My Dilema

Rids

Rids

Rids

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2008
Posts
6,774
About 6 - 9 months ago I bought something along the lines of this

- Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 2.40GHz
- Abit IX38 QuadGT Intel X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)
- GeForce 9800 GX2 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Daul DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express)
- OCZ StealthXStrean 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache
- Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)

from OC.uk.

Its served me well for that time, I'm very pleased with it, etc etc.

But, I've been bitten by the bug again, and I have a craving for 'Moar Powar' - and I'm torn between two choices.

The sensible part of my brain that controls budgetting, and stops me getting shouted at by my wife says I should throw a reasonable amount of money at this rig (say £500-600) and upgrade it.

The other, more reckless, childlike side of my brain is saying 'Sod that for a game of soldiers, you have an interest free credit card, go build something fantastic for about £1500 - £1800'

I cant work out what to do. I'm not the most technically savvy person out there, fitting a new video card isnt difficult, however anything more advanced like that - like trying to overclock the Q6600, you can absolutely forget about. So for ease of use, I'm certainly thinking about speccing something out and getting OC.Uk to build it for me.

On the flip side, if I could get a decent performance boost for £600, I'd quite like to save myself some money, and it might be worth taking the chance on doing it myself.

I guess the questions are - how much of a performance boost can I reasonably expect by throwing £600 at the existing rig, and what components would I be looking at changing to make that happen?

Or, how much better would that £1500 dream rig be?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
 
Id recomend you become tech savvy, try overclocking that Q6600, its not as difficult as a lot of people think, read the stickies in the OC section and give it a go, youre unlikely to damage the chip, and if you do, theres an excuse to go buy the new rig :D No seriously youre very unlikely to cause any damage, and I thik you'll be happier once youve learnt how to do this and you'll have a better understanding of your machine too. You could buy a new gfx card, along the lines of a 285/295 or 4870x2 if you dont mind ATI, this new gfx card can then be transported across to your new rig later this year/next year
 
You don't need to throw a lot of money at that rig. As above, get a decent CPU cooler and overclocked the Q6600, once you get it beyond 3ghz you'll notice a nice little performance increase.

Next, sell the GX2 and go for the ATi 4870x2 (So long as you don't mind ATi, I know some people prefer one or the other, but it does offer the best performance for the money, at least at the top end of the graphics cards. Unfortunately OCUK seem to have ran out of stock for the cheaper 4870x2's.

A £1500-1800 rig won't be a huge upgrade in comparison to the above changes and not worth the difference in cost. You still have a pretty decent rig, with a few upgrades it could definitely be more powerful.
 
I have looked into the possibility, it was bought from OC.UK as a ready overclocked jobby, but over the last month it started to become unstable, so I decided to reduce the voltage / clockspeeds back to normal. Its now stable as a house made of bricks, I'm tempted to try and overclock it again, but unfortunately being the knob jockey that I am, I didnt take a note of the settings that before I reset them.

I did look into the possibility of 4870x2, unfortunate the motherboard just wont handle it.
 
Rids said:
I have looked into the possibility, it was bought from OC.UK as a ready overclocked jobby, but over the last month it started to become unstable, so I decided to reduce the voltage / clockspeeds back to normal. Its now stable as a house made of bricks, I'm tempted to try and overclock it again, but unfortunately being the knob jockey that I am, I didnt take a note of the settings that before I reset them.

I did look into the possibility of 4870x2, unfortunate the motherboard just wont handle it.
Click to expand...

Why won't the motherboard handle the 4870x2?
 
Rids said:
I did look into the possibility of 4870x2, unfortunate the motherboard just wont handle it.
Click to expand...

I can confirm that the motherboard will indeed handle a 4870X2 fine - I've had one running in my rig with the same motherboard as you, for six months :)
 
Back when they were still being sold, it had a big 'Not Compatible with ATI 4870x2' - on the OC UK page for it.

I just checked to see if I could verify if that was still true, my memory has a habit of making me all confused sometimes, but its no longer being sold so I cant confirm!
 
reflux said:
I can confirm that the motherboard will indeed handle a 4870X2 fine - I've had one running in my rig with the same motherboard as you, for six months :)
Click to expand...

Aha - well that is news to me. Its possible that I am 'Le Stupid' then.

Thanks for the heads up on that one.
 
It might be because the power supply you have doesn't have the correct connections, or the case isn't long enough?
 
There was an issue with X38 and X48 motherboards with the 4870x2.

A BIOS update for the motherboard sorted them it out though, so there shouldn't be any reason why a 4870x2 won't work in your system.

PSU might be an issue, as the card requires 1x8pin and 1x6pin connection but if the PSU is SLi compatible it should have 2x6pin and you can use a 6->8pin convertor cable.
 
tibbsey said:
There was an issue with X38 and X48 motherboards with the 4870x2.

A BIOS update for the motherboard sorted them it out though, so there shouldn't be any reason why a 4870x2 won't work in your system.
Click to expand...

AFAIK, wasn't this just with the DFI boards? I'm on the release BIOS here.
 
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