Upgrading OC built PC

[Mullers84]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to draw on your expertise and decide whether there's life left in my machine or if I need to re-build/buy a new one!

I bought the below PC from OC about 6/7 years ago, unfortunately neglecting it with no new parts since! Is it worth upgrading, and if so, which parts are absolutely required and which would be nice to have.

"Ultima OC 9800 GX2" Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz @ QX6950+ 3.00GHz+ Quad Core DDR2 System

My budget is approx £400 and I'm currently running Windows 8 with a 20" monitor - the PC would be used for gaming and uni work (office and ArcGIS/AutoCAD)

Thanks in advance for any advice, and apologies if this is the wrong part of the forums to post to!

 

[ShivP]

Any chance you can list the full specs?

 

[Mullers84]

Sadly I don't have it on my emails, but a quick google reveals the below which I believe is the same;

Processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 GO 2.40GHz Quad Core CPU Overclocked too a minimum of 3.30GHz and beyond. (8/9 x 400MHz - 1600MHz FSB)

Cooling - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Intel approved cooler
- Arctic Silver 5 Heatsink compound professionally hand installed by our technicians

Mobo - Abit IP35-Pro Intel P35 (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Memory - Award winning OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 CAS5 (2x2GB) Dual Channel Kit (Overclocked at 1000MHz+) (Note when upgrading to 4GB overclock drops to 3.25GHz on CPU)

HDD - 1000GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 32MB Cache SATA-2 Hard Drive

Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 1024MB GDDR3 AVIVO HDTV/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) DirectX 10 Graphics Cards

Disk Drive - Pioneer 115DBK 20x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)

PSU - Corsair TX 650W Next Generation Power Supply

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

YOUR BASKET
1 x "Recon RX6" AMD FX-6 6300 Black 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Six Core Value Gaming Bundle £229.99
- 1 x Standard Build Laptops - Approximately 3 to 5 working days £0.00
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive (SHFS37A/120G) £56.99
Total : £406.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This would be a bout the cheapest way of brining it up to date but it depends what your uses are. Do you need more CPU/GPU grunt?

 

[ShivP]

YOUR BASKET
1 x "Recon RX6" AMD FX-6 6300 Black 3.5GHz (4.1GHz Turbo) Six Core Value Gaming Bundle £229.99
- 1 x Standard Build Laptops - Approximately 3 to 5 working days £0.00
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 270 TurboDUO 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive (SHFS37A/120G) £56.99
Total : £406.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This would be a bout the cheapest way of brining it up to date but it depends what your uses are. Do you need more CPU/GPU grunt?

I'd be spending a little extra for a £10 heatsink, as the AMD one's are apparently quite bad
But that looks really good, yea

 

[Mullers84]

Lovely, thanks for the quick replies and useful info!

I have potentially got more budget if required, would I get a noticeable difference by pushing for £600? I'd be loathe to put more money in if the performance gains/longevity of build wasn't worth it.

Re CPU/GPU power, unfortunately I have no idea! I would guess GPU but have pretty much lost touch with what the computing market is like at the moment!

 

[altrewin]

If you are able to push the budget up to ~£600 I'd be looking at something like this

YOUR BASKET
1 x VTX3D Radeon R9 280 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x ReFlex MSI Z97 - Intel Core i5 4690K @ 4.2GHz Configurable Gaming Bundle £103.03
- 1 x Standard Build Laptops - Approximately 3 to 5 working days £0.00
- 1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £164.99
- 1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX) £67.99
- 1 x Prolimatech 68 CPU Cooler - 120mm £31.99
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99
Total : £607.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[Mullers84]

Excellent, many thanks for the suggestions.

It seems I'll get quite a bit more power from investing another couple of hundred quid so will most likely shoot for the £600 upgrade!

 

[Mullers84]

Quick bump as circumstances have changed somewhat.

My existing monitor is on the way out so will need to be replaced. Good news is I've managed to get the budget to £800 after some haggling with the other half.

Would I still be best going with the build recommended by altrewin (and if so, which monitor would be best? Was hoping for around 24" and 1080p) or are there more options to get a bit more oomph out of the system?

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions.