How to upgrade an ancient system

sastusbulbas said:
Really? He would need 4 identical 2GB stick sof DDR2, either PC6400 or PC8500, which even second hand may well cost more than 8GB of 2400MHz DDR3.

I myself would rather save that expense, because a G3258 with an H81 motherboard and 8GB of DDR3 will play many games and run plenty of applications better than the old Q6600 LGA775 system with DDR2.
Investing in a G3258, with a Z97, and 8GB of DDR3 is now what I feel the OP should be considering, but that will be after he states his current PC monitor and case.

Another option could be an LGA775 compatable all in one CPU cooler. It could help overclock that Q6600.
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An all in one cooler that is compatible with 775 and 1150 is certainly on the list. From my thread in the watercooling section it appears that the raijintek triton fits the bill nicely.

I'm currently using an old 17" tft monitor so it ain't great and I think that's where my next purchase lies. Pretty gutted I missed out on the Asus panel @149. They are now out of stock.
I'm not throwing anymore money at ddr2 so 4gb will have to do!
 
Well I've just had a quick play around on cities:skylines (which was the £23 purchase that started all this) and it works a treat. The resolution isn't fab as my monitor is naff, but all the other settings are maxed and its completely stutter free.

I want to try it with something a bit more dynamic, like a racing/flight sim/cod/bf

I'm hoping there are some Easter deals to be had on monitors over the weekend :-)
 
From the sounds of things pretty much any monitor would be a huge improvement over what you have currently and you are on a budget so my with that in mind my suggestion is this one:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-081-BQ&groupid=17&catid=510

It has low response times, 24" 1080P (which your new video card will be able to handle anything with I should think), it has a DVI-D and HDMI socket so you can use either depending on what cables you which to use and what sockets you have on the back of your video card. It is also pretty cheap though there are others which are up to £30 cheaper but, I use a BenQ monitor myself (albeit an older one) and it is a great monitor!

Stoner81.
 
I would recommend some patience, a good IPS monitor would be my recommendation.

I see you got the PSU for a good price, personally a 550w to 650w would have been more than enough, but if the Antec was cheaper why not.

Still wondering what case you have though, some of the newer cases have superb dust filtering and cooling ability, usually quiet too, with 240mm radiator support.

Certainly nothing wrong with upgrading an old rig until all that is left to upgrade is the CPU/motherboard/memory.
 
sastusbulbas said:
I would recommend some patience, a good IPS monitor would be my recommendation.

I see you got the PSU for a good price, personally a 550w to 650w would have been more than enough, but if the Antec was cheaper why not.

Still wondering what case you have though, some of the newer cases have superb dust filtering and cooling ability, usually quiet too, with 240mm radiator support.

Certainly nothing wrong with upgrading an old rig until all that is left to upgrade is the CPU/motherboard/memory.
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I begged a case off a mate who was upgrading. It's got dust filters, space for a 240mm rad on top and even baffles to accept a full cooling loop.

A massive improvement on my old one!
 
The next upgrade has been a new monitor.

I went for the Asus 27" that was on offer for 149 on here.

Wow.

Now I'm sat too close to it. What a difference it's made!!

I need to set it up properly as there is some grainy type blacks when I zoom in on cities skylines.

I also did a clean install with Windows 10 and things are much happier in the camp :D
 
So actually, after thinking my system was great, it isn't.

According the fraps I'm running Cities:Skylines @ 11fps

Looking at the CPU usage I'm at 98%. So thats where the bottle neck is!

The next thing is to overclock the Q6600 but I need a better cooler. I'm waiting for the Raijintek triton to be in stock.

Anymore ideas???
 
£70 to cool a Q6600? spend £20 on a heatsink, does your case even support a Triton or 240mm AIO.
 
stulid said:
£70 to cool a Q6600? spend £20 on a heatsink, does your case even support a Triton or 240mm AIO.
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Yes my case supports the cooler.

The idea was to buy a cooler that will eventually move over to an i5 when I upgrade the CPU, motherboard and RAM.

The triton cooler fits 775 and 1150 sockets.

Do you think that is a good idea?
 
Its a good idea but I've never liked the Triton, I prefer the Coolermaster Nepton or Corsair ones.
 
I would spend less on a decent air cooler, 95% of the performance 50% of the cost. Your much better off putting those ££'s into something else like 16GB RAM when the time comes.

Cities:Skylines is really heavy on CPU, don't get the cheap G3258 that others have recomended, you will regret it.

See this Linus video that just happened to be posted today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVl8Eupbr_E

I would get the cheapest Z97 board you can and a 4690K and spend ~£30 on a cooler. It will last you 5-7 years possible more (GPU a different story).

Getting a cheap board your going to miss out on expensive SATA express/M.2 SSD's, SLI support, a worse audio solution(but will be better then you have) and some gaming features.

A £60 board and a £120 board will overclock exactly the same, not that I would even bother at the moment because nothing is maxing out an i5 at 1080P.

I would buy:
i5 4960k OEM £195
16GB DDR3 £90
Gigabyte Z97P-D3 £64
Raijintek EreBoss £30

Total £379
 
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If your not after an AIO, the best air coolers in my opinion are Noctua, they do not come with LGA775 brackets, but Noctua will send you that bracket free when you ask on their website, and delivery is quick. Their customer support is absolutely superb. Their CPU coolers are simply a joy to work with, superb packaging and accessories, with excellent clear instructions.

Regarding memory. Even in a gaming system with a 4790k you will be hard pressed to fully utilize 8gb of memory. 16gb is simply overkill. No game uses it. Most applications give little gain with it.
 
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sastusbulbas said:
If your not after an AIO, the best air coolers in my opinion are Noctua, they do not come with LGA775 brackets, but Noctua will send you that bracket free when you ask on their website, and delivery is quick. Their customer support is absolutely superb. Their CPU coolers are simply a joy to work with, superb packaging and accessories, with excellent clear instructions.

Regarding memory. Even in a gaming system with a 4790k you will be hard pressed to fully utilize 8gb of memory. 16gb is simply overkill. No game uses it. Most applications give little gain with it.
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Thanks for the fan suggestion :-)

I want to get moving on this as I'd like to get project cars soon after its released but my current setup will bottleneck at the CPU....
 
So after running my Q6600 overclocked to 3GHz I still wasn't getting the performance I wanted and with a move over to more coding type activities ( as well as being a gaming machine first and foremost) I decided I couldn't have the random instability caused by pushing the ram too hard. ( And perhaps using W10, but I can't help that one, Linux maybe???)

So today I decided to take the plunge. A 4690k is on its way along with a gigabyte Z97X U3DH BK mobo and 8Gb of 1866 MHz HyperX ram. I've taken advantage of the mobo price drops and also Intels cashback offer so hopefully tomorrow evening I will see 60fps in everything I play at reasonable settings. PCars @ 20fps in multiplayer isn't fun!! The CPU will be cooled by a Noctua DH-14... Tis a beast
 
Good choice on the mobo+chip+ram. That should see you pretty good for a few years.

The 4690k will overclock a long way towards 5ghz without crazy amounts of effort (when it starts getting a little long in the tooth). Enjoy the new system :)
 
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