Looking to upgrade soon.

Droolinggimp · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:00

Hi all I am looking to upgrade over the next few months. It has been around 4 years since my last upgrade and that was my graphics card.

Here is my spec.
AMD Athlon 64 (3200+ 2.20 GHz)
RADEON X800 PRO
1GB OCZ memory (not sure of what exactly)

As you can see its not really uptodate. The Windows 7 index is 4.1. My PC runs ok. and only slows down when theres 3 or more programs running. I would like an upgrade to help speed things up and maybe help improve performance in some games. I currently am playing Anno 1404 and its pants. I really need speed and graphical improvments.

Budget is not great but I am sure whatever is needed wont be as expensive as they used to be for an increase in all round performance.

Please help me and if possible link to whatever you suggest..

stulid · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:06

so you have a copy of win7?

and is your psu and optical drive ok? make and model of the psu please?

do you want a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers?

if your screen is still good, what size and resolution is it?

R088ieS86 · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:33

Also the motherboard model!!

stulid · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:37

R088ieS86 said:
Also the motherboard model!!

why? its bound to be a socket 939/754, so is obsolete.

Droolinggimp · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:41

I got a Tagan 480watt PSU.
The Mobo is an Asus K8V series!

I got Win7 yes like I mentioned. Great OS just slows down a little with a few app's runnign at once.

I am only wanting to upgrade the insides of the PC (Mobo, Ram, Graphics, CPU and possibly the PSU if needed) not keyboard, mouse etc. My monitor is Full HD 21"

Hope this helps.

stulid · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:43

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Value GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £158.61
(£134.99) £158.61
(£134.99)
Asus M4A87TD/USB3 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £86.99
(£74.03) £86.99
(£74.03)
OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
(£70.63)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 635 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £77.54
(£65.99) £77.54
(£65.99)
Sub Total : £345.64
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £62.15
Total : £417.29

Just hope the psu is ok for that.

Droolinggimp · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:46

What sort of performance increase would I expect from this? Not upto date with specs now and the newer hardware so I am not sure on what it will be like.

R088ieS86 · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:49

stulid said:
why? its bound to be a socket 939/754, so is obsolete.

it'll be a 754, I still have a couple of these lying around and some of the BIOS's completely limited OCing ability.

If hes looking for a complete upgrade then your right, not needed.

stulid · 27 Jul 2010 at 11:54

Droolinggimp said:
What sort of performance increase would I expect from this? Not upto date with specs now and the newer hardware so I am not sure on what it will be like.

it will be measured in multiple times faster than your current system.

lets assume this is the closet comparison i can find- http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/122?vs=116 as you can see the new cpu destroys the old one, some of those charts are "lower is better"

these charts of different games at different resolutions are a good guide http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/i3dspeed/0610/i0610-video-p2.html the GTX460 will be just a bit above the 5830, your current X800 would be lucky to get on the bottom of the graphs.

Droolinggimp · 27 Jul 2010 at 12:01

WOW. An impresive increase then. Any way of making the list cheaper at all? Lower specced graphics maybe? Im not a big gamer on the PC but do dabble in Simcity4, Anno 1404 and a few other that are not FPS so not entirely bothered about having AMAZING graphics.

stulid · 27 Jul 2010 at 12:03

this card- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-131-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1515

and what about the harddrive, a nice fast single platter 7200rpm with large cache will work wonders- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-206-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

Droolinggimp · 27 Jul 2010 at 12:05

Mmm still looks a good card. I will bare all this in mind. Might have to get an item or two every month not sure if I could fork out £400 in one go. Thanks for your help anyway.

So all those items will work together then? What about the PSU I have now will that be suitable for the products mentioned?

stulid · 27 Jul 2010 at 12:11

Droolinggimp said:
Mmm still looks a good card. I will bare all this in mind. Might have to get an item or two every month not sure if I could fork out £400 in one go. Thanks for your help anyway.

So all those items will work together then? What about the PSU I have now will that be suitable for the products mentioned?

your psu should still be ok, the 5770 only needs one pci-e connector from the psu, if it doesnt have this type of connector, dont worry, a 4pin molex to pci-e converter is supplied with the card.

that system will use around 200w while gaming with that spec- http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2009/10/13/amd-ati-radeon-hd-5770-review/10

everything else will work together and will be all compatible.

jas72 · 27 Jul 2010 at 13:12

stulid said:
it will be measured in multiple times faster than your current system.

lets assume this is the closet comparison i can find- http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/122?vs=116 as you can see the new cpu destroys the old one, some of those charts are "lower is better"

these charts of different games at different resolutions are a good guide http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/i3dspeed/0610/i0610-video-p2.html the GTX460 will be just a bit above the 5830, your current X800 would be lucky to get on the bottom of the graphs.

Jesus my E6400 C2D is now so old it doesn't even feature in that anandtech benchmark list

I think i'll upgrade as well...