Upgrading my oldie or bottleneck

E

EclipseRydr

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 7, 2009
Messages
146
So I'm thinking of upgrading my old PC that I built back in 2008. I really don't do anything too graphics intensive so that's why it's done well for me. Basic use such as internet surfing, some gaming like Call of Duty and Left 4 Dead, and that's just about it, but I use it every day.

I was going to buy a new one with the 4th gen i7 already assembled by a manufacturer, but I think I can squeeze out a couple to few years out of the updates I want to do.

My current rig has the following specs:
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L
Intel E8400 3.0ghz
4gb ram
1gb ATI HD4890
1tb WD black hdd

My upgrades will include:
same mobo
Intel Q9550 2.83ghz
8gb ram
2gb Nvidia GTX 960
2tb toshiba hdd

Will my upgraded PC be bottlenecking or are the parts OK with each other? The most intensive thing I think I'll be doing is Call of Duty Ghosts. Might also add a USB 3.0 PCI card in there.

Let me know what you guys think, I'm thinking of probably picking up the parts tomorrow or this weekend, thanks in advance.
 
oops let me follow the rules before you guys reply

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Internet surfing, emails, occasional gaming (Left 4 Dead 2, Call of Duty Ghosts, MW3)
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$500, this is an upgrade for now, not a brand new build
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
I live in Orange County, California
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
I will upgrading my CPU, RAM, video card, and hard drive
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I will be reusing the motherboard, Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L, the 4gb corsair ram already in there, my Antec 900 case, and PSU is Corsair TX750
6) Will you be overclocking?
No overclocking
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
24 inch monitor, 1900x1200
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
I plan on buying the upgraded parts within 24-72 hrs
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
I'm using my current motherboard for the upgrade
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No, I will be purchasing a Windows 7 license
 
Bottleneck of sorts. While that GTX 960 will far and away blow your HD 4890 out of the water, you're not going to get the full performance or experience out of that card even with a fully overclocked Q9550 CPU. Not to mention that in terms of cost effectiveness, it's not all that great especially considering that you live in Orange County: There's a Microcenter located within a 10 to 20 minute driving time in Tustin:
http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/tustin.aspx

For $500, you could do:
$240 - Intel Core i5 4690K CPU + AsRock H97M Pro 4 mATX Microcenter Combo
$66 - G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$200 - Cheapest GTX 960 card from Gigabyte, MSI, eVGA, or Asus
----
Total: $506 shipped plus tax on the CPU and mobo.

Your current hard drive isn't all that much slower than the 2TB Toshiba HDD so unless you just need more space, just drop the 2TB upgrade. So basically, you can do a pretty sizeable new build with your current budget.

If you didn't live near a Microcenter, your budget wasn't $500, if you bought the CPU and DDR2 RAM off ebay for $75 total for both parts, and if you dropped down to the R9 270 then you would have a better case for the upgrade of a C2D system. But let's do some math-ish shall we?:

The average price I'm seeing for the Q9550 on eBay is $65. Four years ago, the ~$75 Pentium G850 was released. It performs just as well as the Q9550 in many games:
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/50?vs=404

Since the release of the Sandy Bridge-based Pentium G850, we have had the release of the Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs. Ivy Bridge brought a 3% performance increase clock for clock and Haswell brought another 5% performance improvement on top of that. Right now you can grab the Haswell-based Pentium G3220 or the overclock capable Pentium G3258 for $57 and $70 respectively. Both of those CPUs are clocked higher than the old Pentium G850. In other words, pretty much a $60 to $70 Intel Pentium CPU today outperforms the Q9550. That's just with low-end Intel CPUs. So imagine the performance difference with the high to mid-range Core i5 CPUs.

Hence why I said $75 for both the DDR2 RAM and Q9550: It's the only real price point where a DDR2 upgrade would make some sort of sense.
 
Last edited:
Dangman said:
Bottleneck of sorts. While that GTX 960 will far and away blow your HD 4890 out of the water, you're not going to get the full performance or experience out of that card even with a fully overclocked Q9550 CPU. Not to mention that in terms of cost effectiveness, it's not all that great especially considering that you live in Orange County: There's a Microcenter located within a 10 to 20 minute driving time in Tustin:
http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/tustin.aspx

For $500, you could do:
$240 - Intel Core i5 4690K CPU + AsRock H97M Pro 4 mATX Microcenter Combo
$66 - G.Skill Ripjaws 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$200 - Cheapest GTX 960 card from Gigabyte, MSI, eVGA, or Asus
----
Total: $506 shipped plus tax on the CPU and mobo.



Your current hard drive isn't all that much slower than the 2TB Toshiba HDD so unless you just need more space, just drop the 2TB upgrade. So basically, you can do a pretty sizeable new build with your current budget.

If you didn't live near a Microcenter, your budget wasn't $500, if you bought the CPU and DDR2 RAM off ebay for $75 total for both parts, and if you dropped down to the R9 270 then you would have a better case for the upgrade of a C2D system. But let's do some math-ish shall we?:

The average price I'm seeing for the Q9550 on eBay is $65. Four years ago, the ~$75 Pentium G850 was released. It performs just as well as the Q9550 in many games:
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/50?vs=404

Since the release of the Sandy Bridge-based Pentium G850, we have had the release of the Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs. Ivy Bridge brought a 3% performance increase clock for clock and Haswell brought another 5% performance improvement on top of that. Right now you can grab the Haswell-based Pentium G3220 or the overclock capable Pentium G3258 for $57 and $70 respectively. Both of those CPUs are clocked higher than the old Pentium G850. In other words, pretty much a $60 to $70 Intel Pentium CPU today outperforms the Q9550. That's just with low-end Intel CPUs. So imagine the performance difference with the high to mid-range Core i5 CPUs.

Hence why I said $75 for both the DDR2 RAM and Q9550: It's the only real price point where a DDR2 upgrade would make some sort of sense.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I purchased a lightly used q9550, I guess I was really trying to hold onto that mobo until it's dead.

You mentioned the r9 270 would not really bottleneck, what about the r9 285 with the q9550, is there a way to check other than installed software once the hardware is in?
 
EclipseRydr said:
Thanks for the info. I purchased a lightly used q9550, I guess I was really trying to hold onto that mobo until it's dead.
Click to expand...
I can understand that: I went through the same thought twice with my older 775 setup (from E6400 to Q6600) and a AM2 setup (From Phenom II X4 B93 to Phenom II X6 1055T). But both times I elected to upgrade to a new system rather than pay for an overpriced CPU upgrade. I'm better off for it in the end.

EclipseRydr said:
You mentioned the r9 270 would not really bottleneck, what about the r9 285 with the q9550, is there a way to check other than installed software once the hardware is in?
Click to expand...
Well I can't really recommend the R9 285 at its current pricing due to the performance level of the GTX 960. Best way to check is to read a whole bunch of reviews and compare multiple CPUs or find someone online who's done exactly the same plan as you.

The reason why I recommend the R9 270 is because it's a slower card which means that you'll be able to get closer to its full performance.

Now if you still want to keep and use that Q9550, get a SSD. That should help the system last a bit longer than it would with a normal HDD. I recommend this SSD:
$105 - Crucial MX100 256GB SSD

With that Q9550 upgrade, the SSD upgrade, the RAM upgrade, and the R9 270 upgrade, that should help increase the chances of that system having acceptable performance levels that'll last you until 2016. 2016 will be when Intel's Skylake CPUs will be coming out and DDR4 RAM should be cheaper.

It's not the most cost-effective route but it's still a route.
 
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Hey just throwing it out there but you can get the r9 290's and 290x's for $200/ 230 ish if you look in the hot deals and maybe slickdeals.net. Those destroy the 960. But you will for sure be limited by your cpu, but when you do upgrade you will have a beefier gpu sitting there already ;)
Alternately the 750 ti's have been around the 100$ price on and off recently
 
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