Good afternoon,
It's been about two years now since I've upgraded my PC, and I'm looking to upgrade and future-proof a bit. The PC is used for both gaming and graphics applications (Blender, 3ds Max) as well as pretty serious multitasking. Also, this will likely be my last upgrade for a solid 4 years, so I'm looking to do it right.
Current specifications:
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
AMD 6400+ BE
Zalman 9500 fan
eVGA Geforce 7950 GX2
2x1GB Corsair DDR2 800
Creative X-fi extremeMusic soundcard
Enermax Liberty 620W
Seagate 160GB
Seagate 250GB
Win XP 32 bit SP3
My first question is whether the processor is 64-bit capable. I was pretty sure it was, but on the Microsoft website it said to check the PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE variable, and it was x86. (Yes, I apologize for the newb-ish question).
Assuming the processor is 64-bit capable, I was planning to buy the following:
Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium (OEM)
8 GB DDR2-800 RAM
ATI 4870
Of course, since I'm pretty inexperienced, I have a few questions:
1) For the sake of future-proofing for several years, do I need to invest in a new motherboard and processor?
2) Since I won't be upgrading for several years, should I consider more than 8GB of RAM (especially considering this will see some rendering use)?
3) Is it better to go for 4x2GB or 2x4GB?
4) Should I consider a different version of Vista?
5) Finally, do these make sense as upgrade choices, and if not, what does?
Of course I'm looking to spend as little as possible, but I don't think I'll be able to get out for less than $450 and would much rather not exceed $850.
Thank you for your help and wisdom,
Tarrosion
Edit: Sorry, I left this out but I'm not sure if it's important: I'm interested in gaming, but I don't care about cranking games up to highest settings on huge resolutions. I have a 1680x1050 monitor and am usually quite satisfied with medium graphics. The vast majority of my computer usage is not gaming-related.
It's been about two years now since I've upgraded my PC, and I'm looking to upgrade and future-proof a bit. The PC is used for both gaming and graphics applications (Blender, 3ds Max) as well as pretty serious multitasking. Also, this will likely be my last upgrade for a solid 4 years, so I'm looking to do it right.
Current specifications:
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
AMD 6400+ BE
Zalman 9500 fan
eVGA Geforce 7950 GX2
2x1GB Corsair DDR2 800
Creative X-fi extremeMusic soundcard
Enermax Liberty 620W
Seagate 160GB
Seagate 250GB
Win XP 32 bit SP3
My first question is whether the processor is 64-bit capable. I was pretty sure it was, but on the Microsoft website it said to check the PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE variable, and it was x86. (Yes, I apologize for the newb-ish question).
Assuming the processor is 64-bit capable, I was planning to buy the following:
Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium (OEM)
8 GB DDR2-800 RAM
ATI 4870
Of course, since I'm pretty inexperienced, I have a few questions:
1) For the sake of future-proofing for several years, do I need to invest in a new motherboard and processor?
2) Since I won't be upgrading for several years, should I consider more than 8GB of RAM (especially considering this will see some rendering use)?
3) Is it better to go for 4x2GB or 2x4GB?
4) Should I consider a different version of Vista?
5) Finally, do these make sense as upgrade choices, and if not, what does?
Of course I'm looking to spend as little as possible, but I don't think I'll be able to get out for less than $450 and would much rather not exceed $850.
Thank you for your help and wisdom,
Tarrosion
Edit: Sorry, I left this out but I'm not sure if it's important: I'm interested in gaming, but I don't care about cranking games up to highest settings on huge resolutions. I have a 1680x1050 monitor and am usually quite satisfied with medium graphics. The vast majority of my computer usage is not gaming-related.