Upgrade to play all games maxed out settings.

Vegeta · 13 Jan 2011 at 14:39

Actually I think this CPU maybe capable of a much higher overclock - I wasn't sure on safe volt's to use but looking at what others are using I never pushed my volts near that high so maybe thats why my clocks were low.

MumboJumbo · 13 Jan 2011 at 15:12

Give it a whirl I say and save £80. Also what games are you currently playing? Because unless you are trying to play games in particular like GTA or supcom then you may only need the gpu upgrade anyway, especially with a proper overclock to 3.6ghz. In fact didn't you say you were on water? Go for 3.7-4ghz.

But do make sure you do it correctly

. Don't forget you may need some extra volts on your mch.

Vegeta · 13 Jan 2011 at 15:37

What's the mch? The bios is strange on this motherboard it has CPU Volts (which is fine) and CPU Termination (auto set at 1.200V) and CPU Reference (Set at 0.800V). How do these affect the overclock? And what exactly do they mean.

EDIT: Would like to play Crysis, Metro 2033, Mafia 2 etc and some racing games maybe.

Purgatory · 13 Jan 2011 at 15:44

jyounguk gave you best advice.

jyounguk said:
Sell the 8800GT(£30 - £35) and the E5200 (£15 - £20) cpu on the bay, put that cash to a secondhand Q6600 and a new 460/6850 and the upgrade will only really cost you around £150 . That should keep you gaming for a good time yet. It may not play every game at max but 99% should be fine.

Don't waste your money on a new build.. If you have a decent motherboard and PSU .. All you need to do is buy a good quad core cpu such as a Q6600 or a Q9xxx (if you don't have a good cpu heatsink you will need one too) and stick a AMD/ATI 5850 or 6950 or a Nvidia GTX470 or GTX460 in that system and it will play all the games at very high settings at the resolution you use.

What motherboard do you have and PSU ?