upgrade advice

ian8683

ian8683

ian8683

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Joined
29 Dec 2009
Posts
90
Hi guys
got a little bit of extra cash and want to upgrade my computer system. Mostly used for gaming.
current spec:
AMD Phenom 2 X2 550
Asus M4A77TD PRO Motherboard
Corsair Dominator DDR3 RAM 4Gb
ATI Radeon HD 5570 (sapphire)

Not sure where to start tbh :s
thought that increasing the amount of RAM might make things faster and would also consider putting the graphics cards in crossfire but read somewhere that i would have to upgrade to a 4 core processor for that..
any advice would be appreciated as kind of confused and also this being my first system so not used to upgrading :P lol
thanks in advance ;)
 
the motherboard you have dont support symmetrical crossfire, it will run the second card at a reduced speed.

more ram wont help. 4gb is ideal for games.

so either sell your graphics card for a faster one, or buy a SSD.

or, after checking the cpu support list, stick a 1055t hex core cpu in it.
 
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ian8683 said:
thanks mate :) out of interest what would u go for yourself? another graphics card or the cpu?
Click to expand...

oh, tough one!!

I would buy a ATI 5830 for £159, and sell the 5570.

but it depends on your game resolution, two 5570 in crossfire could beat a single 5830, but only when crossfire is working correctly.

and does your psu have enough pci-e connectors and power.

but then, theres the joys of getting a quad core cpu which some games work well with.
 
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might actually try that again, tried once via the bios but crashed after 5 mins, found out that i have to use AMD overdrive as cant adjust the voltage in bios :( any of u guys have any experience using this way of overclocking?
 
strange - surely you must be able to adjust the vcore through the BIOS.

I have used AMD Overdrive but there is no substitute to the old BIOS ;)
 
ok managed to get the voltages to change using the + and - keys wasnt using them was pressing enter :s lol
Anyway what ones should i be changing so that 4 cores are stable as it will crash after about 5 mins if i dont change anything?
not really bothered yet about overclocking as i dont know too much about it tbh.
there is options such as:
cpu ratio
cpu nb frequency
loadline calibration
ht link speed and width
dram frequency
cpu over voltage
vddnb over voltage
memory over voltage
:?
was thinking about just changing the cpu over voltage by a couple of incriments and starting up in the hope that it will be more stable but worried by changing that i will have to change another option
anyone got any advice?
thanks in advance
 
depends on what vcore your chip originally had, safe voltages on air are upto 1.5v from what I read.

Do you use cpu-z? that will tell you your current vcore then just go up in increments and see if the extra cores become stable.
 
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