 1.35v
vdimm: set this to what your RAM is rated for (should be either 1.5v or 1.65v, don't know your RAM off hand).

Reboot and try run Prime95 for 30 minutes as a tester, keeping an eye on temps with realtemp or coretemp. If you get a BSOD note down the error message and refer to what I said about in regards to changing voltages
 
Sounds easy enougth, the ram is rated at 1.65v so I will follow what u said and if you don't mind I will contact yourself with any questions. I did download a burn test but it might be outdated now. It was showing max 66 under full load CPU and all 16gb of ram. That ok temp wise? Il get prime tho.
 
Sure, no problem. Has been a while since I clocked Nehalem chips though but have subbed to the thread to help out where I can :)

66c is great, no problems there. I wouldn't want to go over 80c for extended periods with these chips. Prime and Intel Burn Test will give similar temps now that Prime uses the AVX instruction set.

With Prime it would be good giving it a quick blast on Small FFT, Large FFT and Blend, for extended tests make sure you select Custom Torture Test and give it the full amount of free RAM you have. IBT is also suitable for quick testing as well.

You will get a split opinion on exactly how much stress testing to do. I will only be happy if I get a full overnight run of Prime done personally

EDIT: Can you run CPU-Z and tell us what Stepping your CPU is? This will affect how much voltage your chip will typically need to run
 
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