Not sure what to upgrade for my gaming rig

PapaLazaru

PapaLazaru

PapaLazaru

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Hi chaps. :)

Right this is my rig in full. It is running XP SP3. I have a decentish LG optical drive and an old Creative Audigy 4 soundcard as well.

04c853cd.jpg


I use this for gaming and it will pretty much run most things absolutely fine on medium / high settings on my 1280 x 1024 monitor. I am happy with the monitor for the time being.

Nothing is overclocked and I am using the stock cooler on the CPU. I have not tried to unlock the other cores on the processor as I am a bit of a nub and am a bit scared.

I think it needs a little bit of cash thrown at it so I can run BFBC2 nicely on it as it just cannot cope at the moment.

So the question is, if this was your rig, what would you look to do?

I definitely need Win7 and reckon my HD's are the worst part of my rig, so maybe get some new faster ones for it?

Try and unlock the cores on the CPU?

Buy a new quad core CPU?

Crossfire another 5770? (I think the mobo will do this)

Any suggestions would be most appreciated and whilst I have cash to spend, keeping the costs down would be a bonus!

Many thanks

T
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I would read up on unlocking and try to unlock the processor and get am aftermarket heatsink for the CPU.
Click to expand...

I have done the reading and it seems quite straightforwards. In fact, it seems a little too easy.

I take it that it would be a total no-no to try it without a new cooler. I thought the stock AMD coolers were the same for the dual and quad cores?
 
PapaLazaru said:
I have done the reading and it seems quite straightforwards. In fact, it seems a little too easy.

I take it that it would be a total no-no to try it without a new cooler. I thought the stock AMD coolers were the same for the dual and quad cores?
Click to expand...

The stock cooler in theory should be fine if you just unlocked the processor but an aftermarket cooler would be a good investment.

However since unlocking is not guaranteed I would first check that you can actually unlock the processor!!

As long as the CPU does not exceed 60C you should be fine.

This cooler seems to be quite decent for the price:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GD

Here is a review of the cooler:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GD
 
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Thanks for that bit of advice.

I have tried to unlock the other cores but my system is really unstable so I think they are both knackered. :(
 
Thanks Cat you are are a diamond. :)

Having slept on it I am going to start at the beginning.

I think I am going to order Win7 and a couple of fast HD's, as well as that cooler.

Once I have that running will look again to unlock and stabilise my CPU.

My thoughts behind this are that if I do it now, and then get Win7, I have read that problems can be encountered again.

My initial thought was that the HD's were the poorest part of my rig, plus me still running XP 32 is a bit silly so will start there.

Just one question though, If I fresh reinstall Win7 onto a new HD, I assume I can just plug my old HD's in through a caddy to get the information back off them onto the new drives?

Am thinking of getting 2 Velociraptors, One for OS and one for the rest, with my 2 existing Seagates as back up for stuff I rarely need to look at.

Cheers. :)
 
i think the high end phenom quad core stock coolers have heatpipes in them so they might not be the same as your stock cooler so i'd check that out and if your not going to be overclocking it someone may be selling a phenom x4 stock cooler in the members market.
 
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Cheers guys :)

Sounds like a goer to me it has been doing my head on for days now!

Not quite there with the members market yet unfortunately......:(
 
if you have lots of stuff to take of the drives just plug them into the motherboard as it can take ages to copy large amounts of stuff over via a usb caddy :(
 
Well to be honest they are full of rubbish anyway so will start going through them now and clean them up.

Most of the stuff on them can stay there to be honest, it is just things like Steam and stuff I use regularly for gaming that I want on the faster hd's. :)
 
PapaLazaru said:
So are they nearly as fast?

They could save me a small fortune Cat nice one. :)
Click to expand...

I would rather go for the F3 over the Velociraptors even if it is a bit slower. My F3 500GB is certainly fast enough IMHO and the SSD would be a great boot drive although it has a low capacity.

Here are some threads about the Intel SSD which should be useful to read:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=56949

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=15910413
 
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PapaLazaru said:
Hi chaps. :)

I think it needs a little bit of cash thrown at it so I can run BFBC2 nicely on it as it just cannot cope at the moment.

So the question is, if this was your rig, what would you look to do?

Try and unlock the cores on the CPU?
Click to expand...

YES

PapaLazaru said:
Buy a new quad core CPU?
Click to expand...

If the above doesn't work

PapaLazaru said:
Crossfire another 5770? (I think the mobo will do this)
Click to expand...

Probably sell it and buy a 5850

PapaLazaru said:
Any suggestions would be most appreciated and whilst I have cash to spend, keeping the costs down would be a bonus!

Many thanks

T
Click to expand...

Save money on the HDD's unless you really feel the need to splash the cash, as you're least likely to notice the difference from an HDD upgrade compared to CPU and GPU. :)
 
Ok so here is what I am coming round to -

1. Buy Win7.

2. Fresh install it onto a new F3 and use it as an OS drive as I do now with my smaller barracuda. (I don't think the expense of an SSD is worth it yet.)

3. See if I can unlock the other cores on my CPU and get them stable (I have already tried and it is showing as 4 cores but was really unstable). Need a new cooler for this as well.

4. If not, get a quad core.

5. Sell my 5770 and buy a 5850.

6. Buy a large F3 and copy the stuff I actually use onto it and then use my old barracudas for backup.

7. Get a new soundcard.

Sound a good idea?
 
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