Please give me some upgrade advice.

Moorron · 17 Jul 2008 at 09:59

Hi lads and lasses. Ive been a member for a few years now and don’t post much. I hate the ‘spec me’ posts and now its my turn for one so please be soft with me.

I haven’t upgraded my pc for some time and need some advice to what my level my pc is at and if its worth an upgrade. First off I just browse, play games and music and do the odd video editing. My last game purchase was Fear 2 (or the named expansion pack) some time ago. I play lots of BF2 project reality and get nice good frame rates from this but I know in some of my other games I hit 25FPS and that’s with some of the settings lowered so I know any of the latest games are going to cripple my pc. I don’t even know the standings with any of the newer GPU cards so have no clue what to get.

This is my current pc spec from what I can remember.

Intel duel core 6300 (not clocked, tried it, froze pc, got scared, reset and left alone lol)
DS3 Mobo
2 (2x1) gig of ram (I think it was ‘performance’ ram but don’t know which one)
Ati 1950xt 512 GPU
Sata 2 and ata Hard discs.
Onboard sound
19” and 17” TFT monitors.

I am running the cpu on a reserator water cooler and didn’t bother adding it onto the Gpu as the 1950 was much quiter than my last 850xt.

Could anyone please advice where I stand with the above in today’s market?
I would ideally like to keep the mobo, meaning less work on the upgrade and more of a plug and play upgrade which might be Cpu and Gpu related. Can I fit a quad core in this mobo? Is it worth the upgrade to the faster duel cores from intel? What gpu would give me a nice leap in performance over the one I have without spending silly money. (when I say silly money I mean 2 years ago when I last upgraded GPU’s could cost upto £450!=no).

Would more ram help as I have 2 free slots in the mobo and sometimes in project reality on the large maps it shows me using 2.12g.

Many thanks for the advice I really need.
Andy

mmorpheus1 · 17 Jul 2008 at 10:14

Upgrade the cpu to a Q6600 , Upgrade the GFX to a ATI HD4850 and you should see an improvement, also if you get the Q6600 i would get a good aftermarket cooler and clock the cpu upto 3GHz al least

PhoenixUK · 17 Jul 2008 at 10:16

Your 6300 has still plenty power in it,
And yes, it might happen in your first OC when you rush too much, however if you do some more research, learn on your own mistakes and have a play around you will get a hang of it.
Even thought it's not something hard to do it still takes some practice and knowledge to be able to know what to increase/decrease and when, and a lot of factors are coming into play.

I wouldnt bother upgrading CPU because then to see any heavy increase you will have to change mobo, GPU, possibly buy better ram and maybe change monitor which will cost you pretty much a new unit.

Your biggest bottleneck is your GPU at the moment ( wonderfull at some point ago, however it's about 2yr old already

).
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So , you didnt say much about your mobo but I guess it's either GA P35 DS3R od DS3L

Either is good to get your CPU to minimum of 2.8-3ghz, but with some time invested and considering you're on water it will be more likely 3.2 and higher ( if you got good chip up to 3.6ghz).

- HD 4870 ~ 180GBP
- cooling for it ~15GBP
- extra 2gb memory ~65

But first download CPU-Z and tell us what is your mobo and memory exactly (post the timings as well) - it might be better off to sell your current memory and buy new 4gb kit.

The rest of the money I would spent on decent cheap soundcard and speaker system if you aint got one yet. And a 24" monitor

.

And you still got ATA drives!? I would get rid off them, get yourself nice 750-1000GB spinpoint F1 or something. This should increase your performance as well!

PhoenixUK · 17 Jul 2008 at 10:17

mmorpheus1 said:
Upgrade the cpu to a Q6600 , Upgrade the GFX to a ATI HD4850 and you should see an improvement, also if you get the Q6600 i would get a good aftermarket cooler and clock the cpu upto 3GHz al least

His current CPU can clock pretty much to the same speeds as q6600. althought it's dual, no point spending 130quid for just a bit of performance increase...
And it's for gaming mainly anyways.

He doesnt have Xfire mobo so 4870 would be better choice there as well over 4850.

mp260767 · 17 Jul 2008 at 11:01

i play cod4 with a 6300 clocked to 3ghz and a 1950pro and it runs fine.

i'd get an aftermarket cooler for the 6300, as per phoenix get cpu-z to check you're memory.

then overclock the 6300 a bit and see how that performs before upgrading.

Moorron · 17 Jul 2008 at 11:19

cheers. atleast i know what gpu to look at. Not at home at the mo but i will try cpuz and see what ram i have.

Ps mine is the DS3L i think.

nice advice lads, just what i was looking at.

I think i may well try to overclock the 6300 again, its on water so stays nice and cool and thats with the reserator only half full of water. I think last time i upped the fsb by 10 and the voltage to the next setting in the bios and it would boot up. I had to reset the mobo to get it to work so after that i thought whats causing it and didnt want to stick more volts thru it so left it. During games the cpu isnt fully loaded anyway, but i agree i think im looking at a new GPU. off to see how much the 4870 is.....

PhoenixUK · 17 Jul 2008 at 11:38

4850 will be a good upgrade and enough if you aint going to change the monitor for bigger.

So if you have about 450-500 to spare you could pick 24" monitor and 4870.

If not then 4850 and more or new ram will be fine.
I've upgraded from 1900xt to 3870XT and it was already a huge difference, and 4850 is even another 10-30% faster.
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Post CPU-Z screenshot, one with the main window and other with the memory settings please

.

mp260767 · 17 Jul 2008 at 12:19

with the 6300 you should be ok to go upto 1.4v on it.

long as the ram timings/voltages are ok you should be fine.