Spec check

Princey · 2 Jun 2009 at 22:11

Looking to give my system a boost of life on a tight budget. Currently I have a Q6600 @ 3.0GHz, 2GB DDR533 RAM, 512MB HD3870. CPU is fine but I have hit the limit with my current board and RAM. I'd like to hit atleast 3.6Ghz.

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4870 Dark Knight 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £129.98

Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £97.99

Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX Dual Channel (TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX) £37.98

(£33.03)
Sub Total : £231.27

How does the above specs seem and would it be a worth while boost?

siumatfung · 2 Jun 2009 at 22:24

theres a gigabyte X48 board for £99.99 if you are interested goin CF later

mp260767 · 2 Jun 2009 at 22:41

what do you use the system for ?

if its gaming what size monitor/resolution do you game at ?

Princey · 2 Jun 2009 at 22:42

Purely gaming and at 1680x1050.

mp260767 · 2 Jun 2009 at 22:44

i'd deffo consider the 4870 then.

what motherboard do you have at the moment ?

Princey · 2 Jun 2009 at 22:49

Its a ECS nForce 650SLI.

Razor-BladE · 2 Jun 2009 at 23:39

I'd go for 1066mhz ram instead of 800mhz.

mp260767 · 2 Jun 2009 at 23:42

Princey said:
Its a ECS nForce 650SLI.

i'd maybe look at going with the pc6400 memory first and see what the mobo will do before spending on a new mobo.

got a decent cooler for the processor ?

Princey · 3 Jun 2009 at 07:13

Could try that but the PCI-E slot is version 1.0 and runs at 8x

so would hamper my upgrade to a faster card.

Ben M · 3 Jun 2009 at 07:31

Princey said:
Could try that but the PCI-E slot is version 1.0 and runs at 8x so would hamper my upgrade to a faster card.

it wouldn't matter, x8 is fast enough for a card like the 4870/4890 it only struggles once you are using X2 cards.

I'm sceptical as to how much more you'll be able to get out of your CPU. Yes you're getting a good board, but at the same time, it's usually the chip that is the bottleneck, how old is the Q6600? And what is the vid? I ask because later chips are generally higher vid and don't clock as well, you'll probably struggle much past 3.2ghz if it's not a good chip.

shadowake · 3 Jun 2009 at 08:59

As Ben M says it's probably the chip, I have a Q6600 it will get up to 3.4GHz but isn't 100% stable (crashes once a week) but will sit happy at 3.2GHz, I usually run it at 3.0GHz to be on the safe side, especially during the heat of the last few weeks.

Have you considered a change of processor? Maybe a Phenon II X4 955? 3.4 stock and clock well. Just a thought.

Oh and as others have said, defo swap the graphics and get some more ram, the graphics can easily be transfered later if you do decide to swap system and TBH you will probably be happy with just a better card.