What to upgrade?

DEL 707 · 20 Jul 2008 at 18:23

It's gotten to the point where I've stopped looking at PC games because I normally have to play them at the lowest settings.

I know my graphics card is dragging me behind, I cut costs on it when I was building this machine.

Here are my specs

MD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (I have this clocked at 2400Mhz)
NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit
BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache x2
Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU

I wouldn't mind spending about £100-£150 on a new graphics card, but I'm not sure if I should bother if the other specs of this machine are letting me down as well.

Is there anything else in my machine that's worthwhile upgrading?
I'm also thinking of replacing 1 of my hard drives (pretty sure it's faulty), is now a good time to upgrade to Vista?

DEL 707 · 21 Jul 2008 at 11:38

Thanks for the advice.

I don't know much about graphics cards these days, I take it the 4850's are comparable to some of the top range nvidia cards?

I'm looking at the different cards, there's a £25 difference between the 512mb card and the 1024mb card?
Is there going to be a big performance difference between the 2?

DEL 707 · 21 Jul 2008 at 12:14

Thanks again

On the Vista front, is it worth it yet?
Or shall I leave it till later when I do a bigger upgrade.

DEL 707 · 21 Jul 2008 at 14:51

Must say after reading all the threads about new builds I have been tempted to just go ahead with a rebuild

But I think I'll just go ahead and order the 4850 and see how well the ol' gal performs with a new graphics card.

1 Last thing I need to ask before I make an order.
Some fans on my machine need replacing, the chipset fan on the motherboard and a case fan, they're starting to make a noise, I've tried cleaning them but they're still the same.

For the chipset fan, I take it I could use any 40mm fan, like
Akasa AK-160 BL-S 40mm Blue LED Fan

But for the case fan, I've measured it diagonally, it's 110mm and I can't seem to find any on the website that fit :confused:

DEL 707 · 21 Jul 2008 at 15:30

Nice, can always count on good ol' Pyth

I'm looking at ordering

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Akasa AK-160 BL-S 40mm Blue LED Fan
Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 8025L 80mm Fan - 3 Pin

DEL 707 · 21 Jul 2008 at 18:17

Well, all ordered now.

I might be tempted at having another go at overclocking, I'm pretty sure I used to have it at 2.6 before but I think I stopped because it became unstable.