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Worth upgrading for gaming?

nitram100

nitram100

nitram100

Soldato
Joined
7 Aug 2009
Posts
4,972
Location
London
Hey guys,

I have an old Athlon x2 5200+ and a Sapphire 4830 512mb, with 2gb of system ram. I was thinking about buying a new motherboard and the 955 Phenom II, would i see much of a frame rate increase?

Thanks a lot for any help,
 
depends what you play and how you wanna play it :) what size monitor do you intend to use, what games do you play?
 
If you just upgraded the cpu and mobo you would certainly see a frame rate increase across the majority of games. However, some will show more of an increase than others.
Games like supreme commander, crysis, GTA IV, and Dragon Age will benefit from more cores at higher clocks more so than Source based games for example.

Getting a better graphic card would also increase frames across a multitude of games however, and may work out to be the cheaper option... however your CPU may hold back a more modern card, and if you have the proficiency, It may be more cost effective to slap a decent cooler on your cpu and clock it up to ~3Ghz then add a newer graphic card rather than upgrade the platform at this time.

If you would like to be able to multi task in the windows environment more effectively then the platform upgrade will do you better.

Tell us what resolution you game at and what games you play, as well as your budget and we can offer more effective advice. :)
 
Sorry guys for not giving enough info the first time around! Also, thanks a lot for the replies :)

My budget is about £350 for a new motherboard, cpu and ram.

The games i play are Left 4 Dead 2, Shattered Horizon, COD4, Oblivion, Dragon Age and would like to play BFMC2 when it comes out.

I play on a 19" viewsonic lcd at 1440x900 resolution, i never use AA.

I would like roughly a 15% increase in frame rate with the upgrade and then buy a 5850 when they are more readily available.

Thanks a lot fellas!
 
nitram100 said:
Sorry guys for not giving enough info the first time around! Also, thanks a lot for the replies :)

My budget is about £350 for a new motherboard, cpu and ram.

The games i play are Left 4 Dead 2, Shattered Horizon, COD4, Oblivion, Dragon Age and would like to play BFMC2 when it comes out.

I play on a 19" viewsonic lcd at 1440x900 resolution, i never use AA.

I would like roughly a 15% increase in frame rate with the upgrade and then buy a 5850 when they are more readily available.

Thanks a lot fellas!
Click to expand...

Ok well a few games there would see more FPS getting a new gfx but if the plan is to buy one anyway then lets sort you out a new platform :D

I would suggest something along these lines:

MSI P55-GD65 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £127.99
Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM £139.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £89.99

Or if you can stretch it go for:

MSI X58 Pro-E X58 Socket 1366 8 Channel Audio Out gigabit ATX £134
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM £199
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (TR3X6G1600C9) £117.99

HTH
 
also the MSI P55 have a oc genie button this is unique to MSI, and you press it...wait a couple of minutes and an onboard chip tests out and stress's an optimal overclok for you, a lot of i5 750 users are getting to above 3.6ghz using the button alone :)

And the i7 920 its against the law to run those at stock speeds :) good air cooling or a h50/domino will get you 4ghz :D
 
The AMD alternative for the same price could be as follows:

Asus Crosshair III Formula AMD 790FX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard - £140
Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz+ Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game - £137
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-14400C8 Dual Channel - £72
Total = £349

Again with a decent cooler you should be able to hit ~4Ghz with that mobo/cpu, and the platform is more certain than the LGA1156 socket when considering future upgrades. However you would have course not have hyperthreading..
That mobo also includes a better than standard soundcard.
 
ooo forget to mention i9 will be socket 1366 too so that will also ensure a bit of future proofing for possible upgrades :)
 
I dont think it would be worth it playing at that resolution. If you were to get a new monitor then you could justify such an upgrade. If you did upgrade I would suggest a amd tricore 720 which seems to be the sweet spot atm and good chance to unlock to quad anyway with the right board and a 5850 or alternatively two 5770's.
 
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A quad or indeed a tri would increase the computing experience regardless of games or resolution, and whilst a tri would do adequately for now, if the op want the system to last a few years without showing too much age then I think a quad would be in good order.
 
I love my 720 BE! 3.5Ghz at the moment.... I should have space for pushing it more since it maxes at about 35°C under Prime95 for 3 hours. Can't figure out what I'm missing though. I'm sure I'll get there eventually.
 
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