When shall I upgrade?

mishima

mishima

mishima

Soldato
Joined
10 Dec 2006
Posts
4,715
Hi guys,

It's been a year since I have upgraded and I usually upgrade every year or so. When is the best time to upgrade? This time last year was when I built this current system up:

E6600 (now @ 3.5GHz)
2GB GeIL 6400 DDR2
Leadtek 8800GT 512MB
550W Antec TP Trio
Abit AB9 Pro
19" Samsung TFT

I spent around £700-800. Is it worth upgrading now or should I wait a few months, are there new things around the corner?

Any advise is much appreciated thanks.
 
Whats outdated about your current rig??

Apart from maybe getting a bigger monitor I cant see where there is value in changing your current set-up, it will run anything apart from Crysis I would have thought.
 
Yeah I sold off the X1950 I had, for a 320MB 8800GTS and then moved to a 8800GT. There's nothing dramatically outdated but as I update every year I'm wondering about when to. This must be the wrong time of the year to upgrade then, when will quad core come down in price and become mainstream?
 
Think my system could handle the high resolutions in games with that size monitor?

I'm wondering also, for £30 I could get another 2GB of DDR2 would that make any significant performance increase?
 
If you think you will find a use for a quad go for it, but as far as Im concerned your current rig is spot on for gaming! I wouldn’t touch it.

Also if you grab a quad you will find it more than likely will not overclock at all as well as your current c2d on that motherboard.

as ots3go suggested maybe go widescreen.

Edit: to ansawer your last post.

If your like me and like to get the most out of current games, ie run them at highest setting with aa and af on I would say a 20" or 22" 1680x1050 widescreen would be a better bet than a 24" 1920 x 1200 monitor.

if you plan to say on xp, 2gb is still more than enough
 
Last edited:
mishima said:
Think my system could handle the high resolutions in games with that size monitor?

I'm wondering also, for £30 I could get another 2GB of DDR2 would that make any significant performance increase?
Click to expand...

8800GT on 1920x 1200 is a little bit of a pain. But then again there's no real need to AA at that res, and the only thing that really struggles is Crysis.
 
I'm not that keen on Crysis anyways, as long as it plays UT3 and the such. Maybe I could upgrade to 22" Widescreen, althought this isn't that much bigger. Will I notice much if I stick another 2 stick of 2GB DDR2 in dual channel mode in?
 
like I said 2gb is still more than enough for any game running on xp

ut3 will run silky smooth on a 22" ws
 
no point of upgrading i think if your cpu running at 3.5 wait till nahelm quad cores and next gen gpu 2008 q4 best time to upgrade this year i think + p45 motherboards will be out
 
thats all more or less the same as mine give or take
bar the cpu and mobo

dont stress

gpu can wait about a year
cpu is more than fine
you could always stick another set of ram in and upgrade your os to 64bit if you really need to

personally im waiting for the next gpus [once they have been out a while and the drivers are solid
im going for the next gen intel chips and mobo that compliments it all

dont see the point in upgrading until at least august

edit* my 22" samsung is the best investment i have ever made for my pc
your GT [which is the same leadtek as mine by the looks of it] will do a great job of running ut3 maxed out at native res

i say go for the monitor if you are keen
 
Don't get the 22", get the 24".

You won't regret the extra res. UT3 runs smooth as a baby's bottom at it.
 
I dont see the point in upgrading just because you usually do each year. Surely just wait until you have some specific need?
 
Hey Mish

A 20"->22" monitor is where it's at, then if you have money buring a hole in your pocket an extra 2GB of RAM can't hurt (at 30 notes it would be rude not to!).

As said above, pretty much anything except Crysis will run at 60fps+ at 1680x1050 on a GT, but then that game doesn't appear to run at 60 fps on anything!

UT3, HL2, most FPSs look good on a widescreen monitor, but be prepared to look around for a few patches for some older games like MoH etc.. to enable widescreen PoV (Point of View).

If you STILL have money left over, then you can either spend money on Solid State Drives for fast booting, maybe a raptor, but anything other than a monitor or RAM will be a poor return on investment/diminishing returns.
 
Thanks for the input guys, I understand what you're saying. I like to keep up-to-date and being an enthusiast I like to have a fast machine ready for all of todays releases. It seems that the best thing to do is wait until later in the year.

Good idea Melbourne, I think I might well order some more GeIL. For now I'll leave the monitor until later in the year when I buy the new bundle.
 
melbourne720 said:
Hey Mish

A 20"->22" monitor is where it's at, then if you have money buring a hole in your pocket an extra 2GB of RAM can't hurt (at 30 notes it would be rude not to!).

As said above, pretty much anything except Crysis will run at 60fps+ at 1680x1050 on a GT, but then that game doesn't appear to run at 60 fps on anything!

UT3, HL2, most FPSs look good on a widescreen monitor, but be prepared to look around for a few patches for some older games like MoH etc.. to enable widescreen PoV (Point of View).

If you STILL have money left over, then you can either spend money on Solid State Drives for fast booting, maybe a raptor, but anything other than a monitor or RAM will be a poor return on investment/diminishing returns.
Click to expand...



agree :)

A tri sli setup can only just manage an average 60fps at 1280x1024 with no AA and all set to dx9 high in that crysis demo.

I run cysis at 1680x1050 with 4xAA and all setting set to high dx9. Actually the game is very playable at those settings, I know frame rates are low at those setting but it doesn’t feel like it, it masks low frame rates so well, thank god it does!

Oh and having a 4ghz quad didn’t make a blind bit of difference!!
 
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