hey all iv been away from the computer hardware side of things for a while and my pc is feeling a little old now. I have a little bit of money saved (£200) but im not sure if that will be enough to make much of a difference at the moment (for gaming). I am considering buying an xbox 360 or upgrading my pc, i just cant decide which is more worthwhile. Most pc games i am looking forward to arent amazingly good gfx (dragon age, starcraft 2, diablo 3) and i only play at 1440x900, my current games i play like mass effect and fallout3 are playable but mass effect does get a little jumpy at times, I would also like to play gta4 but am afraid it will run bad on my system. basically i could do with some advice as im a little lost, my 8800gt also gets very hot can anyone reccommend a cooler? thanks (sorry for the speech)
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helping an out of date pc
- Thread starter llwayneio
- Start date
hi thanks il give them coolers a look, do i need anything else when buying coolers? like fans or anything? my current pc is an e2180 at 3.2ghz which is feeling its age a bit and can be atad tempermental at start up but is totally fine when gaming and day to day use which is odd. 4 gig ram at 800mhz, bfg8800gt 512 on a asus p5k mobo o and powered by a coolermaster 520w psu. thanks
Personally I wouldn't bother throwing down extra cash on cooling for an old gfx card.
Looking at that system I'd say the only thing holding you back really (outside of a very limited number of games which benefit from quadcore such as GTA4) is your gfx card.
Your budget should be about enough for a GTX260 (216core edition) which would be significantly quicker in modern games even at 1440x900.
As mentioned GTA4 is one exception where your CPU will hold you back.
Looking at that system I'd say the only thing holding you back really (outside of a very limited number of games which benefit from quadcore such as GTA4) is your gfx card.
Your budget should be about enough for a GTX260 (216core edition) which would be significantly quicker in modern games even at 1440x900.
As mentioned GTA4 is one exception where your CPU will hold you back.
the 4870 on offer this week is much more within budget, is it close to the nvidia card mentioned in performance? im just unsure as to wether a pc upgrade is the way to go, will the 4870 in my system be able to handle games like alan wake when they emerge
well the 4870 is an excellent buy atm. It would help your games no end. Re: alan wake when it does come out it is said to heavily use quad core. It is an unknown other than that. It depends if it's like crysis was when it originally came out. Only good if you had really top systems. 
but other than that practically all games will run well atm I'm sure. Apart from CPU games. Gta iv etc.
but other than that practically all games will run well atm I'm sure. Apart from CPU games. Gta iv etc.
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i have e2180 at 3.2, 4 gig ram, 8800gt 512, asus p5k and coolermaster 520w psu. I have heard gta4 is very cpu intensive so i assume it wouldnt run to good on my system, but a quad is way out of my budget so would an overclocked e5200 be a good step up? im really considering gettin an xbox cos at least then i dont have to worry as much about it, although i hear gta doesnt run great on that and without mods it would be a bit lame. although i really want to play resident evil 5 as well. hmmmm
Well you could probably play gta iv on low settings maybe more. I don't know what it would look like on low / medium settings - but I don't think it would look much worse and maybe better than xbox 360.
I just think to play gta iv at settings better than xbox a quad helps.
See what others say - but you don't have to have a quad for gta iv it just helps.
I just think to play gta iv at settings better than xbox a quad helps.
See what others say - but you don't have to have a quad for gta iv it just helps.
e5200 and the 4870 that's on offer, slightly over your budget, but if you can push the e5200 to around 3.6ghz, should see a nice improvement along with the hd4870
that sounds nice but do you think it will be worth the money? how long is it till the next lot of gfx cards emerge?
wouldnt the e5200 be enought for most things? seeing as its almost £100 cheaper it seems to be much better value. or perhaps the E7200 if there is much difference. quad would be nice but it seems to be more expensive now than it was when i built my pc a year ago lol