(What) Do I need to upgrade?

dodgem

dodgem

dodgem

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Hey,

I'm trying to figure out whether it's worth upgrading what I have or whether to spend on a new rig...

I'm really looking forward to Diablo 3 coming out and want to be able to play that at pretty high settings, and although I haven't actually bought it yet, I fancy playing Skyrim on reasonably high settings. (I haven't bought it yet cos I'm very busy at the moment, but once things have quietened down...)

So at the moment I have:

Abit AW9D-MAX
2.13GHz Core 2Duo
ATI 5770 1Gb
2 x 1Gb ram

I was thinking to go out and buy an i5 2500K, new mobo, ram, cooler etc, and then perhaps a new graphics card, but that's a lot of money if what I have will run these games well anyway. Or I could get another 5770 and Crossfire them, and add more ram (or just replace the ram entirely with 2 x 2Gb). Do i need exactly the same model card to crossfire by the way? Or could I use a 58xx?

So what do you think? Where should I spend my money, bearing in mind I would rather not fork out on a whole new system if it can be helped!?

Cheers :D
 
I would look to be upgrading your CPU/mobo/RAM now and add in another graphics card later. From what I've read Skyrim isn't the most demanding game so your 5770 with a new CPU/mobo/RAM may cope OK until you have funds to upgrade the graphics card. You could upgrade your CPU to a Q6600 which your motherboard supports (may need to flash to latest BIOS) and add in 2GB of RAM (or buy matched 4GB set), although I'd prefer to do the first option.

What PSU do you have at the minute and is your HDD and DVD-RW SATA or IDE?
 
Well, a few things: I think crossfired 5770s will be bottlenecked by your CPU, other GPUs might be too. You can only crossfire a 5770 with another or a 5750:
http://sites.amd.com/PublishingImag.../WebBannerJPEG/AMD_CrossfireX_Chart_1618W.jpg

Also, DDR2 RAM is actually quite expensive.

If it's just for gaming, you don't need an i5? the i3 is really quite good. What res do you play at?

Can you overclock your current CPU?
 
PSU is a Corsair HX 520W modular SLI compliant PSU (not sure if that is still compatible with todays mobos or if it can power 2 ATI cards!) Oh dear, I'm so out of touch with hardware now :(

My monitor is 1680x1050, so I like to play games at that res as well...

And my HDD and DVD-RW are both SATA (i think... the optical drive might not be).

I could have a go at overclocking the CPU, not tried on this one but not worried about doing so - although the last time i overclocked was on a mobile Athlon chip, an XP2500 or something!! What is the performance gap between a 2.13GHz Conroe and a 3.3GHz i5? I mean, is it actually going to make much of a difference to oc it compared to getting a modern CPU??

The system isn't used solely for gaming, i use it for programming (which I can do on anything with a keyboard and display to be fair), but my other half uses it for graphical work for her interior design course. If I were going to upgrade cpu, mobo, etc I would probably go for an i5 rather than an i3 - i do fancy getting back into OCing my rig and even going for some water cooling as i get some more free time, but that's a few months away at the moment!

If the best answer is to go for a new mobo and cpu then I might actually wait for Ivybridge to come out - I know I know, it's pointless to always wait for the next thing, but IB is so close now it would seem silly not to...


I think i've just talked myself into OC'ing my CPU and waiting for IB!!! :o

edit: lol, i guess what i meant in my initial post was that i don't want to spend loads on hardware right now... when i have time to appreciate it in a couple of months or so then i don't mind ;)
 
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Well you've got nothing to lose trying an OC. Tbh I'm not sure how much difference it will make compared to a new CPU. Things move quickly!

If you're happy to wait til IB, and just enjoy OCing your rig that seems a good option to me. Making the most of what you've got first :)
 
I've got almost the same as your and I can (just) play Skyrim on the highest settings at 1920x1200 - it's not a hugely taxing game and so far I've only noticed occasional lagging. If anything grab a cheap Q6600 and clock it to death to tide you over while you save for a new system :)
 
I think if you can afford to go i5 great - time to change - if not i3 - if not upgrade what you have but be wary of spending loads on what after all is old tech now.

How much will a IB cpu cost? If it is Over £200 upgrade now you don't need it.
 
The only thing worth doing with your current rig is overclocking it, which probably won't make a massive difference to framerates. There's no point spending money on DDR2, a 775 CPU, or a graphics card which will be bottlenecked by the rest of your system.

If you want to upgrade, starting afresh is the only sensible choice.
 
It's surprised me to be honest, how old my system is! It doesn't seem that long ago that I bought it - I had to go and look in my order history to find out what my PSU was and discovered the following:

Dec 2010 - Radeon HD5770
Oct 2007 - Corsair HX 520W
ABIT AW9D-Max
Geil 2 x 1Gb 800MHz
Sep 2007 - Samsung Spinpoint 400GB
Nov 2006 - Radeon X1950XT

So clearly it was quite some time ago! The CPU came before Nov 2006 although I don't know exactly when.... so my CPU is a good 4-5 years older than my GPU. I can see why you are saying that my GPU would be bottlenecked by the rest of the system!!

Well, I really ought to see what I can get from my current rig. I'll give it as much of an overclock as i can and see where that gets me for a couple of months, and then perhaps I'll go all out on a new IB setup :D

Is my PSU going to be up to coping with IB and a then a newer graphics card? It seems that whenever I upgrade, I pretty much have to get new everything! (Maybe that means I need to upgrade more often and in smaller steps ;) )
 
Corsair make quality PSUs, depends which GPU you go for but it should be fine I would have thought. Newer ones may be more efficient though so you may save money (electricity bills!) going for a new one anyway.
 
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