Can anyone give this old machine a breath of fresh air?

Arthaei

Arthaei

Arthaei

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Joined
15 Feb 2010
Posts
147
Hiya guys my spec is as follows:

Thermaltake Toughpower 700W PSU
ASUS P5N-D
Intel® Core™2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core 4x2.4GHz 8MB
Coolermaster Hyper TX2 Fan
Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz
1TB 7200RPM SATA II
BFG NVidia GeForce GTX 280 OC 1GB

My first question is that the machine is about 5 years old, my gtx280 fried itself a few days ago but it's had a good innings. A friend has lent me an amd 5850 card, but I'm having a few problems, the fan runs, but there are 2 connections that ran to the old card (a red 8pin and a black 6pin from the psu). Now the new card only has 2x 6pin connections on it, would I need an adaptor of sorts or is this new card just not compatible for me?

Secondly, is it worth me trying to upgrade my machine a bit and resurrect it a little? if I chuck a new card in it like a 760 or something would it be bottlenecked by the cpu or motherboard in any way? I know my ram isn't great, but the old q6600 I've got is oc'd to 3ghz which isn't bad I suppose. I have no idea how that compares performance-wise to the new chips, haswell etc. I assume they're better power efficiency-wise?

Is it worth me looking into stripping out my old spec in this antec 1200 case and buying myself a little bundle, or should I just buy a new machine?

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated, I really need some ideas here! I don't mind spending, but I need some options.

Thanks in advance,

Jules
 
get the best gfx card you can afford (say at least a 7870/270x or better, then overclock the cpu to 3.2 ghz ish, this will insure 30 fps on high ish settings on bf4, if you cant overclok you should still be ok with medium at least. most other games will be better, if thats not enough, yeh new mobo, cpu, ram time
 
jamiehavok said:
get the best gfx card you can afford (say at least a 7870/270x or better, then overclock the cpu to 3.2 ghz ish, this will insure 30 fps on high ish settings on bf4, if you cant overclok you should still be ok with medium at least. most other games will be better, if thats not enough, yeh new mobo, cpu, ram time
Click to expand...

This is worth a try, worst that could happen is you use the new GPU in the new build.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I've ordered an adapter to hopefully get the 5850 working. I don't think I can push my current cpu any further on the the motherboard. As I'm only borrowing this card for the moment, would anyone know what the best card i could get would be with my current machine? I'm only running it on a 22inch screen at 1680x1050 I think. Thanks
 
I'm also considering getting a bundle in the near future and putting it into my antec1200, budget is probably around a grand, I'd probably want the 780ti or maybe 7990. I want 16gb of the fastest ram, a 256 pro ssd drive. And probably an i5.
 
A grand will give you enough money to build a monster.
Gigabyte z87x-oc for motherboard, 4770k, r9 290 bf4 edition, good psu. Some Avexir sticks would look good with the mobo :-)
Motherboard can handle dual sli or cf x4 so its future-proof.
You probably won't spend even a grand, unless you want some extras.
 
For now you could at least get a solid GPU in your existing build (R280 or 7950 to keep things cheap) and then when you've enough saved up you could build your refresh on the current gen and pop your card in it, maybe add another for xfire ;) Just make sure your current PSU has enough pci-e connectors.
 
Right, thanks guys! I've got the card working finally! it's a good boost over the old one it seems, running at 51 degrees c in Battlefield Bad Company 2. What's the BEST card I could get that would run beautifully with my current setup over this one? if I can tweak this a bit and get more life out of it, I'd be dead happy. Although I've just realised my gf has bought me BF4 for Christmas, I definitely will need a new setup in the near future!!

Also, any good 27" screens people would recommend? I need to upgrade my old Samsung 22"!

Thanks a lot
 
Anyone think a R9 270x would bottleneck on my system? someone else said anything higher than a gtx 480 would bottleneck? If I could play BF4 on high with my current rig on a 22inch 1680x1050 screen with just a gpu upgrade I'd be dead pleased!!
 
A 5850 at 1680x1050 is probably starting to bottleneck the GPU with your CPU. I had a 5870 on a Q9650 @ 4Ghz and 1920x1200 and the 5870 was being bottlenecked on most games because of the CPU I noticed when I used the 5870 in my new 2600k setup.

As the guys above have said, save up for a new pc and enjoy the 5850 for now on that setup.


When you get round to updating you can reuse your PSU and Hard drive, the rest sell them.
 
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