Upgrade or New Build?

M

mfost21

n00b
Joined
Apr 4, 2010
Messages
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Hey folks. I can't decide if I should upgrade, do a new build, or sit tight for a while. Mainly interested in playing shooters (MW2, BC2, etc.) with a few RPGs thrown in here and there. I can run the games I play now fine, but really would prefer to play at higher settings. Unfortunately, I haven't been staying up to speed with components since my last build a few years back.

My current system is running XP on a 19" samsung @ 1440x900:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+
2 GB memory
GeForce 8800 GT

I'm thinking if I did a build, I would probably want to stay around $800, plus another $100 for Windows 7. I would probably keep the existing machine for the wife and kids so wouldn't be harvesting anything from it beyond the monitor. I live in Illinois so I don't have to pay tax on newegg purchases. Don't need anything special on the mobo but would prefer to spend a few extra bucks and have flexibility. I have used a lot of Asus boards in the past.

If I upgrade, I was thinking along the lines of a Radeon HD 5770 and an upgrade to Windows 7 to get the benefits of the more recent directx versions. Just not sure if I would see that big of an increase in performance with an upgrade given the other components.

Either way I would do this in the next week or two.
 
Well what's your definition of an "upgrade"?

As it stands now, you would have to upgrade the CPU, mobo, and RAM if you want a cost-effective as well as noticeable performance upgrade in games. You might possibly have to replace the PSU as well to accommodate the the newer CPU and mobo.

Yes, a CPU, mobo, and RAM upgrade would be necessary as that X2 4800 is the major limitation in your system. With Bad Company 2, a quad-core CPU is major help.

So yeah, you might be looking at an entirely new build altogether.

Here's a prelim build:
$160 - AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU
$140 - Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 AMD 890GX ATX Motherboard
$95 - Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3K2/4GR 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$235 - XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770 1GB PCI-E Video Card + XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W Modular PSU
$56 - Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$23 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner
$70 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM
----
Total: $879 plus tax and shipping.
 
Thanks for the input; kind of confirmed my suspicions.

Danny Bui said:
Yes, a CPU, mobo, and RAM upgrade would be necessary as that X2 4800 is the major limitation in your system.
Click to expand...

Replacing all those I might as well do a new build and use this current one to replace what the wife and kids use.
 
Don't you love finding reasons to upgrade? :D I love hand-me-down chains.
 
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