Upgrade Advice, should I ... ?

Chazaxl

Chazaxl

Chazaxl

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2 Feb 2010
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228
I was reading some threads yesterday here and believed that I should be looking at upgrading but not certain after some of the other threads here.

I currently have a Quad Core Intel Q9450 system, running with 4 Gigs of RAM (DDR2, PC6400). I did look at upgrading the RAM but the RAM seems pricy which raised the question about upgrading or not. The motherboard is an Intel X48 chipset board.

The GFX card is an ATI 5850 with 1 Gig of RAM.

Running Windows 7 on an Intel SSD 80 Gig Drive.

At the moment, I am not playing any games that stress the PC, I am playing WoW for my sins and if anything, would like faster loading times, especially when switching / logging characters.

The reason why I had thought of RAM upgrade is that I seem to have a lot of HDD activity on the machine, maybe just needs a format, not sure. I have moved WoW onto the SSD drive and its quicker, but think it can be improved.

So, is there a cost effective upgrade that I can do with RAM and/or CPU with this motherboard?

What else can I do to squeeze more out of the system, currently not overclocking, dont mind doing it but prefer a stable system.

Comments welcome.

Thanks
 
i would look at overclocking your quad core for starters and see what you can get out of it.

if you haven't already would be worth getting a 3rd party cooler for it.

to improve wow i'd check the wow forums.
 
The Q9450 is still a good CPU with 4GB of RAM. Increasing the RAM to 8GB won't make a huge amount of difference for gaming, if any, and DDR2 prices are quite expensive too. I would be looking to overclock your CPU and push it to 3.5GHz if you can with a decent aftermarket cooler. In terms of upgrades, hang on until tomorrow to see how Bulldozer performs and where it is priced relative to the i5 2500K then decide which is the better deal for you. For a decent and worthwhile upgrade you'd be looking at at least £300 for an i5 2500K, (budget) Z68 motherboard and 4GB DDR3 RAM, but may be able to offset the cost against what you get for selling your current kit.
 
mp260767 said:
i would look at overclocking your quad core for starters and see what you can get out of it.

if you haven't already would be worth getting a 3rd party cooler for it.

to improve wow i'd check the wow forums.
Click to expand...

Thanks - I am already running an after market cooler as the stock one was just crap. Its the Fenrir / Tintanrir one - need to find the name - the large one that is well regarded.
 
shadow_boxer said:
The Q9450 is still a good CPU with 4GB of RAM. Increasing the RAM to 8GB won't make a huge amount of difference for gaming, if any, and DDR2 prices are quite expensive too. I would be looking to overclock your CPU and push it to 3.5GHz if you can with a decent aftermarket cooler. In terms of upgrades, hang on until tomorrow to see how Bulldozer performs and where it is priced relative to the i5 2500K then decide which is the better deal for you. For a decent and worthwhile upgrade you'd be looking at at least £300 for an i5 2500K, (budget) Z68 motherboard and 4GB DDR3 RAM, but may be able to offset the cost against what you get for selling your current kit.
Click to expand...

Thanks - thats my concern, the current setup is not exactly over the hill yet and money as always is tight. DDR2 seems too expensive to upgrade and generally I dont tend to sell old hardware, get little for it - would rather build a spare box or similar with the parts.

In terms of overclocking to 3.5GHz, I have a decent PSU (620W Corsair iirc) and the cooler is decent, what else would I need?
 
Titan TTC-NK85TZ/V2 Fenrir CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366)

Cooler that I have, comments welcome.

Thanks
 
Nothing else need. Your cooler is a good one (Titan Fenrir I thing), and you have plenty of headroom with that PSU. Just patience and some reading. I wouldn't bother with going to 8GB of RAM.
 
as shadow said looks fine, check out the overclocking/cooling forum, and if needs be start a thread with cpu/mobo/memory details.
 
I have a similar dilemma myself. Currently on a q9550 with 4gb of ddr2. It's still a decent setup especially overclocked to 3.4ghz. But I have a bit of an itch to drop £300 onto an i5 2500k with a z68 board and 8gb of ddr3. Maybe for Xmas :)
 
Thanks. Ive raised a thread on the OC section, will wait for some feedback but I have raised a question about RAM timing - my system may not be optimally setup at the moment based on what info I am getting from CPUID.
 
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