Upgrade path?

RoEy · 27 Nov 2012 at 15:39

Hi all,

Had my system for nearly 4 years now and during that time it’s been water cooled cpu/gpu loop. For the last year my graphics card has been playing up as in it crashes the system or artefacts when enabling the second core so I’ve been running it on one core.

Really need to drain my system and want to upgrade and get a decent gpu but was thinking shall I upgrade cpu/board and ram too. All I tend to do is mainly web work and a little bit of gaming.

How would my current spec handle a 7950 because I may just decide to upgrade the card and then do a full upgrade this time next year. So out of the loop now so advice would be great. Would it be better to get some more ram too?

Spec in sig.

RoEy

setter · 27 Nov 2012 at 16:04

A new card and wait till haswell is released. I changed out one of my X58 rigs for the spec in sig, no difference whatsoever in games. A 7950 or any of the other latest higher end offerings from ati/nv will perform fine in an i7 920. 12gb is another nice cheap upgrade if your doing tasks that will utilise it, again though i found no difference in games going from 6-12gb when i had my 920.

Mei · 27 Nov 2012 at 16:10

i agree just a new gfx card
haswell might not even be worth the upgrade, im looking forward to what the new mobos bring tho

RoEy · 27 Nov 2012 at 17:22

Sounds like a plan, cheers chaps! Any recommendations for ram on my setup? Don't wanna use all my dim slots if I can help it.

setter · 27 Nov 2012 at 17:45

Ocuk's tri channel memory selection is a bit sparse at the moment. Id suggest trying the members market, if you have access. A 12gb kit in a 3x4gb configuration would suit better and either sell your current kit or keep as spares. Youd have little or no tweaking to do of your cpu oc. 6x2gb can be pretty troublesome to setup, due to the extra strain on the cpu's memory controller.

I went from 6gb of ocz reaper at 7-7-7-24 to 12gb of kingston hyperx at 9-9-9-27. Just slackened the timings of the reapers in bios to match the new ram prior to installation. Worked without issue.

Sasahara · 27 Nov 2012 at 17:55

Or you could buy 3 identical single channel sticks.

The only reason you don't do this normally is it's normally cheaper to buy a bundle pack.

If you want to be sure all the ram sticks are the same, just add a note on your order asking them to make sure they are all the same spec.