Advice on re-building my system for modern games

johnhaines

johnhaines

johnhaines

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Joined
9 Jan 2010
Posts
25
Hi everyone,

This is going to be another cry for help from someone who has grown too far out of touch with modern kit to have any real clue on how to upgrade my aging system.

Over the years I have continually upgraded my one pc from its original 486dx2 to its current incarnation ... (none of the original components left, obviously, but I still think of it as the one pc I have ever owned).

Most of my kit has been bought from overclockers over the years.

Here is what I think I is in my machine at the moment:

Corsair HX 650W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650HXUK)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
MSI 975X Platinum PowerUP Edition (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-072-MS)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-127-IN)
Scythe Miné Quiet Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-005-SY)
Crucial Value 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C6 Single Module (CT2KIT25664AA800)

I suspect you won't be surprised to hear that most modern games I try to play I have to run at pretty much the lowest graphics settings possible and even then I experience a lot of lag.

Games I want to be able to play include Skyrim, SWTOR, DEUS EX, Various flight sims etc.

I am not looking for the absolute highest frame rates and the highest resolutions ... I can guarantee in advance that I cannot afford (or justify to my wife :) ) that level of expenditure. What I am looking for is the minimum I need to do to be able to play the latest games with a reasonable frame rate. I have been looking at some of the pre-overclocked bundles from Overclockers ... somewhere in the £200 to £400 bracket. What I have no concept of is just how much difference one would make. Also, there are so many variations listed I cannot decide which to pick, nor do I want to pick one and discover that another component is such a bottleneck that I don't see any real improvement in performance.

So the real question is, given my existing kit and a hard-cap budget of £400 (though preferrably less) can anyone recommend the best way for me to achieve a reasonable gaming machine? Is it even possible to do this on that budget?

Thanks in advance for any advice,
John
 
Hi
Welcome to forums
You can re-use your existing PSU, case, DVD drive and HDD, and add in this little lot


YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with Battlefield 3 PC Game** £185.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £91.19
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.38
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £17.99
Total : £387.95 (includes shipping : £9.50).



The Z68 mobo will allow you to drop in an i5 2500K and OC it later down the line
 
Are you happy to consider a 2nd hand CPU? 95thrifles suggestion above sounds good but I'm just thinking that you can get a 2nd hand Q6600 CPU for about £60 thus enabling you to to keep your existing MB and RAM.

The i3 CPU would be 20% faster at gaming (althought the Q6600 should run at 3GHz without altering the voltage) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/289?vs=53 but you could save a lot of money this way and maybe get another 2x 2GB RAM and as fast a Gfx card as you can - although a 560ti would probably be a good pairing with a Q6600 as that CPU may start to hold back faster (GTX570 and above) cards.

I suppose it depends how much longer you want to keep this system?

Off the top of my head:-

Q6600 (used) £60
560ti 1GB £185
£250 ish

Maybe an extra 2x2GB DDR2 £40
2nd Gfx card for sli or crossfire?
 
Thanks for the suggestions so far.

droyden, the native res of my monitor is 1680 x 1050.

I think I would like to buy new components at this time and the chances of me being allowed to buy a completely new system are negligible.

I guess from the fact that both suggested approaches so far have me replacing the graphics card that it is woefully under-powered if I upgrade the motherboard, cpu and memory. Is that really the case?

If that is so, I guess that buying one of the pre-overclocked bundles would then leave me hitting a wall because of the gfx card.

The reason I originally asked about the pre-overclocked bundles is that my days of wanting to tweak bios settings are long past. I am happy to put the components together, I would just rather they "worked" efficiently once I had done so.

95thrifles, with your suggested setup what sort of performance do you think I would see from Skyrim or Crysis 2. Would I get a reasonable framerate at 1680 x 1050 or would I be counting the months until I could afford an i5 to slot in?

Thanks for the help so far,
John
 
I'd go with thrifles suggestion, although I'd just choose the 2120 instead, as it's only £10 more but packs 200Mhz more, which is quite important seeing as you can't overclock either of them.

For that kind of resolution I would suggest a 6870, which goes for about £140 right now. Although with the new AMD cards coming out, it might just well be that they may drop a little.
 
Hi, everyone. Thanks for the help earlier. For now I have ordered the following:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX)

I am hoping that this little lot will work together happily ... I think it is basically the same components as one of OCs pre-clocked bundles but about £100 cheaper bought separately.

One thing I was wondering, if I want to try and overclock this setup will I need to replace the cooler that comes with the retail package cpu? how loud is the packaged cooler?

Are there any gotchas I need to watch out for with this setup?

Thanks again for any help forthcoming.
 
my experince of Deus X is that with a single 560Ti it lagged, when I put the second one in it was ok... Doesnt look like you have ordered any GFX card at all?
 
johnhaines said:
Hi, everyone. Thanks for the help earlier. For now I have ordered the following:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX)

I am hoping that this little lot will work together happily ... I think it is basically the same components as one of OCs pre-clocked bundles but about £100 cheaper bought separately.

One thing I was wondering, if I want to try and overclock this setup will I need to replace the cooler that comes with the retail package cpu? how loud is the packaged cooler?

Are there any gotchas I need to watch out for with this setup?

Thanks again for any help forthcoming.
Click to expand...

That will work fine but for over clocking you will need a better cooler, something like the Gelid Tranquil for £25 would be great

Stoner81.
 
Thanks for the comments, everyone.

I decided to for the faster processor, i5 vs i3, because I felt that I didn't want to have to buy a new processor only to want to replace it again before long. I am assuming that the i5 part is a noticeable upgrade on the i3 and has much greater overclock potential. I could be completely wrong on this so please correct me if that is the case.

On the RAM front, my understanding is that 4GB should be enough for today and also that adding more memory limits overclock potential. I could be wrong about this as well ... happy to be corrected :).

I am hoping that the mobo/cpu/ram upgrade from my current setup would allow me a noticeable improvement in gameplay even with my current graphics card. I am hoping to upgrade the graphics in 3 or 4 months time when I can scrape more cash together.

On a separate note, the motherboard and processor I have selected seem fairly common components; is there a step-by-step guide out there that explains how to overclock them for an old duffer like myself?

PS - Current setup in first post, new kit in post 8
 
Last edited:
johnhaines said:
Thanks for the comments, everyone.

I decided to for the faster processor, i5 vs i3, because I felt that I didn't want to have to buy a new processor only to want to replace it again before long. I am assuming that the i5 part is a noticeable upgrade on the i3 and has much greater overclock potential. I could be completely wrong on this so please correct me if that is the case.

You are correct. In fact the i3 can't really be overclocked at all.

On the RAM front, my understanding is that 4GB should be enough for today and also that adding more memory limits overclock potential. I could be wrong about this as well ... happy to be corrected :).

4GB should be enough yes, but for the price i'd consider 8GB, it shouldn't harm your OC potential

I am hoping that the mobo/cpu/ram upgrade from my current setup would allow me a noticeable improvement in gameplay even with my current graphics card. I am hoping to upgrade the graphics in 3 or 4 months time when I can scrape more cash together.

On a separate note, the motherboard and processor I have selected seem fairly common components; is there a step-by-step guide out there that explains how to overclock them for an old duffer like myself?

My understanding is that it is quite simple. I can try n find some material if you like?

PS - Current setup in first post, new kit in post 8
Click to expand...

EDIT, as said above you will need an extra cooler to overclock effective. The Gelid is recommended on a budget.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GD&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395
 
Ok, so the motherboard, processor and memory have turned up. I hadn't realised that the retail pack cpu did not come with any sort of thermal compound for the stock cooler ... unless that is what those three thin strips are supposed to be on the base of the cooler?

So I decided to get the wallet out and invest in another 4GB of memory and the Gelid Tranquillo cooler that several of you have suggested. Hopefully they will arrive on Friday.

In the meantime I have read the motherboard manual and seen that Gigabyte provide a number of utilities that allow you to configure overclock settings from within Windows. They are EasyTune, Cloud OC and TouchBIOS. Is there a strong reason not to use some of these utilities? Which is the easiest / safest to use?

I am hoping that I should be able to get the cpu up to 4.5GHz aas I have seen lots of posts online stating that is achievable ... though I guess using all 4 memory slots may restrict that, or am I talking rubbish?

I love how helpful this forum is, so thanks again for all your comments,
 
johnhaines said:
Ok, so the motherboard, processor and memory have turned up. I hadn't realised that the retail pack cpu did not come with any sort of thermal compound for the stock cooler ... unless that is what those three thin strips are supposed to be on the base of the cooler?

Yeah that is the thermal compound, pre applied for you :)

So I decided to get the wallet out and invest in another 4GB of memory and the Gelid Tranquillo cooler that several of you have suggested. Hopefully they will arrive on Friday.

In the meantime I have read the motherboard manual and seen that Gigabyte provide a number of utilities that allow you to configure overclock settings from within Windows. They are EasyTune, Cloud OC and TouchBIOS. Is there a strong reason not to use some of these utilities? Which is the easiest / safest to use?

Can't say i know much about these, but the BIOS/UEIF should be easy enough to navigate if you wanted to. I'd have a good look round and familiarise yourself with that if you can.


I am hoping that I should be able to get the cpu up to 4.5GHz aas I have seen lots of posts online stating that is achievable ... though I guess using all 4 memory slots may restrict that, or am I talking rubbish?

It may make a difference, but I think for 4.5Ghz or so you should be fine!

I love how helpful this forum is, so thanks again for all your comments,

No problem :)
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the very quick response, beejjacobs. I think I have enough info to get me going now. I am holding off on the build until the extra memory and Gelid cooler turn up.

As stated in my first post, my current graphics card is a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card. My hope is to have scraped together enough cash to replace it in a few months time. Out of interest, just how under-powered is / isn't this card given my new components? Also, how much would I need to spend to see a noticeable improvement in game performance at 1680 x 1050 resolution in say Crysis 2, Deus Ex or Skyrim? Am I likely to hit as good as I can get with the 5770 given the resolution of my monitor?

Please note - of these games I have only ever been able to play Skyrim so far; and that is at the lowest resolution supported and all graphics settings set to minimum. Crysis 2, Deus Ex and Skyrim at any other settings achieve framerates of < 10fps with my current rig and are thus unplayable. Simply achieving a playable framerate is my hope given the new mobo, cpu and memory.

Come Friday evening I am hoping that I can finally play these games even if I cannot achieve the highest resolutions at the highest settings!
 
Just a quick note to say thank you to everyone. I now have my new kit up and running ... mostly. Through some sort of transit mix-up my extra 4GB of RAM and Gelid Cooler got lost. Thankfully the guys at OC sent me replacements. However, being very impatient I went ahead and installed what I had in advance.

So I am now running the i5-2500K + 4GB kingston memory on the gigabyte z68 board with my old 5770 graphics card. I am using the stock cooler because of the delay in the Gelid cooler arriving and am also running the cpu at stock speed for now.

All I can say is WOW! Even without any overclocking it is like entering a new world. I am now running Skyrim at native monitor resolution with everything switched on ... and it runs smooth as silk and looks gorgeous. SWTOR is now playable. Before I was getting a good second or more delay between keypress and ingame response. I thought it was down to network issues ... but no, I am now running at native monitor resolution, everything switched on etc etc.

So for now I am struggling to get up the initiative to open the case up again and replace the stock cooler. I hadn't realised the Gelid did not use the standard push & twist sprung posts that the stock cooler has. Instead I have to get the motherboard out of the case as there is a backing plate into which the cooler screws.

All told it is nice to know that I can probably get another 10% to 15% performance hike just by fitting the Gelid cooler and overclocking.

So again, thanks for all your help everyone.
 
Glad to hear it is all working nicely :)

Yes the Gelid should be quieter too so definitely worth adding that in!

Enjoy your new rig (can always post some pics if you like too!)
 
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