Should I get a complete hardware upgrade?

Xandrah · 11 Nov 2011 at 23:43

Okay my current system setup:

Motherboard: ASUS P5N-D
Processor: Core 2 Quad Q8300
RAM: 8GB DDR2
HDD: 1TB
Graphics Card: NVidia GTX 460 1GB GDDR5

Now I think the board is a little outdated now, I only got the new processor about a year back. The system isn't up to my standards still feels sluggish.. so am I being silly or should I get up to date and get a new motherboard/processor/ram.

I was looking at this motherboard.

Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard with a i7 CPU and a 16GB DDR3 ram kit?

Reaper 392 · 12 Nov 2011 at 02:21

depends on what your budget is and what you use the PC for

also, i'll ask the default "can you recycle anything from your PC" questions:
whats the make/model of your PSU?
same question for the case, but if you dont know then just say if it will fit an ATX motherboard in there or just mATX
are the HDD and dvd drive IDE or SATA

Xandrah · 12 Nov 2011 at 09:59

Reaper 392 said:
depends on what your budget is and what you use the PC for

also, i'll ask the default "can you recycle anything from your PC" questions:
whats the make/model of your PSU?
same question for the case, but if you dont know then just say if it will fit an ATX motherboard in there or just mATX
are the HDD and dvd drive IDE or SATA

Yeah, I have a

Corsair Professional Series HX1050 Professional Series 1050W PSU (New)
Quite a good graphics card GTX 460 1GB GDDR5 (New)
Antec DF-10 Case (New)
P5N-D Motherboard is standard ATX
HDD's and DVD are all SATA

Budget at the moment is £650.00

PC is mainly used for gaming, I must say I don't have any performance issues with Skyrim or BF3

moody89 · 12 Nov 2011 at 10:07

In what way does the system feel sluggish? Just general day to day use? Or struggling to play a particular game or certain tasks? What do you use your system for?

Although your system is older tech, that's still a very capable setup. Particularly if you mostly play games, you may not notice a massive performance improvement that would justify the money you would spend on it. A GPU upgrade may be something but I'm just speculating that you play games really but you may use your system for something completely different.

If your system just feels generally sluggish, have you considered an SSD? I dropped one in my system last year and in honesty it was the best all-round performance boost I've ever had from an upgrade. Well worth every penny IMO. If you're just looking to put a breath of fresh air across your system then this may be worth considering. The Crucial M4's are the way to go at the moment - probably the 128GB version at your budget. I wouldn't worry too much about you being limited to SATA II speeds since you will still notice a massive performance boost. The only downside is it generally requires a full reinstall of Windows. Also, on that note, are you running Win7 x64? This could also be a worthwhile 'upgrade' if you're not? Something to think about at least, but we'll need more info to recommend more specific upgrades. Hope this helps

Troezar · 12 Nov 2011 at 10:12

Monitor resolution? At least for gaming this is a big factor, if it's fairy low there may not be any point changing too much. Try an SSD, the M4 is good, it'll feel like a new pc

Xandrah · 12 Nov 2011 at 10:13

moody89 said:
In what way does the system feel sluggish? Just general day to day use? Or struggling to play a particular game or certain tasks? What do you use your system for?

Although your system is older tech, that's still a very capable setup. Particularly if you mostly play games, you may not notice a massive performance improvement that would justify the money you would spend on it. A GPU upgrade may be something but I'm just speculating that you play games really but you may use your system for something completely different.

If your system just feels generally sluggish, have you considered an SSD? I dropped one in my system last year and in honesty it was the best all-round performance boost I've ever had from an upgrade. Well worth every penny IMO. If you're just looking to put a breath of fresh air across your system then this may be worth considering. The Crucial M4's are the way to go at the moment - probably the 128GB version at your budget. I wouldn't worry too much about you being limited to SATA II speeds since you will still notice a massive performance boost. The only downside is it generally requires a full reinstall of Windows. Also, on that note, are you running Win7 x64? This could also be a worthwhile 'upgrade' if you're not? Something to think about at least, but we'll need more info to recommend more specific upgrades. Hope this helps

Heya Thanks for the help

(Monitor Resolution 1920x1080) LED Benq Screen

I use it mainly for gaming, but the main issue I am having is I am starting to get sluggish effects on certain programs, Not usually games it seems to fly through them, but for example VR Environments like Second Life have quite a slowdown sometimes. Also Video encoding for my gaming live casts really struggle.

I have been thinking about getting a SSD because I get really bad transfers on my SATA HDD's I seem to only at most get 90mb/s transfer.

(I am quite the geeky gal and I constantly clean the system for any dust, the case I have only just got because I wanted to tidy the insides up, was driving me insane)

fowler002 · 12 Nov 2011 at 10:50

it's nice to have extra headroom with the psu but 1kw for your spec is just plane crazy, you could have gone for a 750/850w and put the money saved towards a better graphics card etc.

do you plan on sli/xfire in the future? the motherboard you're looking at(p8z68-v lx does not support it.

CPU http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-360-IN

mb http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-491-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990 could go for the non pro and save £25

ram http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-060-GS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

cooler http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-005-AN&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

ssd http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR

moody89 · 12 Nov 2011 at 10:56

Xandrah said:
Heya Thanks for the help

I use it mainly for gaming, but the main issue I am having is I am starting to get sluggish effects on certain programs, Not usually games it seems to fly through them, but for example VR Environments like Second Life have quite a slowdown sometimes. Also Video encoding for my gaming live casts really struggle.

I'm assuming Second Life and your gaming live casts are online here, in which case are you sure the slow-downs are not related to your internet connection rather than your PC itself?

Xandrah · 12 Nov 2011 at 10:56

fowler002 said:
it's nice to have extra headroom with the psu but 1kw for your spec is just plane crazy, you could have gone for a 750/850w and put the money saved towards a better graphics card etc.

do you plan on sli/xfire in the future? the motherboard you're looking at(p8z68-v lx does not support it.

CPU http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-360-IN

mb http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-491-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990 could go for the non pro and save £25

ram http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-060-GS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

cooler http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-005-AN&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

ssd http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR

Hey thats not a bad bundle thanks!
Yeah in the future I am going to get two GTX 590's

@moody89
Nahh I have fiber optics the slow down is FPS mostly when I use Livestream or Xfire Livestream.

fowler002 · 12 Nov 2011 at 11:05

wouldn't bother with 590s, there are new graphics cards due out in the coming months.

Marine-RX179 · 12 Nov 2011 at 11:10

Xandrah said:
Heya Thanks for the help

(Monitor Resolution 1920x1080) LED Benq Screen

I use it mainly for gaming, but the main issue I am having is I am starting to get sluggish effects on certain programs, Not usually games it seems to fly through them, but for example VR Environments like Second Life have quite a slowdown sometimes. Also Video encoding for my gaming live casts really struggle.

I think for Second Life, your CPU is most likely the limitation...as I would imagine it can be quite CPU demanding, but unlike modern games that would use all 4 cores of the CPU, the chances are Second Life most likely don't use more than 1 or 2 cores. So if you upgrade the CPU to the much faster i5 2500K like the guys suggested (or may be even pay a bit extra for a overclocked bundle if you are not comfortable with doing overclocking yourself) should help quite a lot (1~2 cores on a i5 2500K would be much faster than 1~2 cores on a Q8300).

Xandrah · 12 Nov 2011 at 11:27

Marine-RX179 said:
I think for Second Life, your CPU is most likely the limitation...as I would imagine it can be quite CPU demanding, but unlike modern games that would use all 4 cores of the CPU, the chances are Second Life most likely don't use more than 1 or 2 cores. So if you upgrade the CPU to the much faster i5 2500K like the guys suggested (or may be even pay a bit extra for a overclocked bundle if you are not comfortable with doing overclocking yourself) should help quite a lot (1~2 cores on a i5 2500K would be much faster than 1~2 cores on a Q8300).

I have overclocked the Q8300 Quad Core to 4.3GHZ, Mainly I think issues with SecondLife are like you say, they only have very limited multi threading support.

But thanks guys, I think I will go with a new i5 2500K This system has done me well, I do upgrade it every year. But the motherboard because its been so stable and of course supports SLi I have kept with the LGA775 for quite some time