1920 gaming upgrade Second Hand Part project

SithUK

SithUK

SithUK

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Joined
19 Mar 2004
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188
After four years my watercooled rig could do with an upgrade. I have a 24" 1920 res monitor and would like to stick to the native res.

I think second hand gives the best value per fps? I will be putting the new parts under watercooling as per current rig. I am thinking:

Q6600 + good o/c board (Aiming for 3.6 Ghz on the chip)
4890 Gfx
4 Gig DDR2 (2 x 2 Gig?)

I'll sell my existing parts for a few pennies to offset the second hand parts I buy.

Is the above the best combo for the money? Is there anything new that can beat it for the price? Is DDR3 worth it?

I understand I will be giving up DirectX 11 by going with a 4890. Are there any other significant trade offs? I have Win 7. Is 4 Gig worth it over 2 Gg for gaming?

Existing rig in sig. Comments welcome.

Thanks guys.
 
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I would try not to spend more than a £80 on a second hand Q6600 as £120 to £140 will get you a brand new Phenom II X4 or a Core i5 750.

An HD4890 is a decent card and many have been overclocked to nearly 1GHZ. However the HD5850 does have better stock performance,lower power consumption and also many have been known to be good for overclocking too. Again it depends on how much the HD4890 will cost you. If you can get one for under £120(they were approaching this price new a while back) it maybe worth it.

A decent P45 based motherboard and some decent 800MHZ or 1066MHZ DDR2 would be a good choice for overclocking the Q6600.

The best thing is to weigh up how much the cost of the secondhand Core2 build will be against a Phenom II X4 or Core i5 750 based computer(even if you get these parts secondhand too).
 
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Thank you for your replies Cat.

I agree with the 5850 being a desirable option but its a £230+ part. The 4890 can be had 2nd hand for £120. I can't see the fps increase being worth it.

Excepting Crysis, is there anything an oc'd Q6600 / 4890 rig couldn't play at 1920 res with max settings?
 
Dane: Is the extra power draw of a 2nd 4890 worth it for a noticeable improvement in fps at 1920 with max gfx quality settings?

It seems a 4890 oc'd to 1Ghz can deliver 75 fps+ at 1920 max gfx in most of the headline titles at the moment?

If I'm going down the wrong path for my requirements please let me know guys.
 
Any recommendations on a Phenom II x4 955 over a Q6600? I think they both overclock to 3.8 Ghz+ but the Phenom II draws less power? I'll have the cpu under water so temps are not an issue.

Also, does the Phenom II have to be in a DDR3 system? DDR3 prices appear a lot more expensive than DDR2?
 
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The Phenom II has both DDR2 and DDR3 memory controllers so you can use it in either a DDR2 or DDR3 system. I would look a 790GX,790X or 790FX based motherboard if you are going the DDR2 route.
 
Thanks Cat.

I've been reading and it seems the Q6600 can get to 3.4Gig fairly reliably. The Phenom II 955 can get to 3.8 Gig reliably. I read that the 955 draws around the same power idle/load as the Q6600. I can't see how that can be right as its a 45nm chip compared to the Q6600's 65nm architecture. Can someone clarify?
 
I've now bought the following:

CPU: Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping
Graphics card: ATI XFX Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5
Zalman ZM-RHS90 VGA (Voltage controller heat sink for the 4890)
ZM-RHS1 Silent VGA RAM (memory chip heat sinks for the 4890)
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP45-3UDR
Memory: Corsair DDR2 TWIN2X4096-8500C5C 2x2GB

All totalled, including postage and packaging on the individual items = £342.54.

I'm hoping to take the Q6600 up to 3.4 Ghz and the 4890 to 1Ghz. Both will be under watercooling.

I have decided to hold off lapping the Q6600 until I can get a temperature plot to compare before and after.

All being well, the parts will arrive for a bank holiday build. Can anyone spot any issues with re-using my 500W Seasonic PSU? Is it powerful enough for a single 4890 and Q6600?

Any interest in progress pictures?
 
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