Upgrading

Y

yr100002

n00b
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
56
Hey Guy's

I figure it's about that time to upgrade my current machine. Tho I have not kept up with hardware in a few year's so I'm not sure what most people are using these day's. I have been reading up on here and doing some research which this site has been very useful. Anyways, just thought I'd post my current hardware and see what you guy's think I should upgrade on it.

Any advice is GREATLY appreciated

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
A: Gaming

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
A:$1500 without shipping

3) Where do you live?
A:Las Vegas

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
A:CPU/RAM/GPU and possibly HD

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
A: Case, PSU, SC, possibly HD's (dvd drive/mouse/keyboard/monitor)

6) Will you be overclocking?
A: Maybe a little

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
A: Benq 24

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
A: Soon

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
A: SLI/Crossfire depending on video card as well as raid would be nice.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
A: Windows XP Pro 32bit tho I will most likely go windows 7


My current hardware
Intel E8400 (oc'd to 3.6)
EVGA 132-CK-NF78 Mainboard
3gigs of OCZ DDR2 (PC2-5300)
1000watt Antec PSU
Evga 9800GT(Single)
24 Benq monitor
2x 36gig WD raptor drives
Windows XP Pro
 
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Your current hardware is still good for gaming. It certainly isn't slow. You need a bigger HDD for games though. Those 3 x 36GB drives won't last long. Also, a GPU upgrade is all you need for improved performance in gaming. I agree on the O/S upgrade also.

1. Video Card
2. HDD
3. O/S

You can use these parts in a future Quad core build later. But, right now, E8400 @ 3.6GHz is still strong for gaming.
 
lt_shiro said:
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail and GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Combo $479

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ - Retail $165

XFX HD-585A-ZNFC Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video ... - Retail $300

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $90

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long life sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail $30

I leave the SSD suggestions to someone...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Hey Shiro, thank you for taking the time to post those links. I will check them out;) Much appreciated my friend:cool:

HardwareGuru said:
Your current hardware is still good for gaming. It certainly isn't slow. You need a bigger HDD for games though. Those 3 x 36GB drives won't last long. Also, a GPU upgrade is all you need for improved performance in gaming. I agree on the O/S upgrade also.

1. Video Card
2. HDD
3. O/S

You can use these parts in a future Quad core build later. But, right now, E8400 @ 3.6GHz is still strong for gaming.
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Hey Guru, my original plan was to upgrade those component's as the machine is by no means slow. Tho I was sure if I should go ahead and upgrade the mainboard/cpu/memory as well. I have been reading on here and it seem's ATI has the better card's out at the moment but unsure if I can run them on this evga mainboard. I would like to go quad core at some point but I guess if its not fully utilized yet I should get the most out of my dual core.
 
Your mobo should not have a problem running any of the new video cards that's out right now. Only some games utilize the quad core but, not alot. I have a Q6600 quad myself but, it's at stock speed and your Dual Core cpu will spank the crap out of my Quad cpu right now in most games. If you got a video card upgrade, HDD upgrade like an SSD drive and O/S upgrade, these 3 areas you will see a big boost in performance already.

If you look at the results of the Intel Core 2 E8500 @ 3.16ghz it's still fast compared to the Intel Core 2 Quads and AMD Phenom II X4 cpus. Plus, the E8500 is 440 mhz slower than your overclocked E8400.
 
HardwareGuru said:
Your mobo should not have a problem running any of the new video cards that's out right now. Only some games utilize the quad core but, not alot. I have a Q6600 quad myself but, it's at stock speed and your Dual Core cpu will spank the crap out of my Quad cpu right now in most games. If you got a video card upgrade, HDD upgrade like an SSD drive and O/S upgrade, these 3 areas you will see a big boost in performance already.

If you look at the results of the Intel Core 2 E8500 @ 3.16ghz it's still fast compared to the Intel Core 2 Quads and AMD Phenom II X4 cpus. Plus, the E8500 is 440 mhz slower than your overclocked E8400.
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Hey Guru, thanks for the link I see what you are saying. What video card would you recommend I pick up to compliment this setup as well as SSD? I tested my machine on BC2 and it runs it good on medium settings tho I think my current video card is what's limiting my system.

I was doing some reading on here on the SSD drives and it sounds like they are amazing for the operating system and applications.
 
yr100002 said:
Hey Guru, thanks for the link I see what you are saying. What video card would you recommend I pick up to compliment this setup as well as SSD? I tested my machine on BC2 and it runs it good on medium settings tho I think my current video card is what's limiting my system.
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I'd recommend the HD 5850 that lt_shiro recommended earlier. Should work just fine on a 24" monitor.
 
X25-m G2 80gb + an XFX 5850 would work great for you. Also you may want to consider getting new ram, what is your current configuration (like, 2x1gb+2x512mb? curious how you have 3gb). If you really want to squeeze even more out of your machine you could grab a nice HSF and try to get 4.0 with your e8400 (not uncommon for e8400's)
 
Shadowssong said:
X25-m G2 80gb + an XFX 5850 would work great for you. Also you may want to consider getting new ram, what is your current configuration (like, 2x1gb+2x512mb? curious how you have 3gb). If you really want to squeeze even more out of your machine you could grab a nice HSF and try to get 4.0 with your e8400 (not uncommon for e8400's)
Click to expand...

3x1gb ocz PC2 9200 Reaper edition sticks, I have a 4th one as well I figure I can add when I upgrade my OS. CPU-Z shows PC2-5300 but on the ram itself it says 9200:confused:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr2_pc2_9200_reaper_hpc_edition

That's the ram I currently have tho the case looks a little different so maybe its an older version but the same specs and product number.
 
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A RAM upgrade is unnecessary. 3GB of RAM is enough for gaming and RAM speeds don't that much.
 
HardwareGuru said:
If you got a video card upgrade, HDD upgrade like an SSD drive and O/S upgrade, these 3 areas you will see a big boost in performance already.
Click to expand...


+1
I'm just reiterating what everyone said, but its solid advice.

hdd - x25-m g2 is a good drive (try find it for $220), and maybe a larger disc drive for the rest of your media
gpu - hd5850
os -win7 64
 
HardwareGuru said:
Damn, both the standard Radeon HD 5850 is sold out on NewEgg and Zipzoomfly. But, Zipzoomfly has the Black Edition model for $319.99 w/free shipping which isn't all that bad considering that NewEgg charges $7.87 shipping on the regular 5850 model.
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Any difference between the standard and the black edition? My monitor has an hdmi port and the video card so that's a plus I guess.

All of you have been VERY helpful! You have no idea how much I appreciate you guy's taking the time to chime in with your thought's and links.:)

I will go with the SSD,GPU,OS upgrade which should last me awhile till I decide to do a quad core build. Is there a special adapter I need to be able to mount a SSD drive in my case since they are smaller?

Lastly, where do you recommend I pick up a copy of windows 7? Which version should I pick up?
 
The XFX Radeon HD 5850 BE has a higher core clock and memory clock speeds. Basically, it's a factory overclock of the video card. This is why it's more expensive than the regular model at stock speeds. As far as the adapter, you can get something like this Hard Drive Converter for the SSD. As far as O/S, get the Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM from Zipzoomfly.com for $99 ($10 MIR) w/free shipping Cheaper than buying this from NewEgg for $104.99 and no MIR
 
HardwareGuru said:
The XFX Radeon HD 5850 BE has a higher core clock and memory clock speeds. Basically, it's a factory overclock of the video card. This is why it's more expensive than the regular model at stock speeds. As far as the adapter, you can get something like this Hard Drive Converter for the SSD. As far as O/S, get the Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM from Zipzoomfly.com for $99 ($10 MIR) w/free shipping Cheaper than buying this from NewEgg for $104.99 and no MIR
Click to expand...

ah I see, sorry to keep asking you so many questions but I was curious what's the advantage of a 64bit OS? Everyone in the past has told me to run it but never knew the benefits. Are most games/applications compatible?

Appreciate all of your help my friend:)
 
Some of the advantages of a 64bit O/S is that a 32bit O/S can't support more than 3.5GB of RAM vs 4GB+ on a 64bit O/S. Also, the fact that you have more RAM, allows to to have even more programs open at the same time whether it be a 32bit or 64 bit application. 64 bit software is also more secure than a 32bit software because most of the malicious code is written for 32 bit software. 64bit O/S will run most 32bit aps but, it's not compatible with the 32bit hardware drivers. You will need to install the 64bit hardware drivers for the device. A 64 bit software running on 64bit hardware will run as much as 10% faster than 32bit. Pretty much most of the brand name pcs you see have Win 64 bit O/S installed on them these days.
 
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