what to upgrade?

bigfoot4616 · 19 Jan 2007 at 18:56

my current specs

amd athlon64 3700+
asus A8N-sli se
2x 1gb ram
7800gt o/c to 460/1100

just after a bit of a boost untill the backend of this year without to much of an outlay, mainly for gaming

option 1
o/c my current CPU- would a better cooler/fan help?
get another 7800gt second hand and go sli

option 2
get an opteron 170
stay with a single graphics card

under load i'm getting GPU temps into the high 70's so i'm planning on getting a decent cooler. i looked at the zalman vf-900 but if i go sli i'll need 2 of them, are the cheaper coolers any good?

cheers

pastymuncher · 19 Jan 2007 at 19:34

I know exactly what you mean with the 7800gt temps. Before i went onto watercooling i bought a pair of Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 (Rev. 3). Unfortunately the height on their website is not correct and because i only had a single slot between my pci-e slots the top one would'nt fit. What i did was to remove the top AC cooler and fitted a VF700 on it which just about fitted. You would'nt have that problem as i think you have a double slot between yours. Performance wise they were both near as silent as you could expect and they dropped the temps lots. From 70's loaded with the stock coolers down to the low 50's. The plus with the AC coolers is that they exhaust the air out of the case instead of just circulating it. Both coolers also gained me a bit of an extra overclock.

As to your upgrade i don't really know what to advise. I appreciate your dilemma as even my Sli'd 7800gt's are starting to get bogged down with new games. I was surprised i had to turn the details down in Company of Heroes at 1280x1024. Personally i would'nt go Sli again. Not all games support it but the ones that do you see a significant gain. Maybe sell your 7800gt and get a 1950 pro. One of those is more powerful than a single 7800gt and in a lot of cases more powerful than sli'd 7800gt's. That should do you until you are ready to do a full upgrade.

Your cpu should clock well and should see a benefit from clocking in games. A decent cooler should also help there. However you may want to get one of the last optys or even an X2. Games that support dual core would see a large improvement.

A2Z · 19 Jan 2007 at 19:48

whats your cpu currently clocked to?

bigfoot4616 · 19 Jan 2007 at 20:46

pastymuncher

yes 2 slots so plenty of room

thing is if i go for the opteron170 i wont be touching the graphics setup, would i get more o/c my current CPU and improving the graphics?

A2Z
stock, 2.2

pastymuncher · 19 Jan 2007 at 21:13

I would say you would be better off clocking your 3700+ and upgrading the graphics side. Especially if the main use will be gaming. I presume it's a San Diego core in which case it should be good for around 2.5-2.6ghz with a decent cooler. I would still advise going for a single card though such as the X1950Pro, namely either of the HIS ones as they have the AC silencer coolers that exhaust the heat. Unless of course you can get a 7800GT extremely cheap, but then you still have some games that don't support Sli and your heat problem is doubled.

If, on the other hand, you will be doing loads of multi threading stuff then probably the opty would be the better bet.

I was, sort of anyway, in the same boat and did ponder either an opty or an X2. Thing is this rig is mainly used for gaming so i decided to stay single core with the 4000+ and clocked it to death.

I am on water though and temps are really low so i can get away with it. I did see a big improvement in games as well. Shortly i shall be swapping my Sli'd 7800's for a single 8800, probably a GTX, but i will wait for the refresh which should be soon. Then when i am ready i can upgrade to C2D, but as thats basically new everything, that will not be for a while yet. A good single core is still pretty powerful.

bigfoot4616 · 19 Jan 2007 at 21:45

yes its SD core.
i'm thinking towards keeping it and learning how to overclock now.
i'll have a search for a decent cooler now, i've read my wavemaster case carn't fit some of the bigger ones in it.

still not sure on the graphics yet. the X1950Pro is a bit more than i want to spend and 7800gt's are getting cheaper second hand now. the Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 (Rev. 3) you mentioned earlier are also cheap as well.