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upgrade advice/questions

P

Pip

n00b
Joined
Jun 22, 2005
Messages
23
Hello all. My current setup looks like this:

Intel D975XBX2KR motherboard
Intel® Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe Processor 2.4GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 4MB Cache
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 4GB DDR2-800 XMS2-6400 Xtreme Performance Memory
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB Serial ATA (3.0Gb/s) 7200RPM HD w/16MB Buffer
Nvidia 8800GTS 640mb recently died... now using old 7600GT
Corsair HX Series CMPSU-520HX 520W Power Supply

I am looking for advice in terms of upgrades. The most obvious thing is the video card. I am thinking of something like this. I like to shoot for a combination of power and reasonable quiet running. I am happy to hear other recommendations.

Is there any processor upgrade that is worthwhile using my current motherboard? I'm not sure I can stomach new MB/CPU/RAM at the moment... but I would love to know what y'all would recommend. I don't OC... I look for fast stable running that can live in Alum case with low speed fans. My current CPU has a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme heatsink and a low speed 120mm fan to keep things quiet.

The other thing I am considering is an SSD to try to speed things up. I currently have the 2 drives listed above in a raid 0.

My primary use of this box is gaming.

I am thankful for any suggestions.
 
There is not much that you can do as far as upgrading the processor in your current motherboard. That mobo does not support any of the newer 45nm processors at all - nor does it support any of the FSB1333 CPUs at all. Hence, you're very much stuck with your current Core 2 Duo E6600. (The quad-core Q6600 would have been only a sideways-step and not a true upgrade unless you have apps which can use more than two threads.) The only CPUs that the D975XBX2 mobo supports that are faster (on paper) than your current E6600 are the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and QX6x00 processors - but those processors are way too expensive, even used, compared to what performance improvement those processors deliver.

As for your choice of a GPU, the card that you've selected is a bit too expensive for a card that has only a two-year warranty.

Third, your current hard drive setup is a bit old. Even with two drives in RAID 0, your current hard drive setup is no faster than just one of the newer 500GB/platter drives. I have recently tested the transfer rate read test, and found that two of the 7200.10 drives in RAID 0 are only about as fast as just one of the newer WD 500GB Caviar Blue drives or a single Samsung F3 drive. But if you are using that single RAID 0 array for everything, the overall performance is significantly slower than a single drive system due to the substantial overhead the RAID feature creates. A better bet is to put in a single faster drive, such as one of the newer drives or an SSD, as your system/boot drive and keep the RAID 0 array for data work. (Don't store anything critical on the RAID; instead, invest in a single external HDD for data storage.)
 
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What's the max resolution of your monitor? What games? Also what's your total budget for these upgrades?

Oh and I concur with E4g1e has said so far. You can get this HD 5770 which has a longer warranty and better customer support:
$160 - XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB PCI-E Video Card

At the very minimum, you're looking at a GPU upgrade. Then maybe a HDD upgrade. A new CPU/mobo upgrade isn't out of the question considering that ALL of the latest AMD CPUs still support DDR2 RAM. So that's definitely one way to save about $110 in a CPU/mobo upgrade.
 
Thanks for the thoughtful responses so far. At the moment I am on a 20" lcd at 1680x1050. I am playing things like EvE, WoW, Dragon Age right now, but I will be playing Starcraft 2, Civ 5 and other new things. The GPU being reasonably quiet means alot to me, it looks like that XFX card gets good marks for that (as did the one I linked) ... hopefully they are comparable in that regard. I'd like to spend <$200 on the GPU.

As for the HD, that is good info. Again, I don't want to spend a ton... maybe $100-200 if it really increases performance. SSD or reg I am not sure... appreciate suggestions.

MB/CPU is last priority at the moment but I am happy for suggestions as to what to look for in the near future if I decide to swap it out.
 
Hmm, SSD wise, I'd recommend the following:
$125 - Intel SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SSD

CPU/Mobo upgrade wise, I'd recommend this:
$215 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU + Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H AMD 785G HDM mATX AMD Motherboard
 
I think you can definitely ride out your current CPU/motherboard/RAM setup for another year or so. For the time being, I would upgrade the hard drive to a more modern/newer drive like others have suggested. SSD isn't necessary at this point and it's a bit waste of money for your purpose. Getting the 5770 will definitely boost your games. The good thing about getting a newer HD and the 5770 is that once you do finally upgrade your CPU/motherboard/RAM combo, you can still use the HD, 5770, and the 520W PSU on your new setup.

By reiterating what others have suggested, I think all you need to do is spend $160 or so on the 5770 and then another $55 on a 500GB single platter HD. Then save more money for the next few months for a real upgrade.
 
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