Thinking of upgrading - need advice

Secret_Window · 11 Oct 2010 at 17:21

It's been long delayed, the upgrade that I desperately need, however money has been tight last year or so. Recently my pc now has just got to the point where it's too slow for most of the stuff I do on it and I can't stand it any longer. So I've saved a little money in the bank and want to upgrade to something that can be used for the following:

Video editing - I do lots of HD video editing with Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere.
Image processing - Photoshop
Gaming - TF2, GTA IV, L4D2, Crysis (never been able to play it properly) and of course, in the future Deus Ex 3

At the moment, I am trying to figure out whether to simply replace my CPU with another 775 CPU, such as a Quad core or ditch the lot and build an i5 or AMD system. I am also probably going to need a new case and fans, since the one I am using at the moment isn't cooling very efficiently. Amongst all this, I need to figure out which gfx card to go for as well.

My budget is £500, but ideally I'd prefer to spend less than that.

Thanks

Marine-RX179 · 11 Oct 2010 at 17:38

What res you gonna game at?

One of the main problem with Crysis is that it doesn't use more than two cores, so you should aim to overclock the CPU to 3.8GHz or above whatever CPU/platform upgrade you getting (not counting i5/i7 Quad since their architectures are faster and only need above 3.2GHz or above)...slower than that, the minimum frame rate might struggle to drop below 25fps at the more demanding game scenes. Graphic wise, it is still one of the most demanding game, now only 2nd to Metro 2033 if I'm not mistake.

In terms graphic card, for minimum frame rate staying above 25fps at 1920x1200 very high detail with 4xAA, you need a 5970, or may be a overclocked GTX480- which won't fit your budget if you are upgrading the platform (CPU+ram+motherboard+CPU cooler at around £300). For around £200, you could get a GTX470 (or whatever same performance and price level HD6000 series card), you should be able to play at 1680x1050 very high detail 4xAA, or if you overclock the GTX470 to beyond the speed of stock speed GTX480, then may be you can do 1920x1080/1200 Very High Detail with no AA (but minimum frame rate will still struggle to stay above 25fps).

Here's something info for your reference:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/03/27/nvidia-geforce-gtx-480-1-5gb-review/8

Grimley · 11 Oct 2010 at 18:45

Find a Q6600 GO on the MM - £80 thereabouts, overclock to its max.

Can you fit more Ram on the board? video editing likes that.

For the case & graphics?

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
(£153.18) £179.99
(£153.18)
Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case - Black Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case - Black £69.99
(£59.57) £69.99
(£59.57)
Sub Total : £212.75
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £39.29
Total : £263.79

Secret_Window · 13 Oct 2010 at 09:34

Marine-RX179 said:
What res you gonna game at?

One of the main problem with Crysis is that it doesn't use more than two cores, so you should aim to overclock the CPU to 3.8GHz or above whatever CPU/platform upgrade you getting (not counting i5/i7 Quad since their architectures are faster and only need above 3.2GHz or above)...slower than that, the minimum frame rate might struggle to drop below 25fps at the more demanding game scenes. Graphic wise, it is still one of the most demanding game, now only 2nd to Metro 2033 if I'm not mistake.

In terms graphic card, for minimum frame rate staying above 25fps at 1920x1200 very high detail with 4xAA, you need a 5970, or may be a overclocked GTX480- which won't fit your budget if you are upgrading the platform (CPU+ram+motherboard+CPU cooler at around £300). For around £200, you could get a GTX470 (or whatever same performance and price level HD6000 series card), you should be able to play at 1680x1050 very high detail 4xAA, or if you overclock the GTX470 to beyond the speed of stock speed GTX480, then may be you can do 1920x1080/1200 Very High Detail with no AA (but minimum frame rate will still struggle to stay above 25fps).

Here's something info for your reference:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/03/27/nvidia-geforce-gtx-480-1-5gb-review/8

I will be playing at 1680x1050, since that's the max res of my monitor.

If Crysis can't be played at 30fps with my proposed budget, then I'll just give it a miss - I'd love to play Crysis properly, but I'm not going to break the bank for 1 game either.

I'm more concerned about playing L4D2 and TF2 with the highest settings and getting a good frame rate. At the moment with these games, I'm lucky to achieve 60fps - which makes multiplayer extremely frustrating when you are outfragged or killed because of fps lag.

Grimley said:
Find a Q6600 GO on the MM - £80 thereabouts, overclock to its max.

Can you fit more Ram on the board? video editing likes that.

For the case & graphics?

I thought about getting a Q6600 but then I saw some benchmarks for the i5's along side it and they seemed significantly faster in most things - which makes me think the Q6600 is already getting on a bit and I will be in the same situation as this in 1-2years.

Maybe I just need some more convincing, I dunno...

pastymuncher · 13 Oct 2010 at 09:40

As socket 1156 will be replaced in a couple of months i would'nt be spending any money on a i5 based rig. You would be going from one dead socket to another.

Secret_Window · 13 Oct 2010 at 09:44

Ah ok. So I may as well stick with my already dead socket 775 and just squeeze more life into it?

pastymuncher · 13 Oct 2010 at 13:28

It's what i would do. All of the current sockets are being replaced in the next year. Intel's socket 1156 will be replaced with 1155 when Sandybridge launches over the next couple of months. Even though it's only one pin the cpu's will not be interchangeable. 1366 will be replaced by socket 2011 in Q3 next year. AMD's new Bulldozer cpu's when released in Q2 next year will also require a new socket, expected to be AM3+ and cpu's on this socket will not work in previous boards.

A second hand Q6600 G0 stepping would be a good upgrade for the time being and you are unlikely to lose any money on it when you come to sell as they are in great demand.

Secret_Window · 13 Oct 2010 at 16:17

In a few benchmarks that I've came across, it seems the Q9400 is a bit faster than the Q6600 in a few things. Do you think it's worth me paying a little more for the Q9400 and will overclocking it be better than the Q6600?

pastymuncher · 13 Oct 2010 at 19:04

If buying new then no. The Q9400 is a hacked down Q9450 that occupies the price spot that used to be for the faster and superior Q9550.

If it's second hand and within a tenner of the Q6600 (so £85-90) then it may be worth a punt. It does have a lower multiplier (8x compared to the Q6600's 9x) though so your board and ram will need to be capable of a higher fsb.

Secret_Window · 18 Oct 2010 at 15:05

Just small update:

Been thinking this over a lot more lately, due to my current PC annoying the hell out of me - heat problems, slow performance, noise, etc.

What I have thought is that it's now really a toss between going the cheap AMD AM3 route for a complete new build and the previous proposed option of sticking with socket 775. However my main problem with sticking with my current motherboard is that it is not PCI-E 2.0 and no doubt that will be a contributing factor of poor performance even with a new graphics card and processor.

Another issue entirely, is the cooling. My pc at the moment, is suffering many heat related problems. It has a a beefy Zalman cooler on top of the current CPU, and I have a rear case fan, a front case fan, and the case side panel is off. I have even reduced my overclock on my CPU down to 2.4ghz as it's just too hot in there. It used to be fine, and I have checked it over - the cpu fan and thermal paste several times but I think I just need a whole new computer case and fans to be honest. It doesn't also help having an old 8800 GTX in there as well. So if I do that - replace my whole case, a whole new build would make more sense. For the same cost of replacing my current parts with other socket 775 parts, I could build a whole new AMD AM3 system, but I'm still cloudy on the whole AMD performance at the moment.

I was thinking of getting something like a Phenom II X4 955 for the AMD build. As for the socket 775 hardware, I'm now looking at the Q9300 and Q6600 - as these are at similar prices in the places I've looked.

Still no idea what GFX card to get. I've primarily been focusing on the ATI 5770 and Nvidia GTX 460 but again keeping things cool is important and I'm not sure out of the two which one is better at that - considering all the various manufacturing differences per make like Asus, MSI etc.

Again, I am mainly only playing my games at 1680x1050 resolution and I mainly play TF2, L4D2, GTA IV but I'd like to eventually play Crysis properly at that resolution and Battlefield Bad Company 2, as well as the future Deus Ex 3 game.

Marine-RX179 · 18 Oct 2010 at 16:03

In terms of CPU+motherboard with USB3.0 and SATA3.0+4GB dual-channel DDR3 memory, a Phenom II X4 955BE build will cost around £240-250, and i5 760 build will cost around £290~£300. But bare in mind that i5 is better performance than PII for gaming, and it will overclock by 40~50% vs PII's overclock of 20~25%. You might also have to considering spending around £30~ for getting a CPU cooler- the Titan Fenrir Evo is the best price vs cooling performance at that range, and it's cooling is fairly good for AMD socket as well, unlike most coolers.

As for graphic card, I think if you are on a budget, the GTX460 768MB would be the best choice, but don't get one at higher than £135, and don't go cheap for the Palit GTX460 768MB (their cooler is crap, and no RAM sink). Also, I would recommend you wait and see 6850, as rumour has it that it only a bit slower than the 5850, and price according to Gibbo should be around £135+VAT.

And then you might need to get a new case...but that would be depending on your budget. For around £40, Zalman Z7 Plus is a good case that offer fairly good cooling with 3 120mm fans come with it at default:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-033-ZA&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=
Or you could consider the CoolerMaster Elite 430, which although only come with one front blue LED intake fan, there are lots of fan mounts in the case which you can always add more fans when you have money to spare in the future, or extra fans lying around:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-214-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=