Upgrade?

simbady

simbady

simbady

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Joined
9 Oct 2008
Posts
903
Location
Somerset, UK
Hi i have about £500 to spend on upgrading my PC, but i'm not sure if to bother to yet. I could get water cooling and overclock futher? Or wait for the Phenom II's with DDR3? Opinions?

I play games mostly but i also do photoshop and other media programs.
 
If you feel your current setup is adequate for what you are doing then I would wait on prices coming down on the i7 or indeed if you are an amd man, then wait and save up some more and do a new build on ddr3.
 
If I had the money I would definately get a new build and go for i7. Although if you don't feel an upgrade is urgent, then hang off and wait and see if prices come down and what new hardware amd come out with etc.
 
simbady said:
I have never had a intel pc i was thinking of trying them still nto sure tho.
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Come over to the darkside of the force :cool: seriously you might be able to pick up a bargain in the members market or even something like this:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-013-OE&groupid=701&catid=339&subcat=1335

Its a little over budget but this is a wicked motherboard and supports DDR3 memory (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-284-AS).

When I moved from AMD I went to my current system based on an Intel E6300, they overclock nicely if thats your thing.

What games are you currently playing/planning on playing?
 
I play most often older games like CSS and TF2 but i still play thorugh single player on games like Crysis and Farcry2. I only have a 1360x768 Moniter so my Graphics Card is not to much of a problem.
 
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Is that Asus Rampage Formula one of these Asus motherboards that you hear a lot of problems with?

Also a DDR3 with a Q9950 wouldnt work would it?
 
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simbady said:
Is that Asus Rampage Formula one of these Asus motherboards that you hear a lot of problems with?

Also a DDR3 with a Q9950 wouldnt work would it?
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I've seen some posts about cold boot issues, but they are usually power supply related. I had a DFI LanParty UT4 Ultra D Socket 939 board some time ago and it had cold boot issues with the power supply I had bought Seasonic 620W. I replaced the PSU with a Enermax 600w and the problem went away.

What power supply do you have in your current setup ?

I'm not sure about the DDR3, maybe there is a divider on that board which allows you to run the RAM at a different speed to the CPU.

WhiteKnight
 
your system looks ok to me so im +1 for the monitor. a nice 24" effort your rig is more than capable of running css at 1920x1200 full settings full aa/af and retaining a fps rate of 60 not dipping bellow 40fps.

as untill my sig arives i am on 2gb of ddr, amd939 4800+ and a 3870 sitting on a a8n-sli premium. you could pick up a matching 3870 for £70ish to go with that monitor too
 
I would like a new screen but i got this as i gift for xmas (didnt ask for it :P) and so it looks bad if i just buy another one.
 
simbady said:
I would like a new screen but i got this as i gift for xmas (didnt ask for it :P) and so it looks bad if i just buy another one.
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I see your dilema. perhaps a duel screen display? ;)

ok looking at it like that you could upgrade your system to a phenomII but as you have an x2 running at 3ghz im not sure you will see a vast improvement in most games. is that a 5000+ black edition or standard btw?

you also have 4gb of ram wich is good. 2x2gb? or 4x1gb? first being better but unimportant in all honesty.

your mobo is a little weak being a 790x chipset using pci-e 1.0a i think. and only running at x8 per slot in crosefire mode translating to x4 if compared to a pci-e 2.0 system.

your stock heatsink is hardly a wow factor but i guess its doing the job for you eh ;)

your gfx card isnt amazing but you are playing at such a low resolution i cant see it really being an issue and as i think i have the same gfx card as you i have to say it does most of what i need. ut3 could be a little smoother/better looking though imho.

I think looking at your entire system the only things which would interest me initially would be a better mobo with a 790fx mobo posibly a 790gx (i was torn between the two versions myself, wanting intergrated gfx as a backup but also wanting 2 full pci-e 2.0 x16 lanes for futur upgrades.)

maybe go for a sexy cooler, scythe have my attenon at the moment ninja/mugen coolers are very good and run passive pretty well when aided by 120mm system fans.

what about a KB and/or mouse upgrade? a g15 is on my buying list presently with both my broths having one i can say they are sex on a stick ;)

failing all of that how about an ssd hdd? cut your boot time down to 10 seconds (or some such...) carefull what you buy though some are aufull for stuttering so worth a bit of reserch that. the intel models are the best around but they have an epic premium. maybe better raiding a few later gen 60gb drives i think.

i think thats about me for ideas tbh :)
 
Dual Screens isnt a bad idea :) RAM 4X1Gb sticks. CPU not BE :(. I got a problem with the cooler as on the mobo capastiors are in the way for after market coolers so maybe a new motherboard might be good to. I am going to buy a G15 mouse is ok. Also only just got this Samsung drive. Thanks for the ideas :D :D :D
 
simbady said:
Dual Screens isnt a bad idea :) RAM 4X1Gb sticks. CPU not BE :(. I got a problem with the cooler as on the mobo capastiors are in the way for after market coolers so maybe a new motherboard might be good to. I am going to buy a G15 mouse is ok. Also only just got this Samsung drive. Thanks for the ideas :D :D :D
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hmmm they dont seem that close tbh i would be suprised if nothing fitted. at worse you may have to take out the mobo to fit most big tall coolers have a good gap from mobo to the first fins, sometimes the heatpipes can be an issue with capasitors but you can usually tease them into a beter posision. your ram slots are pretty close to the cpu socket that would prolli consern me more if say you had a ramset with tall cooling solutions like the reaper or dominator range

simbady said:
My problem is i think new motherboard then think the new platform is out soon so is there much point?
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thats a good question and one i pondered over myself. in my case i went for the ddr2 verson to enjoy the better price on ram, you can get cheep ddr3 to tide you over but its still about twice the cost of pc8500. cant see this changing until early 2010 tbh.

also im unsure what cpus are hitting shelves for am3. i wanted a black eddition to play around with.

could also be a premium on the new amd ddr3 mobos much as there was with intel and its ddr3 mobos as we can still see today
 
Well i have only looked at the Noctua site which says i doesnt fit and on the Arctic cooling site i need to bend the mounting plate a bit so it says. Also i have so low profile ram in two of the slots the ram is about as high as the clips.
 
Checked the sythe site its only shows one mobo close time my model on one the compatability list and even that says Unknown :(
 
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