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Contemplating Upgrading

S

Schlomo

n00b
Joined
Feb 23, 2011
Messages
8
I'm contemplating upgrading my system but im not sure what I should get. My current specs are:

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366
Intel core i7-930
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB
Geforce 9800GTX+
1.5TB HDD

All being run on a 42" LED TV.

A new video card is a must, but im not sure which is better for the price right now, ATI or NVidia. I would like to stick with NVidia but if ATI is making better products right now im willing to switch over. Also, are SSD's worth it for the money right now?

Also, does anyone know how easy it is to overclock the i7-930 with stock fan? Im thinking about grabbing a H50 or H70 depending on how much it will help.
 
Automatic answer in this forum will be upgrade your video card. Hopefully you're rocking 1080p on your LCD screen. If you're gaming and the framerate is lower than you'd like, go up to a 6950 or 560 Ti or 570. Pick your poison. There is no real right answer. I'd say check out some review sites (Here at HardOCP, etc) and weigh the pros and cons. I'm happy with my 6950, and am pursuing eyefininty in the near future. Many people hate AMD and say that there are still driver problems that they're famous for, though I haven't seen them, and I still see driver issues in Nvidia forums as well, so no solution is perfect for everyone.

As for o/cing your processor, I wouldn't ever recommend overclocking on a stock HSF. H50 or 70 will help immensely, and I believe the overwhelming opinion is that h50 is cheaper and just as good as the h70, especially if you add a second fan to it.
 
Last question first. Just don't bother with the stock cooler, it'll work but it's simply not designed for overclocking purposes, you'll get much more from the H50 or H70.

As for video cards, just look at reviews and see what delivers the performance and features for a price you're happy with. AMD cards I would say deliver better performance/price ratios and nVidia cards have a better feature set, PhysX, CUDA and better 3D support.
 
SSD's are absolutely worth it, but wait until the new ones come out which is very very soon, they are going to be a lot better.

ATI & NV are both good. NV was a slum dunk for me because a lot of the apps I use have CUDA acceleration.
 
My TV is full 1080P. I was told a while ago to just get 2 460's instead of dropping the cash on say a 560TI. I dont do any intense gaming, my current spec lets me run my games on max everything with no lag, but i feel like its time to replace my 9800gtx.
 
"Also, does anyone know how easy it is to overclock the i7-930 with stock fan? Im thinking about grabbing a H50 or H70 depending on how much it will help. "

I've got a 930 as well and I could barely run stock speeds with my stock cooler. I ended up getting the Zalman Max cooler and was able to overclock to 4 GHz, and the proc doesn't get as hot as it did with the stock cooler running on stock settings... My personal opinion is that the stock cooler sucks.
 
If it was between 2 460s and a 560, from what I've gathered from lurking on forums for a while is absolutely if you have the option for a single card, GO FOR IT. Do not go multiple cards unless you have to (like the people rocking multiple 580s or 6970s to run surround/eyefinity setups at high resolution).

I'm surprised you don't have any complaints about framerate or quality with that card. My friend went from a 9800gt to 6870, and it was night and day for him (and me as well, when I saw the difference). We mostly play Battlefield Bad Compay 2 though.
 
Yeah, i usually have issues with my crappy apartment internet so that may be why i havent noticed anything. I really only play SC2 right now, but thats pretty much because i dont trust that card to hand anything else so i just havent gone out and bought anything yet. It does seem to handle the new NFS (most wanted?) well. Running everything on max with no lag. Not sure about frame rate though.
 
I believe what you are calling "lag" is what we would call "frame rate stutter," basically lag is related to things slowing down due to a cause, whereas frame rate stutter/dropping/etc are that your video card cannot produce enough frames, so it drops frames, giving the impression of lag, or jittery performance. I'm surprised that you haven't experienced this at all with the 9800, but SC2 is supposedly very CPU intensive, and you've got a very solid CPU setup, and you're running at 1080p, so it's not too taxing on your video card. With my 6870 I could run basically anything I could throw at it at 1080p, but I was running a monitor with higher resolution. With my eyefinity setup, I've downgraded to 1080p, so its easier for my graphics to keep up, but I still went with a 6950 (modded/unlocked) so that when I get 2 more screens and am running 5760x1080 instead of 1920x1080, I won't have problems with low framerate (hopefully, though I am considering getting a second 6950 just in case).

Also, unless you've got a good reason to overclock your CPU, why bother? I've been goosing my proc because it's slow and 2 generations old, so it's bottlenecking some of my gaming. Your 1366 i7 should rock most games no problem, and it sounds like you haven't had any problems as you haven't noticed any visual lag/frame rate issues
 
That makes sense. I guess the question now is would it be worth me just getting a 460 and possibly another later or should i front the money and get a 560ti. I just got a new laptop too, dell xps i7 - 4g ram - 2g 425m gpu, and i actually think that will play games better than my desktop. is the 560 really that much better? i guess im looking to run my LED TV on higher resolution than it is, i believe its at 1920x1080. im not getting any use out of 1080p because my card doesnt have HDMI out and i haven't bought the DVI to HDMI cable yet. Thoughts?
 
What resolution are you running on your TV? What connection are you using? VGA?! You can't run a 1080p tv at higher than 1920x1080, as that's the spec for 1080p. You'd have to move to a computer monitor to go higher resolution, and if they make something that large in a computer monitor, I assure you it is prohibitively expensive.

As far as the 460 or 560, I'd just say look at benchmark reviews, as I'm sure that some of the review sites will have good comparisons up between the cards, and you can make a decision from that. I bought a 460 for sport when I was in-between my 6870 and 6950, and while it was an improvement, I felt that the 4950 at a similar price was more worth the value than the 460 as there was a performance increase.

The 6950 has DVI, HDMI, and Mini display ports, so whatever route you take to hook up to your screen, it'll be easy. Also, if you want to use HDMI in the mean time just get an DVI to HDMI connector, especially if you're using VGA.
 
Yeah, its VGA.... no worries the new cables are on the way! Seems like im gonna go with the 460. Should be more than enough for the gaming I do, possibly get a 2nd later if i have some money burning a hole in my pocket.
 
A lot of the 460 cards have HDMI output so you shouldnt need an adaptor.

Oh never mind... I read the post wrong...
 
Yeah i just recently got a 2gb XFX 6950 (unlocked to 6970) and LOVE it. Getting amazing frame rates and it has made my gaming experience SOOOOOO much better. However what it replaced was my GTS 250 512mb and im told that is a 8800GTX/9800GTX (whatever). And i was like you, not having any FPS issues persay, i was probably getting around 30-40FPS in games like Medal Of Honor.
So my recommendation is to maybe wait for another great 6950 sale like was just on and get a 2gb 6950 for like <$250. You can always go Nvidia though (560 Ti) and you will get very similar performance from benchmark reviews iv read.

As for SSD's , idk i dont own one and so far im not totally sold on their long term reliability (though havent researched or asked much so im not well informed). They just dont appeal to me cause all it seems to improve that would affect me is boot time, and im not gonna pay $200+ to boot my PC in <30 seconds.

As for overclocking, i dont know TOO much about i7's, but as someone else mentioned, i doubt theres a reason to overclock your i7. Maybe a year from now or 2 , games and other applications will start to stress your i7 and then you can OC it to get more headroom and life out of your i7, but for now, i agree with what has been stated so far.
 
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