Help upgrading my rig

[McRackin]

My computer is about 2 1/2 years old - I can barely run Starcraft 2 =(
I'm looking forward to a Battlefield 3 post-summer, so I'm going to upgrade it now and hopefully I don't need to buy a complete system after I figure out my upgrades weren't enough.

Any help you guys can give me is appreciated...

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$400-700 after taxes
3) Where do you live?
Vancouver, Canada
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc
CPU, RAM, Video Card (Would prefer to keep the existing MOBO as that would increase the cost considerably.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
All parts listed in my sig (below) will be reused - except cpu, ram, vidcard.
6) Will you be overclocking?
Probably not.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
24" @ 1920x1200
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
May.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
Reusing MOBO.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes - Vista 64bit

 

[Dangman]

My computer is about 2 1/2 years old - I can barely run Starcraft 2 =(
I'm looking forward to a Battlefield 3 post-summer, so I'm going to upgrade it now and hopefully I don't need to buy a complete system after I figure out my upgrades weren't enough.

Yeah bad idea to plan upgrades for a game that's not even out yet. There's a very good chance that the parts we recommend aren't gonna be good enough for BF3. And SC2 really needs a fast CPU to keep up so all you really need is a CPU upgrade. IIRC, the HD 4850 512MB should still be enough for SC2 at 1920x1080.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc
CPU, RAM, Video Card (Would prefer to keep the existing MOBO as that would increase the cost considerably.

The problem is that cost of DDR2 RAM is fairly and will continue to be high. As such, it will negate a lot of the savings from keeping that mobo. So if you want more than 4GB of RAM, you're better off getting a new mobo that supports DDR3 RAM.

However if you're fine with 4GB of RAM, then just upgrade your CPU to the Phenom II 955 and call it day. Don't go for any CPU higher than that unless it costs the same as the Phenom II 955. Any higher and it's no longer cost-effective.

If you're still insistent on a GPU upgrade, then go for the AMD HD 6950 2GB.

 

[hossdaddy]

Yeah bad idea to plan upgrades for a game that's not even out yet. There's a very good chance that the parts we recommend aren't gonna be good enough for BF3. And SC2 really needs a fast CPU to keep up so all you really need is a CPU upgrade. IIRC, the HD 4850 512MB should still be enough for SC2 at 1920x1080.


The problem is that cost of DDR2 RAM is fairly and will continue to be high. As such, it will negate a lot of the savings from keeping that mobo. So if you want more than 4GB of RAM, you're better off getting a new mobo that supports DDR3 RAM.

However if you're fine with 4GB of RAM, then just upgrade your CPU to the Phenom II 955 and call it day. Don't go for any CPU higher than that unless it costs the same as the Phenom II 955. Any higher and it's no longer cost-effective.

If you're still insistent on a GPU upgrade, then go for the AMD HD 6950 2GB.

According to his sig he already has that cpu Danny? Or am I missing something, the op def needs to clarify the cpu he currently has. Hes showing an Phenom X4 9650 which doesn't exist. Do you have the Phenom II X4 965?

You definitely need a gpu upgrade. I would suggest the following,

According to this review there is no difference between the 1gb and 2gb versions. With that in mind here are some to consider,

XFX Radeon HD 6950 800MHZ 1GB $253.60 - $30 mir This card is available @ n c i x dot com. I am having to write this because hardocp is blocking their links, wth HardOCP, really bad form here my opinion of you just dropped.

SPARKLE SX560T1024D5MH GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB $229.99 - $25 mir

GIGABYTE GV-R687OC-1GD Radeon HD 6870 1GB Windforce 3X 915mhz!! $209.99 - $20 mir

 

[McRackin]

So you guys are really suggesting I shell out a G note after summer for BF3 eh? I'm prepared to do it, trust me

The reason why I'm eager to upgrade now is because I just formatted my computer because of system errors with some windows files and a restore to a previous date didn't help. Ever since then SC2 hasn't been the same. I would say the game lags more now on the lowest settings then it did pre-restore on the highest settings :\

Other then my power supply, case, HD, and dvd player there's not much I can salvage from this, so I'd probably be looking at shelling out $1000 for a mobo, cpu, ram, vid, extra hd...

I've got a bit of money stored away to spend on a new rig, but I'm hesitant to do so because I'm only living off of student loans right now :\

 

[McRackin]

The cpu is correct, although it's sale is discontinued. Its exact name:

AMD Phenom 9650 Quad-Core Processor, 2300 Mhz

 

[hossdaddy]

ahh now I understand, when you scroll over the link in your sig it shows a recent amd phenom II quad core. If you can wait 4-6 weeks then see what Bulldozer does. If not look at this,

AMD:

AMD Phenom II X4 925 Deneb 2.8GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core $99.99

GIGABYTE GA-880GMA-USB3 AM3+ AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 $104.99


G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 $38.49

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus $29.99

Total: $273.46

OR An intel i5 setup with these 2 components

Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz $189.99


ASUS P8H67-M LE (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H67 $104.99

Total $333.47

Add in one of the gpu's I linked in my previous post and your rocking!

Although the shipping charges with newegg here in Canada blows, see if you can get n c i x . c o m to price match, they have done it before here in Ontario no problem at all. Please note that the mobo I selected is the new AM3+ socket which would work with the new bulldozer cpu's.

OR

You could just grab that cpu I linked you too and the cpu cooler and overclcock it. It should hit 3.2 to 3.6 without issue, then upgrade your gpu and your all done for around $350 and you can use the rest of the stuff in your rig.

 

[Dangman]

According to this review there is no difference between the 1gb and 2gb versions.

In that review, it was noted in the paragraphs below the graphs that there were differences between the 1GB and 2GB in 3 out of 4 of the games test:
BFBC2:

However, this graph doesn’t tell the whole story about gameplay. In the case of the AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB video card, we were able to play this game with Transparency Antialiasing enabled at 4X AA. The 1GB Radeon HD 6950 1GB video card struggled when we enabled Transparency Antialiasing at 8X and 4X AA. The limitations of the memory capacity were realized once we enabled this higher mode of alpha texture antialiasing at this resolution with at least 4X AA. This made the 2GB Radeon HD 6950 have an overall higher gameplay quality setting and experience, when you factor in real-world gameplay ability and headroom.

F1 2010:

We had to run all video cards at 4X AA at 2560x1600 in this game because the two 1GB video cards in this evaluation were completely unplayable at 8X MSAA at this resolution. When we tried to run this game at 8X MSAA on the 1GB Radeon HD 6950 and 1GB GeForce GTX 560 Ti we experience framerates in the 0-3 FPS range, which rendered playing the game impossible. However, the 2GB Radeon HD 6950 was completely playable at 8X MSAA! Its performance did not degrade much at all moving upwards from 4X AA and we’d consider 8X MSAA to be playable on the 2GB Radeon HD 6950. This game proved that memory capacity can go a long way to opening up higher playable settings.

Civ V to a lesser extent:

Running Civilization V at 8X MSAA at 2560x1600 exposed the memory limitations on the 1GB Radeon HD 6950. For almost the first entire minute of gameplay performance dropped to a few frames per second until the frame buffer could catch up and texture everything out correctly. At that point performance was still erratic and choppy and overall slower than the 2GB Radeon HD 6950.

So yes there are real world differences between the 1GB and 2GB as stated in the very review you've linked.

 

[hossdaddy]

how many games use this transparency AA? I can't ever remember seeing it any of the titles I have played?

I also see this part of the conclusion Danny_bui,

"Radeon HD 6950 1GB vs. 2GB

Certainly, the first thing we wanted to know is if the reduction memory capacity with the Radeon HD 6950 GPU would cause a reduction in performance. We found that at lower resolutions like 1920x1200 the answer is no, performance was not impacted much if at all. Since both video cards use the same GPU the end-result was the same. Playing at 4X AA at 1920x1200 yielded no performance differences in any of the games. (He plans on gaming @ 1920x1200.)

It was only at the highest setting of 2560x1600 with 8X MSAA did we start to see differences. The 2GB Radeon HD 6950 clearly allowed 8X MSAA in some games to be playable, and in others allowed us to use Transparency Antialiasing at 2560x1600. The 1GB Radeon HD 6950 struggled with these higher settings. Still, in some cases performance was the same as long as the AA setting was lower at 2560x1600."

 

[Dangman]

Hmmm, you are indeed correct in that the 2GB may not be the right choice for his resolution. But the problem was that you stated "According to this review there is no difference between the 1gb and 2gb versions." Not exactly true as there is a difference at 2560x1600. If you had added " at 1920x1080" at the end, I would not have had a problem with that statement.

 

[hossdaddy]

Well since we are being technical i made the statement based on the fact that he said he was gaming @ 1920x1200, not a generic statement about the 2 cards.

 

[Dangman]

Well since we are being technical i made the statement based on the fact that he said he was gaming @ 1920x1200, not a generic statement about the 2 cards.

Gotcha.