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Upgrade or New System

K

Killersquid

n00b
Joined
Oct 10, 2010
Messages
8
My system has finally hit my limit and it's either time to upgrade some parts, or start to put together a new system. I mainly use it for browsing, and gaming (Awaiting Fallout: Vegas, Dragon Age 2 etc, etc...)

Antec 900 Gaming Case
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4
nForce 780i SLI
EVGA Geforce 8800 GT
CoolMaster Real Power Pro 650W
Razer Barracuda AC-1 Audio Gaming Card (Still wondering why I bought this thing)
Linksys WIFI Card
Corsair Dominator DDR2 2Gig x2
WD Raptor HD
Running Windows 7

What do you think the best option is for me right now ? Purchase a new system or upgrade what I have ? I might be able to squeeze out a 1,000 - but am realistically working with 500. Someone thinks a new granite counter-top is more important than a new machine....

The gamer in me wants to blow all my resources on a Geforce GTX 480. I'm thinking with my older system that I will get one hell of a bottleneck with that beautiful card.
 
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If you can stand, do make an upgrade first. Otherwise go ahead and purchase a new one.
 
Which resolution are you using for gaming?

Which level of visual quality do you use for your games?

How experienced are you with overclocking?

Do you plan on acquiring more money in the near future? (Let's face it, $500 isn't enough for a new system when the GTX 480 eats up the majority of that "budget.")
 
IMHO I would not do anything at all unless you expand your budget by another $300 or so (and for a completely new build, at that). This is because for that system a GPU upgrade would have cost you more money than the improvement in performance justifies. Most nForce Intel Edition mobos are rather crappy in stability to begin with even at modest overclocks. And the currently available LGA 775 mobos are either overpriced or limited in features compared to your current mobo. Worst of all, the least-expensive worthwhile CPU upgrade costs much more money than the improvement in performance justifies spending extra for. Plus, spending $500 on a completely new system would have definitely been a downgrade as far as GPU performance is concerned: A new $500 build or pre-built would have given you a bottom-of-the-line discrete GPU or only an IGP - both of which are substantial downgrades from your current 8800 GT. And that's not to mention that the least-expensive worthwhile GPU upgrade would have left you with less than $300 for the rest of the core component upgrades.

Speaking of your current system's PSU, that CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 600W is OK-ish. But I would not trust it to handle a single GTX 480 at even stock speed.
 
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I definitely plan to acquire more money for upgrades. Depending on how I sweet talk the wife I might be be able to pull out. Start me out with a good plan of attack to talk to her and the $300 might be a breeze. Yay Newegg no interest plan.

I use 1680 x 1050 for my desktop as well as gaming.

I try to play all my games in high detail, or ultra but Starcraft 2 makes my computer chug so it's down to low and medium at the moment.

Overclocking I have some minor experience with but in the long run am not a fan of. I tend to get a system and ride it out for a couple of years. OC I've heard can degrade a system much faster.
 
Killersquid said:
I definitely plan to acquire more money for upgrades. Depending on how I sweet talk the wife I might be be able to pull out. Start me out with a good plan of attack to talk to her and the $300 might be a breeze. Yay Newegg no interest plan.

I use 1680 x 1050 for my desktop as well as gaming.

I try to play all my games in high detail, or ultra but Starcraft 2 makes my computer chug so it's down to low and medium at the moment.

Overclocking I have some minor experience with but in the long run am not a fan of. I tend to get a system and ride it out for a couple of years. OC I've heard can degrade a system much faster.
Click to expand...

At 1680x1050, you definitely don't need more than a single GTX 460 768MB card or a Radeon HD 5770 (depending on whether your GPU budget is $150 or $180) even if you're getting a completely new system. The GTX 480 you're originally desiring would have been way overkill for such a smallish resolution.
 
One of the upgrades I'm planning on getting in the furture in a new monitor. This old Acer AL2216W was a last minute buy after my old monitor crapped out on me.
 
And speaking of overclocking, it's not the elevated clock speeds or voltages per se that can degrade a CPU's life much faster - it's the increased heat output that does, especially if it is constantly at or near the CPU's thermal throttle-down temperature point. This is why if you're going to overclock, you will also need a much better CPU HSF or liquid cooling.

But even with better cooling, however, the NVIDIA nForce Intel Edition motherboard core-logic chipsets have problems handling even modest overclocks stably. Worse, its SATA controller sometimes corrupts data.
 
I've actually just upgraded from nearly your exact specs. Weird.

Core2Quad Q6600
4GB Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz
XFX 750i SLi
2 x XFX GTX275's SLi

My advice is upgrade. On my two 275's the CPU/RAM was the major bottleneck, I was expecting to see a mild performance gain in what I moved to (see sig for specs) but it turned out to be quite a significant improvement.

3DMark Vantage score before: 19,522
3DMark Vantage score before: 27,671

Bearing in mind that the GTX275's are pretty much on par with the GTX460's I upgraded to, thats a pretty decent jump.
 
With your $500 budget, I recommend these "upgrades":

$170 - EVGA GTX 460 768MB video card
$80 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620 watt PSU
$55 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB HDD
$145 - OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD (optional)

Overclocking, when done properly, does not reduce the lifespan of the processor, but the stability issues of the nForce 780 chipset makes the option risky at best. I believe that your board, with a BIOS update, could support a 9-series Yorkfield quad core, but we need to know the particular board you're using first.

The SSD and HDD are each faster than your 150GB Raptor, unless you're using one of the newer model VelociRaptors. (In that case, the SSD is a bit faster, but the HDD is slightly slower.) Keep in mind that while the faster storage drives load games and programs a bit faster, they don't improve frame rates very much.

I paired a new power supply to go along with the new video card. It's more of a CYA measure than a necessity, but if your power supply is over two years old, it's worth the money.

While you could buy a new system with $800, including the above parts, one good reason to wait is that AMD and Intel will be releasing their new processors early next year. Initial reviews indicate that they won't be backwards compatible with the current socket lineup Intel and AMD currently have. So unless you see something that you like now and are willing to sit on it for a few years, I recommend waiting for Sandy Bridge (Intel) and Bulldozer (AMD) to arrive, and then decide to build a new system around one of them.
 
tiraides said:
With your $500 budget, I recommend these "upgrades":

$170 - EVGA GTX 460 768MB video card
$80 - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620 watt PSU
$55 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB HDD
$145 - OCZ Vertex 2 60GB SSD (optional)
Click to expand...

PSU = His is a good make and should have a decent warranty, no need to upgrade.
SSD/HDD = Sort of agree, although I went from a regular 7200RPM to an SSD and the performance increase for gaming wasn't all that much, let alone from a Veloci
GFX = Agree. Anymore than a 460 and the CPU/Memory bottleneck will see basically no improvement.

All in all, if you can wait and save up, go for a new build, if not, get a GTX460 768MB/1GB.
 
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Thank you all for the advice. I think at this time I'm going to purchase the following:

GTX 460

The other versions of the card not worth the expense ?

Going to show my ignorance here. Why two diffrent HDs ? Don't you just install your OS and game on the fastest HD and leave the other as pure storage ?

On LCD monitors what is a good step up for my acer if I'm just getting the video card ? That would be an upgrade for the 'future' system when the new chips come out next year.
 
Killersquid said:
Thank you all for the advice. I think at this time I'm going to purchase the following:

GTX 460

The other versions of the card not worth the expense ?
Click to expand...

Until you upgrade to a larger, higher-resolution monitor, the higher-end cards do not produce a sufficient performance boost to justify the significantly higher price. In other words, your selected monitor resolution will be the limiting factor.
 
Just OC the Q6600 and get a GTX 460. No real reason to get an i5 or i7 now, the 8800 GT is far and away the weakest part of that setup.
 
silent-circuit said:
Just OC the Q6600 and get a GTX 460. No real reason to get an i5 or i7 now, the 8800 GT is far and away the weakest part of that setup.
Click to expand...

That would be extremely difficult to do given the poor overclocked stability of the NVIDIA nForce Intel Edition chipset. The OP might as well have gotten a mobo that won't do even 2.41GHz with a Q6600 without locking up or crashing repeatedly. (OK, I am exaggerating the stability problems somewhat, but the typical nForce mobo has trouble getting even 2.8GHz out of a Q6600 reliably.)
 
Killersquid said:
Thank you all for the advice. I think at this time I'm going to purchase the following:

GTX 460

The other versions of the card not worth the expense ?

Going to show my ignorance here. Why two diffrent HDs ? Don't you just install your OS and game on the fastest HD and leave the other as pure storage ?
Click to expand...

If you're planning on getting a larger monitor with a res of 1920x1080 or higher in about 2 months, go for the 1GB versions of the GTX 460. The extra VRAM comes in handy then. E4g1e is right that until you upgrade that monitor, the extra money spent on the 1GB version would be a waste of money.

You install the OS on the SSD. The HDD is there for game installations as well as other large application installations. This storage method is a compromise between needing a lot of storage, which SSDs can't provide without costing a large amount of money, and a sheer speed and OS responsiveness, which HDDs can't even come close to matching.
 
E4g1e said:
That would be extremely difficult to do given the poor overclocked stability of the NVIDIA nForce Intel Edition chipset. The OP might as well have gotten a mobo that won't do even 2.41GHz with a Q6600 without locking up or crashing repeatedly. (OK, I am exaggerating the stability problems somewhat, but the typical nForce mobo has trouble getting even 2.8GHz out of a Q6600 reliably.)
Click to expand...

I managed 3.2 Ghz with a Q6600 on a 780i. Assuming the OP's board is not among the worst of the worst (there was some variability) 3.0Ghz should be easy enough.

This is coming from someone who owned 3 680i variants, a 650i, and two 780i variants. I also had a 790i but I never got to use it, sold it because DDR3 was still way too expensive at that point.
 
silent-circuit said:
I managed 3.2 Ghz with a Q6600 on a 780i. Assuming the OP's board is not among the worst of the worst (there was some variability) 3.0Ghz should be easy enough.

This is coming from someone who owned 3 680i variants, a 650i, and two 780i variants. I also had a 790i but I never got to use it, sold it because DDR3 was still way too expensive at that point.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. And even if the motherboard had an Intel chipset, 65nm Intel quads typically peter out at around 3.6GHz.
 
The 1GB model is better for the U2311, but we often recommend two 1GB GTX 460s in SLI mode for (1920x)1080p gaming.

If, however, you aren't buying a new monitor any time soon, stick with one 768MB video card.
 
I'm grabbing the U2311 from the Dell site. x1 460 GTX for now, might grab another later on. Just trying to pick which model I want.
 
Killersquid said:
I'm grabbing the U2311 from the Dell site. x1 460 GTX for now, might grab another later on. Just trying to pick which model I want.
Click to expand...

For that monitor, pick whichever 1GB GTX 460 that has the best support-to-price ratio.
 
Upgraded to a 460.

Now when I boot it either hangs on the memory testing and then continues onward. Or locks up at Memory T

and just freezes.

Any suggestions on what happened ?
 
Killersquid said:
Upgraded to a 460.

Now when I boot it either hangs on the memory testing and then continues onward. Or locks up at Memory T

and just freezes.

Any suggestions on what happened ?
Click to expand...

Plug in your old GPU and see if the issue still presists.
 
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