£300 For Upgrade (Skyrim, BF3 etc)

[naknakkus]

So the wife has greenlit a £300 upgrade to this machine:

CPU: Phenom 955 3.2ghz
RAM: 4gb 1333MHz OCZ RAM that causes bluescreens at 1600MHz and can't complete memtest. However, it is stable at the lower speed.
GPU: HD4850 512mb - I loved this card but it's getting a bit long in the tooth.
PSU: CorsairHX 650W

The primary area of concern is the graphics card. I only game at 1680x1050 currently, but with a new card I'd be able to plug the machine into my 1080p TV, so it's likely I'd do some gaming at that resolution.

I'd ideally like another quiet graphics card with a good cooling solution.

I'm also tempted to replace my RAM and bump it up to 8gb since I do CAD and image editing.

What are my options at the moment?

Thanks.

 

[psychas]

get good cooler overclock that 955 to 4ghz and get a good graphics card with more then 1.5 gig of vram memory , so 6950 2 gig, 6970 lightning is on good deal or 570 2.5 gig

edit : ram is quite cheap u can always upgrade it easily 8 gig for around 40~50 £ first get good gpu u can upgrade ram after few weeks and clock that cpu

 

[TheRedZealot]

I would put a new graphics card as the priority, my HD6950 2Gb handles BF3 with ultra settings and 4xAA @1920x1080 very well, the standard revisions can be fairly noisy so check out those with 3rd party coolers.

 

[kitch9]

Ocuk 570 or MSI / ASUS 6950 2GB + the 8GB Corsair Vengeance memory kit thats on offer for £43.00.

Lovely old job...... Get a CPU cooler and get that CPU clocked a bit too!

 

[King Damager]

get good cooler overclock that 955 to 4ghz and get a good graphics card with more then 1.5 gig of vram memory , so 6950 2 gig, 6970 lightning is on good deal or 570 2.5 gig

You won't need that much VRAM for his Screen res.

a 570 1.25GB should be fine for 1080p. I'm not really having issues at all at 1080p with my 480 (1.5GB)

But yeah, basically overclock the CPU a bit, and then get a 570/6950


kd

 

[Marine-RX179]

For your OCZ 1,333MHz ram, have you tried upping the voltage to 1.65v (there are lots of 1,600MHz require that voltage to run)?

It might be that your ram is capable to run at 1,600MHz, but can't run it at the speed due to the default voltage that is set for 1,333MHz is lower that what's require for 1,600MHz.

 

[IvanDobskey]

Yeh your cpu is still ok in my opinion, especially clocked. Put your money into a 6950 or 570. That 4850 is getting a bit long in the tooth and will struggle with the likes of bf3 and skyrim at high settings.

 

[naknakkus]

Ocuk 570 or MSI / ASUS 6950 2GB + the 8GB Corsair Vengeance memory kit thats on offer for £43.00.

Lovely old job...... Get a CPU cooler and get that CPU clocked a bit too!

I have a Noctua UH12 (I think), but according to the AMD fusion thing, my temps are over 40C at idle. I have a feeling it could do with another application of arctic silver, or whatever's the best on the market at the moment. That said, my priority has always been silence rather than performance, so I've never actually tried clocking it higher than reference.

I have my eye on this card, currently:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-042-HS

I heard that there isn't much difference in performance between the 1gb and 2gb 6950, but the 1gb model seems to be pretty scarce.

For your OCZ 1,333MHz ram, have you tried upping the voltage to 1.65v (there are lots of 1,600MHz require that voltage to run)?

It might be that your ram is capable to run at 1,600MHz, but can't run it at the speed due to the default voltage that is set for 1,333MHz is lower that what's require for 1,600MHz.

I've tried that, I'm afraid, and it's still unstable.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[chrisarm]

I'm guessing you've updated your bios to the latest revision