Best upgrade path for little LAN box

tigerstyle

tigerstyle

tigerstyle

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Location
UK
I've been given the following rig from a friend to get back in the LAN scene after years away from it. So obviously it's not a mega 1337 rig but it's better than nothing, wondering my best way of spending the minimum $$$ to get it fairly decent.

Q6600 - Stock HSF and only in a small mATX case so not room for a bigger cooler or overclocking I don't think.

Asus P5K-VM mATX mobo

OCZ 600Watt PSU (ozx600sxs) shouldn't limit me GPU wise?

3Gig Ram 3x1Gb, might want more in there?

500gig HDD

AMD 5450 GPU - the deal breaker!

I know the GPU has to go, but it's only in there as a temporary measure, I don't think I'm limited GPU/PSU wise, it's just about finding something new/second hand that will not be wasted or overshadow the rest of the system.

Luckily the games are pretty easy going, ARMA2, L4Dead2, Chivalry, TrackMania2, BF3 maybe.

What's the recommendation, I'll be going for a 24" 1080P display most likely.
 
Cool, had one of those in a 'maybe' build a year or so ago, nothing will be heavily bottlenecking that?

Would moving to 2x2 or 1x4 stick of newer ram help? Should be cheap if found second hand? 3x1 sticks seems a bit thrown together to be as efficient as it could be maybe?
 
If your running xp then you will have a limit on ram of 4gb, but if you have 3gb of ram just add a single stick of 4gb or 2x2gb. There will be little difference in performance which ever way you choose as long as you add more ram.
 
Q6600 should run at 3Ghz without breaking sweat.

I run mine in an ATX case on cheapo G41 mainboard, just set the FSB to 1333 and make sure the memory is at the correct divider. I didn't even need a voltage bump. Fine with the stock Q6600 copper inset cooler as long as you keep the dust out.

If you need a little more cooling then any compatible cooler with heatpipes will be OK. It doesn't need to be massive or very expensive.

Agree on the GPU but buy one with a blower cooler to extract the heat rather than twin fans to blow the heat around the case. Small ATX case the airflow in the case will be a factor.

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