Upgrade advice

Namsnik · 27 Aug 2012 at 22:30

Hi,
My son would like a desktop to take to Uni. He will be using Office 2010 or 2007 and currently plays Civ1V, FSX and F1 2011. However I expect his demands will increase!
We have 2 desktops and I was planning on giving him the GA_965P_DS3P based one but the graphics card just blew its capacitors so it got me thinking about repair/upgrade options.

So my question is what upgrades would you advise for these two systems? One for son one for me.

DesktopA:
Power: 500W
Mainboard: GA_965P_DS3P
Processor: E6200
Graphics: Radeon X1950 Pro nb currently with blown capacitors
Memory: 2Gb Crucial Ballistix
HardDrive: 500Gb, 250Gb
Vista Home Premium

DesktopB:
Power: XPS-650w-3XS
Mainboard: GA-G31M-ES2C
Processor: E7500 2.93ghz 1066 FSB, 3mb Cache
Graphics: MSI GeForce GTX 460
Memory: 3gb
HardDrive: 320Gb
Windows 7 Home Premium

Also: Where would I buy FZ76 1500 6.3v x 6 + FZ76 470 x 2 capacitors? Only the 1500 ones have blown but I guess it is worth doing them all – and with a better quality if I can. Probably this needs a separate post – but where?

Gav_881 · 27 Aug 2012 at 23:37

budget for the builds and what do you intend to use your PC for?

kristmace · 28 Aug 2012 at 00:14

Seeing as both are ageing, it's not worth spending a fortune on them, but some little upgrades will make them last quite a bit longer. If they're for basic office work and occasional games, then they've got life in them yet. My priorities would be...

Desktop A:
1) Graphics Card seeing as current one is dead (whatever you can afford. 2nd hand 460s for £60ish are good value imo)
2) CPU to Quad Core (Q6600 for ~£45)
3) Ram to 4GB (another 2x1gb for £15ish)
4) SSD for boot drive (£40 for 60gb)

Desktop B:
1) CPU to Quad Core (Q6600 for ~£45)
2) SSD for boot drive (£40 for 60GB)
3) Ram to 4GB (probably won't make masses of difference)

Namsnik · 28 Aug 2012 at 06:30

Thanks

Thanks - that's just the sort of advice I wanted.

Marine-RX179 · 28 Aug 2012 at 08:18

Actually it depends on how much you want to spend. At the moment, your GTX660Ti would be hugely wasted on either of those system. I'm not sure if you got oem or retail copy of Windows, but putting that aside for a min, this is what I would do:

Desktop B:
- Take the 660TI out and replace with a 2nd hand 8800GT/9800GT for around £20
- Add a semi decent CPU cooler and overclock the E7500 (this CPU should be able to hit around 3.8-4.0GHz)
- Add a SSD (if budget allows)

Destop A:
- Scrap/sell the motherboard and CPU (ain't gonna worth much, and probably not even cover the postage which they sell for), move memory to desktop B if compatable.
- Upgrade to a £80 Z77 motherboard
- Get 2x4GB DDR3 1600 memory around £35
- Upgrade CPU to either 2nd hand i5 2500K for around £120, or a i5 3570K new for around £170
- Put your 660TI with this new platform
- Add SSD if budget allows

And don't bother putting in effort and time trying to repair the 1950, when you can get 2nd 8800GT/9800GT for £20 (as mentioned above) that's more than twice as fast.

Namsnik · 28 Aug 2012 at 19:42

Great advice - thanks

Thanks Marine-RX179! I think that gives me an upgrade strategy - basically scrap Desktop A and start again but re-use the GTX 660 in the new machine.

Operating system is OEM.

Your comments on the GA_965P_DS3P/E6200 interesting as I wondered if this were actually a better motherboard than the other one (even though older).

I assume that desktop A would have significantly better performance of the two? I'll think a bit more about the spec on this one - my budget and requirements. It will include 2 low end 1920x? screens, a new power supply (existing is Jeantech I think) and a 2Tb drive.

Desktop B: I'll follow your advice. I guess that for a cooler I should be able to use the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 pro CPU Cooler from Desktop A?

I expect to order, at least for DesktopB on Friday so any further advice very welcome before then.

Marine-RX179 · 29 Aug 2012 at 07:51

Namsnik said:
Thanks Marine-RX179! I think that gives me an upgrade strategy - basically scrap Desktop A and start again but re-use the GTX 660 in the new machine.

Operating system is OEM.

Your comments on the GA_965P_DS3P/E6200 interesting as I wondered if this were actually a better motherboard than the other one (even though older).

I assume that desktop A would have significantly better performance of the two? I'll think a bit more about the spec on this one - my budget and requirements. It will include 2 low end 1920x? screens, a new power supply (existing is Jeantech I think) and a 2Tb drive.

Desktop B: I'll follow your advice. I guess that for a cooler I should be able to use the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 pro CPU Cooler from Desktop A?

I expect to order, at least for DesktopB on Friday so any further advice very welcome before then.

Just to list a few things to give you a better idea:
- The G31M chipset board would be better for overclocking Wolfdale CPUs (E5xxx, E7xxx, E8xxx) than the 965 chipset board (assuming that the G31M motherboard is not some very low end board that doesn't support voltage adjustment).
- Yes the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 pro would be compatable with any socket 775 CPU- I use to use one with my overclocked Q6600 CPU. But do note that you would need new thermal paste, which I would recommend the Arctic Cooling MX-4. As for the old thermal paste on your Artic Cooling Freezer 7 and CPU, use rubbing alcohol/surgical spirit (together with a microfiber cloth if you have one) and you should be able to clean them off completely easily.

- A i5 2500K/3570K would be hugely faster than the E7400 when using with a modern fast cards like the 660TI...even more so on CPU limited games such as Total Wars series, Starcraft II and basically ALL mmos out there. To give you an example...on the mmos I play, on my old Q6600 overclocked to 3.6GHz together with 5850, I use to get only around 20fps and with GPU usage drop all the way down to 50-60% at intensive battles because of CPU bottleneck (most mmorpgs are VERY CPU demanding, but however use less than 4 cores). I then upgraded to my current i5 2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz...at the same intensive battles, I would get much higher GPU usage and hold constant 55fps+ despite still using the same 5850. I use to think 20-40fps on mmorogs wasn't too bad, but now I got used to constant 55fps+, there's no way I'm going back to 20fps ish again

And for your 660TI which is faster than my 5850, you would most likely see even greater increase in performance than I did (plus considering you are going from a stock clock E7500 to a overclocked i5

) What sort of games you usually play btw?

Namsnik · 29 Aug 2012 at 21:33

oops made a mistake it is "only" N460GTX Cyclone 1 GD5/OC

Sorry I was mistaken my good graphics card is:
MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

How much does that change the advice - Would you leave that with Desktop B?

I have pre-ordered 2 of the OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G)
and have the Artic Cooling MX-4 in my basket

For Desktop A.
I will order 2tb drive - probably this one as my existing drives are seagate
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)
I gather that if I get a Z77 board I will then be able to create an SSD cache? Will this add other requirements?