Upgrade itch that needs scratching

Scurra

Scurra

Scurra

Associate
Joined
30 Jul 2009
Posts
238
Location
Kent UK
Hey all,

In a few days I should have a small injection of cash (from an unwanted mobile phone upgrade thats going to go on a certain auction site). I'm tempted to use this to upgrade my system slightly.

Currently I have:

-- Asus Crosshair III Formula
-- AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
-- 6GB XMS3
-- XFX ATI HD4890
-- Cooler Master Realpower 620W PSU
-- Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB (windows and apps drive)
-- Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB (storage drive)

I have a few possible ideas for the next upgrade, but wanted to run it past everyone for some further insight.

Option 1: SSD - I was thinking of relegating the 500GB Caviar Black to a second storage drive and picking up an OCZ Vertex 100GB SSD As seen here on OcUK I know that people that have them love them, but does anyone think this would be a worthwhile upgrade for my system.

Option 2: Graphics - I have noticed recently that with the 4890 running certain games at my native screen res (1920x1200) results in some not so great FPS (just under 30). Particularly Age of Conan in DX10 mode and Just Cause 2.

I was toying with pushing my budget a little and trying 2 5850's like this.

I have 2 questions regarding this though, the first, will this provide noticably more graphical oomph than my current 4890? The second, will I be able to power 2 from my current 620W PSU? Because a change of PSU definitely will not fit in the budget.

Cheers in Advance
 
Upgrading from -one- 4890 to -two- 5850 will yield substantial performance gains across the board, especially considering the rest of your rig is well decent. Furthermore, 5850s conventionally lend themselves to a 5870 level overclock. Can't go wrong with those.

Mate, if you're proper into gaming the GPU upgrade is the way to go. Large SSDs, while certainly nice, are still -way- expensive imo. But if you do opt for the SSD option you should consider 2 ~60 gig drives in a Raid 0 config. If chosen well, you might just get more space -and- more speed for the same price, it's a no-brainer. However, note that not all drives and memory controllers are created equal, it necessitates further research to get the best results, some scale well, others not so much.


- Ordokai
 
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Scurra said:
I was toying with pushing my budget a little and trying 2 5850's like this.
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Those 5850 will never be back in stock again...at least not at those prices. If you look around, any decent brand 5850 that are in stock would now cost £240+ to buy.

I think you should just try to find a cheap (and may be 2nd hand) 4890 to crossfire with you current one, and upgrade PSU IF necessary and bank the remaining money. If you want to go dx11, I would say wait for 2nd generation dx11 cards, as the amount of tessellations that's actually being used in current dx11 game titles are so light, that they only look marginally better than dx10. Also, HD5000 series are already known to coming a bit short in handling tessellations, so you'd better off wait for ATI6000 series or nvidia 2nd gen dx11 cards (if they manage to sort out the current issues with their 1st gen Fermi).
 
The OP states that they have 6GB RAM - is this 3 DIMMs or 4 DIMMs?? If it is 3 DIMMs this means the RAM is not running in dual channel.

I would also overclock the HD4890 1GB as many were known to hit nearly 1000MHZ on the core.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The OP states that they have 6GB RAM - is this 3 DIMMs or 4 DIMMs?? If it is 3 DIMMs this means the RAM is not running in dual channel.

I would also overclock the HD4890 1GB as many were known to hit nearly 1000MHZ on the core.
Click to expand...

it's 4 DIMMS 2 2gig sticks and 2 1gig. I believe the xfx 4890 came oc'd although not as much as 1000mhz. I'd be reluctant to put another 4890 in as well because of the amount of heat my current one generates. the coolers seem better on the 5 series, and the decreased power drain is a plus.
 
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