What would you do?

KugarWeb · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:37

Hey guys,

Just to get some opinions of my system build really. I'm not looking to upgrade anytime soon but if you were to own this system, what would you do with it? No smart-ass comments like "bin it" please

. Also, I'm not looking to brag or anything

.

Case: Coolermaster Elite 335 Case
Power Supply: Corsair 750W
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L ATX
Processor: Intel Q8300 QuadCore 2.66Ghz
Graphics Card: ATi Radeon HD 3470 Series
Memory: Corsair DDR2 XMS PC6400 6GB (3x2GB)
HDD: 2x 1TB 7200RPM and 5400RPM

Cheers,

KugarWeb.

stulid · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:42

I would look at just upgrading the graphics card, the case you have has 230mm of space to the hdd cage so check the dimensions of any card you consider buying.

95thrifles · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:43

If you want to play games, get a better gfx card, if not dont bother
Otherwise maybe add another stick of ram so you can run dual channel, ATM you'll be running single
Lastly if you were looking to get a snappier feel you could look at a SSD

J-FRO · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:43

sell most of it and maybe reuse the processor case and psu and build something a little more powerful with those components.

OrWolf · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:51

I' d add Another stick of ram, or remove one.

KugarWeb · 3 Nov 2011 at 23:55

Cool, thanks for the opinions guys

.

stulid
Luckily I'm already thinking about a graphics card upgrade since I do play quite a few games and rendering videos and animations on this machine can be a real task sometimes.

95thrifles
Someone on another forum mentioned about the dual channel - will look into it asap

Does SSD have big advantages? I've looked into it before when considering an additional HDD for backup storage but they're small drives at the moment - highest I've seen is probably about 100GB and it's hugely expensive!

J-FRO
Cool idea! Would it not be worth upgrading the processor to something like an i5 or i7? Or would you recommend waiting until the next generation of processors? If I were to upgrade it's probably what I'd end up doing, though I'd keep the HDDs for the time being.

The case has done pretty well but to be honest, there really isn't a lot of room for cooling and installing things can be a real pain sometimes. That and one of the metal blanks for a 5" drive won't go back again after it fell off when I was installing my secondary DVD Drive lol. I guess that's another upgrade option - BluRay

J-FRO · 4 Nov 2011 at 00:02

Personally, due to mY need for always wanting the best, I'd get myself a 2500k for a gaming rig with a good graphics card to boot. But the Q series intel processors still have quite a bit to give. If you could OC that to about 3Ghz it'd be more than capable of running BF3.

It's entirely up to you what you do. Ivybridge and the one after are 'supposed' to be the dogs knackers, but we all know top end current hardware comes at premium price. If you could afford that in the new year then maybe hold out to see what prices come in. Alternatively try and sell your rig elsewhere and put the funds towards a sandybridge rig now.

Bare in mind that as newer processors are released the value of older ones inherently decreases because it's 'old tech'. So your Q8300 might be worth a tad more now than it may do in the spring.