Possible cheap gaming upgrade

alan · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:03

At the moment I have the following specs:

Asus P5N-E sli plus
Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz
2GB DDR2 533mhz RAM (4x512mb)
Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb
Coolermaster Extreme Power 650w
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB (being replaced with WD Caviar Blue 500GB, as it seems to have gone awol)
LG DVD-RW drive
Sound Blaster X-treme
Windows 7 home

Was thinking of spending about £200-250 in upgrading. Just wondering which bits are worth keeping or whether its soon time for a complete overhaul.

I use this pc for gaming (mainly hon but also some cod and css, perhaps some future games), watching movies, browsing etc etc.

Thanks!

logi-cat · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:06

what games do you currently play and look forward too? what resolution you playing at?

alan · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:21

Have been playing HoN mainly, but also some cod4 and css. Im looking at playing Dota2 and maybe any new cod games that come out. Think I've been playing Hon at 1600x900, with medium settings. Not really too bothered about all the eye-candy as long as games run with decent enough fps.

rajravat · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:21

I've recently upgraded my computer from a similar spec to yours, i decided to go for a complete overhaul and upgraded cpu/mobo/ram but have kept my graphics card for now. Although i did see a good increase in FPS just by changing those components, i found that games werent THAT much quicker and depending on what games you play no difference at all. IMO i would say spend your money on a 570 gtx or a hd6950/hd7xxx

chrisarm · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:22

Are the optical drive and hard drive sata or ide?

alan · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:24

Both SATA

logi-cat · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:33

you are better off building a completely new pc. Not worth doing small upgrades to what you have now.

alan · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:37

Anything worth keeping from the current pc....I was thinking case, psu, sound card, hard drive, maybe even the gfx card for awhile...

chrisarm · 17 Sep 2011 at 16:45

I'd say wait till the 2500k is on special again, £174 is a tad high as it was about £150 not to long ago. A new CPU, mobo and memory can come in under £250 if you can wait for a deal. The rest of your components seem ok, not sure of the PSU (seems ok) I'm sure someone on here will say if it is good or not (you could always check for reviews on a search engine).

SheepBeast · 17 Sep 2011 at 21:20

get another 2 gigs of RAM and a good CPU cooler so you can overclock high. spend the rest of the money on the best graphics card you can afford.

that is, i guarantee, the best fps/£ upgrade you can do with your system.

Gregry254 · 17 Sep 2011 at 23:26

I had a similar system to that recently and decided on a full new buid, mainly for BF3 but that is besides the point.

I would wait until you have like £350 and get an i5 2500K, decent Z68 mobo and 8GB of RAM. Then next year when the new graphics cards are out you can stick one of them in there and have an amazing gaming machine

bushmins · 18 Sep 2011 at 10:18

Ive got a system kind of the same as yours and im about to put a 560GTX into it. Ive always though hardware if far too overrated, im still playing most game nearly on max with my 8800GT. The Witcher 2 is the first game of late to punish my computer.

If i were you id get 4 sticks of 1gig ram and a new graphics card. Maybe you can up your posts a bit and have a look at the Members Market and find a decent quad core CPU for your motherboard.

luckyguy20 · 18 Sep 2011 at 11:31

i think the main thing would be the gfx card and ram. but i suggest to build a new pc to future proof and avoid the upgrading bug. ;p

alan · 18 Sep 2011 at 12:13

Yeh thats the problem, seems like I can
a) stay with what I've got and get a cheaper upgrade with ram and gfx card, but then have no futureproofing or;
b) go the full whack, with new mobo, cpu, ram and eventually gfx card and have something that will handle games for the future, but cost a fair bit more now.

Its a tough one!

In option a) would sticking another 8800gts in sli be worthwhile or just get a new gfx card? Also would I get bottlenecking from the E6600?

luckyguy20 · 18 Sep 2011 at 12:58

you can get a high end gfx card with your budget an a bit for the ram.. so if you upgrade soon you can still use the gfx card for it.. it will make a big difference for the meantime. but if youve got the cash then building a new system i the way to go..

Randomface74 · 18 Sep 2011 at 13:00

Upgrading that rig is a waste of money. Much better off in the long run starting from scratch. Make sure you order some new pants with your rig.

alan · 18 Sep 2011 at 15:26

billysielu said:
Upgrading that rig is a waste of money. Much better off in the long run starting from scratch. Make sure you order some new pants with your rig.

some new pants? am i missing something here?

Gregry254 · 18 Sep 2011 at 18:27

Because you will **** your pants at the performance increase

I had a E8600 3.33Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4gb of RAM and thought it was still top of the line. I built this system and turned it on and like billysielu said . . . I needed new pants

lol

GizmoTheMogwai · 18 Sep 2011 at 18:30

alan said:
some new pants? am i missing something here?

But seriously, I am in a very similar boat to you Alan, either upgrade what I have for less and have no upgrade path, or go the full shabang and be skint. I have decided to go for the full shabang

alan · 18 Sep 2011 at 19:45

Hahah

Its just a tough one... for my needs, the setup I have now kind of does the job fine. But Im really tempted to spend some cash and go for the upgrades. Think Ill see if I can pick up an i5 2500k, mobo, ram combo, then later upgrade the 8800gts.