upgrading my system

BigTed

BigTed

BigTed

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Joined
27 Dec 2008
Posts
12
any advice would be greatly appreciated, i am looking to upgrade my graphics card and ram. i currently have:

GFX: 8800 gts
Motherboard: Asus blitz formula
CPU: intel Q6600 2.4ghz
Ram: OCZ 2gb

but after reading spec on my motherboard it seems i can run 2 graphics cards (i think) so i am wondering wether it is worth buying a 9800gtx or trying to run 2 cards, but i have little knowledge of this stuff, any help please:)

also i did have it overclocked and invested in water colling but had a few problems so its running default, i would be looking to get it all overclocked again. if i took my system to overclockers would they do all this for me?
 
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Hi and welcome to the forums.

What res do you play at and which GTS is it? 320/640/512mb?

Do you have a 64 bit operating system such as XP Pro 64 or Vista 64 bit?
 
If it's a 22" widescreen it will probably be 1680x1050. An ATI HD4850 will be a nice upgrade from your current card or if you want to stick with the green team then a 9800GTX+ but personally i don't think that they are worth the money. Both cards are similar in performance but the 4850 is cheaper.

If you upgrade to 4GB of memory then your current OS will not see all of it due to the way it works and sytem overheads. It will count the graphics ram as well as sytem ram so you will actually see somewhere between 3.25GB and 3.5GB. You could either go for an extra 2GB (cheapest option) of what you already have making 4x1GB sticks or go for a brand new kit of 2x2GB sticks. PC2 6400 is more than enough for a Q6600. Anything more will be wasted. If you go with the 4x1GB option then you may have to increase the NB voltage in your motherboards bios as it put's a little extra strain on the chipset. If you go for a new 2x2GB kit then the Kingston 4GB PC2 6400 kit on this week only is good.

We can help you with the overclocking bit. What did you have it clocked to before?
 
i gave you the wrong amount of ram sorry i do have 4gb but it says i have 3328MB RAM just like you said.

is it posible for me to add another 8800 gts to what i have?

i had it overclocked at 3.6ghz then 3.2 ghz but i kept getting blue screen every so often. a friend did it for me. i was told it could be overheating but i have water colling with 2 rads and my case aint small either.
 
BigTed said:
i gave you the wrong amount of ram sorry i do have 4gb but it says i have 3328MB RAM just like you said.

is it posible for me to add another 8800 gts to what i have?

i had it overclocked at 3.6ghz then 3.2 ghz but i kept getting blue screen every so often. a friend did it for me. i was told it could be overheating but i have water colling with 2 rads and my case aint small either.
Click to expand...

You can't add another GTS as it's a P35 based board and only supports Crossfire (2x ATI cards) multi gpu setups. For your res it's not worth the hassle of having a multi gpu rig anyway. Not all games will make use of the second card and then there are the possible driver issues as well. The GTS 320/640mb cards are not very good these days anyway. The G92 GT/GTS 512mb cores were a big step up from the older G80 core 320/640mb GTS in performance and lower power consumption. Sell your GTS and get either a ATI 4850 or Nvidia 9800GTX+ is what i would do.

If you have 4GB of ram already then just stick with what you have. If you get a 64bit version of Vista at some point the rest of the ram will become available.

3.6Ghz is achievable depending on the cpu. I had a Q6600 that did 3.8Ghz. Was your's stress tested to check for stability? Such as 8 hours of Prime 95? If not then it may not have been stable in the first place. Try 3.2Ghz first. Drop the multiplier to 8x and set the fsb to 400. If your ram is PC2 6400 then you need to adjust the dram frequency to 800. You may need to increase the NB voltage a notch or two above minimum. You will more than likely need to increase the vcore as well. I would'nt expect it to need more than 1.4v for 3.2Ghz. Make sure you have set the correct voltage and timings for your ram.
Disable the following:-
CPU and PCI-e spread spectrums.
C1E.
Intel Speedstep.

That should be about it. Save the settings and reboot. If it boot's run Prime or Intel Burn Test to check for stability. Keep monitoring temps with Realtemp or core temp and let us know how you get on.
 
thanks for the info, i would have to get over clockers to sort that out.

the only chance i have of selling my gfx card is to talk my cousin into buying seperate parts instead of a system from Ocuk.

i also need to make sure that the water cooling for the gfx wll fit on a 9800 model
 
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BigTed said:
thanks for the info, i would have to get over clockers to sort that out.

the only chance i have of selling my gfx card is to talk my cousin into buying seperate parts instead of a system from Ocuk.

i also need to make sure that the water cooling for the gfx wll fit on a 9800 model
Click to expand...

What's the block? I am still using the original blocks, rad, pump etc from when i built my water cooling set up around 3.5 years ago. Since then i have gone from socket 754 to 939 to 775 covering single/dual and quad core cpu's and from SLI 7800GT's, G80 8800GTS 320mb, G92 8800GT and now my 4870. The only time i have had to drain the loop was to remove one of the blocks when i got rid of the pair of 7800GT's and when i foolishly got a full cover block for the G80. Actually you may need a new block as the G80 core is huge so the mount may be too big. You may be able to get an adaptor though.
 
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