Upgrade/Overclocking potential

richyb_safc

richyb_safc

richyb_safc

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Joined
29 May 2007
Posts
411
Location
Sunderland/Worcestershire
Alright, so last summer I took the great leap into building my first PC. I bought everything from OCUK, and used the forums a lot before hand to get an idea of if I was heading in the right direction. Everything went pretty smoothly and I have since had a minor upgrade and a wee go at overclocking my CPU and RAM.

Current set up is as follows:

Gigabyte P35 DS3R @ 400mHz FSB
OCZ StealthXstream 600W PSU
E6600 @ 3.2 gHz (8x multiplier)
4 x 1gb PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 RAM @ 800mHz (4-4-4-12)
Noctua NH-U12F Heatsink
Antec P180 case
Leadtek 8800 GTS 640MB
Western Digital 3200AAKS
XP SP2 (seeing 3.6gb of RAM)

The upgrade was going from 2gb to 4gb of ram when the ram it was on offer. All of the overclocking is pretty basic, I don't really have too great of an idea about much outside of what I've mentioned there, as I said, all knowledge of overclocking/building computers was zero in the summer.

Now to the point!!

I'm looking to do a reasonable upgrade this summer, at the minute I'm thinking of replacing the motherboard, graphics card and possibly the processor.

I'm thinking of getting the new Radeon 3870 x 2, not sure which model though. I haven't even looked at motherboards or CPU's at the minute (replacing the processor could be quite pointless atm?), although I'd quite like the idea of having SLi as an option, just so when i find £200 one day I know what I'm spending it on!
Any suggestions on upgrades are more than welcome, it's pretty much the people on these forums who built my pc in the first place, so it made sense to come back for an upgrade!

I use my PC mostly for gaming, Crysis (which is sometimes painfull) and CoD4 are the main games, so any advice on overclocking potential which I'm not using, or a small upgrade I could indulge myslef in now( >£100) , which could squeeze a few more fps out of crysis mainly, would be a nice bonus!

Cheers
Richy
 
CPU upgrade: A bit pointless imo
GFX card upgrade: Your card is still pretty OK. You could get that Radeon but remember you can't run Radeon's in SLI! You will have to put them in Crossfire.
RAM Upgrade: pointless.
OS Upgrade: Could be good switching to x64 system as it will see all of the 4GB but is it worth it? Another 400MB?
Motherboard upgrade: A bit pointless if you ask me, the one you have is still good and newer CPU's will run on it NP whatsoever (might need a Bios update though).

Best thing to do is probably switch GPU if you ask me.
 
yeah, the CPU was just a thought, although the more i thought about it it did seem more pointless!

GPU is looking like the main area, I like the sound of the new radeon, and I have a mate who's got it and likes it allot better than his GTX. Any ideas if the price might drop in the next few months? Good point with the crossfire!:o

OS was another thought, if I got the new graphics card would vista be worth it? DX10 and all that, not sure how much difference it actually makes though!

Motherboard I'm not sure why I want to upgrade this, when I built my PC this was the thing I put most effort into, so it could handle future CPU's etc. But since I've started overclocking etc, when my PC is occasionally slow to respond, I seem to blame the motherboard. It's just sort of an idea I've got that it's the weakest part of my system, again, I don't know why I think this. Is it definitely a good board? Anyone more experienced than myself using one and happy with it?

Cheers again
 
No point upgrading anything, in a summer maybe. If you look around the forums you'd find that mobo still being highly recomended.
"Weakest" part of your system is the gpu but its still one of the best out there and still got few months in it to play latest games on high unless you game at realy high res. You could overcklock it to give you few extra fps in crysis and others.
Save your cash for later.
 
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