Upgrade time...

Loony BoB · 15 Jul 2010 at 11:54

So it's been three years since I did any real upgrade work outside of hard drives and RAM, and I'm thinking it's time I went a little further on my systems (I have two - both owned by me but gf uses one of them). With an initial budget of around £400-600 to get my PC ready for Final Fantasy XIV in late September and another potential £400-600 within the next few following months, what would you say I should focus on for the "first wave"? I'm thinking I should start off with things such as new GPU's and possibly CPU's for the first lot - things I can keep - and then go for systemboard/RAM upgrades early next year. Thoughts?

My PC...
Case: 1028 Lian Li PC-7 SE-B II Black
Systemboard: Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB)
RAM: OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Series
PSU: Corsair HD 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
GPU: OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint 500MB
Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD+/-RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive

My GF's PC...
Case: Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case
Systemboard: Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB)
RAM: OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Series
PSU: EarthWatts 500W PSU (came with Case)
GPU: OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint 750GB
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint 500GB
Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD+/-RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive

Loony BoB · 15 Jul 2010 at 12:41

mp: Any specific reccomendations for components? It's been a while since I was keeping up with this stuff, I gotta admit.

muncher: Another thing I'll have to admit is my lack of overclocking expertise, but I think particularly with my girlfriend's PC it's time I learned how - her desktop runs like a dog with one leg on occasion.

Loony BoB · 15 Jul 2010 at 13:02

Thanks heaps, man.

I'll check out the beginner's guide in the Overclocking forum regarding the processors and see what I can do when I get home.

Loony BoB · 15 Jul 2010 at 13:42

Going by memory, I believe I'm using 1920x1200 on my screen and will do that for FFXIV as well (Windowed mode, in other words also using other programs simultaneously). Girlfriend will be getting a similarly sized monitor and will probably go for a similar resolution.

The benchmark runs okay for me, but I'd like a new graphics card regardless in preparation for a full upgrade for both my girlfriend and myself sometime next year. Just because we like things that run smoothly. Still, will try to see if the good lady will allow me to format her hard drive first and that should keep her happy for a while.

From what I've read about FFXIV, it requires a very solid graphics card to run effectively, and the CPU is more of a second thought thing. At the moment, both graphics cards are 320MB to the min spec of 512MB and her CPU is short of the minimum requirements too.

I'm trying to read up about overclocking but it definitely seems rather time consuming and, uh, for a newbie like myself, confusing.

Even the beginner's guide. >_>; Is it possible to be walked through this kind of thing step-by-step, or would someone need to actually be here? Shame there aren't courses on this sort of thing.

Think I might settle for a cheap CPU alongside a couple of the GTX460's. Any idea how large they are in comparison to the 8800GTS? One thing I can't stand about my system board is that the front-panel mic/speaker pins are at the rear of the systemboard. Combine that with a massive graphics card and the cable struggles to reach from the front panel to the pins at the rear.

Loony BoB · 15 Jul 2010 at 14:10

If by clearance you mean overall space, it's got a lot. It's just the cable is too short, really.

Even without the graphics card it's still got little slack to it (with the graphics card in, the cable presses against it, which doesn't look great). A real shame, too, as otherwise I love that case to bits. I hope my next systemboard, whenever I get it, will have the front panel pins at the front. I suppose every system board has some kind of design flaw in it somewhere.

I've been having a look as well, looks as though the GTX460 is a good 2cm shorter so it might work in my favour for that end of things. Even if I find it's half an inch thicker (not sure on this so far), that should still work alright.

EDIT: Apparently if I get a Palit GTX460, it goes from my current 8800GTS's 9" down to a tiny 7.5"!? Nice, if that's true!