General PC Upgrade - Advice.

Eyesickle

Eyesickle

Eyesickle

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Joined
11 May 2010
Posts
29
Hey all just wanted some advice on what exactly I should be looking to upgrade in order to get the best performance increase.

Willing to replace mother boards PSU's anything, just want to give my PC a major performance boost.

I can link a fully Dxdiag if needed, my first thoughts were to get a new PSU as my GPU is suggested to have 500 W and my current is 400W, or to upgrade to a quadcore or even a core i3 - 5 ( however I am unsure if my motherboard will support it )

Thanks in advance :D



Operating System
MS Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz 47 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
4.5GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz 5-5-5-15
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5K SE/EPU (LGA775)
Graphics
M19W2 @ 1440x900
1024MB GeForce 9800 GT (Undefined) 42 °C
Hard Drives
244.14GB SAMSUNG SAMSUNG SP2504C ATA Device (IDE) 26 °C
244.20GB Western Digital WDC WD2500AAJS-08B4A0 ATA Device (IDE) 35 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GSA-H55L SCSI CdRom Device
VD3536X WQI155E SCSI CdRom Device

I can link a fully Dxdiag if needed, my first thoughts were to get a new PSU as my GPU is suggested to have 500 W and my current is 400W, or to upgrade to a quadcore or even a core i3 - 5 ( however I am unsure if my motherboard will support it )
 
Youre asking for best performance increase, and whilst no doubt the 460 will spank your old gfx, performance increase in what? games? encoding? anything else?
 
for gaming, a 460 would definatlly better.

a psu would give u any performance incrase, just more stability (if your current one cant handle the load) and more head room for future upgrades.

cpu wise, only really upgrade there would be a core 2 quad.

i3/i5 would need a new motherboard, and ram.

if you have a cheap psu, perhaps think about getting a new better one.
might not give any performance, but at least u'll have peace of mind that ur psu is powerful enough and wont take out ur computer if something goes wrong.

plus PSU's can last through multiple upgrades, so once u have a good one, wont need to think about upgrading for awhile
 
My main objective would be to increase performance in games mostly play Starcraft 2, and I heard and was considering the GTX 460 before i posted but this has confirmed my thoughts.

Will post full specs on my PSU when I get home, I believe its only 400 W though, will that limit my new GTX 460 ?

On another note I am unsure if my motherboard has 16 pin slots could anyone confirm ? because if i was going to get a GTX 460 I would wanna be getting the most outta it :).

I would love to buy a new quality PSU, like many people said I would love some headroom for further upgrades, but I must say I dont feel 100% comftable installing a new PSU, could anyone give me some tips or advice on how hard / easy it actually is, or even suggestions for a new PSU that would compliment my upcoming 460.]

Thanks so much for the help all :D

Will post my full PSU spec as soon as i get home :)

*EDIT*

forgot to comment on the overclocking part, once again i am not confident in OC'ing and would once again require some advice, I also dont think i have suffient cooling either with 1 fan located at the rear, vents at the side and a basic heatsink over CPU.

However if this would improve my system a lot I am more than willing to give it a shot.

does anyone know how big the GTX 460 is in comparison to the 9800 GT, worried that it wont fit as my GT is barely not touching the HDD's
 
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a decent 400W would be enough, however, if its just a generic/cheap 400W then u might struggle with it.

installing a PSU is pretty easy really, its just a matter of unplugging the cables and unscewing it, scewing the new one in, and plugging the cables back.

u cant plug the cables into the wrong place, they will only fit the right way.

the GTX460 is a fairly short card, so i dont think it'll be much if any bigger than the old one
 
Short term I'd say a GTX460. How are you cooling your CPU? If you're using the stock cooler, replace it and see how high you can crank your 8400.

Your hdds are IDE, so you'd get a wallet friendly performance boost just by upgrading to decent SATA 2 drives (anything with a 500gb platter, like the Samsung F3). If you're feeling ambitious, stick a pair of F3s in RAID0.
 
Thanks so much again to the two people that commented above really settled my nerves on the PSU installation.

Sitting here now with my case off and i am reading the following Model No: ATX-450PNF

And loads of other numbers +'s etc, so its a 450 Watt PSU and its made by FSP Group Inc *shrugs* would it cope with a GTX 460 ?

*EDIT*

Once again forgot to mention something, if i was looking for a gaming grade HDD what would someone suggest, I heard someone talk about a raid 2 HDD would my mobo support that ?

Thanks in advance
 
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