Upgrade or Sell System Intact

N

notsane

Gawd
Joined
May 23, 2007
Messages
583
Hi,

With Win7 on the horizon, it looks like almost time to re-build my wife's gaming PC (I like to plan ahead a month or three). The processor is bottlenecking a bit as is with CPU clocked to 3GHz or so (I anticipated that with the video card upgrade, but it was a step up). Seems like I may want to either upgrade the CPU (to something like an e8500) and Ram (to 4GB) or just sell the whole box intact and start over (building something along the same lines as my sig). I could also pull certain parts (like the GTX295 and possibly the Vertex) and replace with something cheaper before I sell. I know that the 680i boards are not perfect, but I have never had problems with this sli box and it runs happily on XP Pro (actually seems faster launching apps than my box with win7 RC). The system is almost 2.5 years old (except the video card and vertex) and I want to avoid any potential problems down the road (like Mobo or PS going). I would prefer to pay a bit more for trouble free operations. I also like to sell my old PCs (craigslist) while they are still worth something.

Advice would be appreciated!

Specs:
Evga 680i LT Motherboard, Core 2 Duo e6600 CPU, 2GB Corsair DDR2 800, 60GB OCZ Vertex (System Drive), Raptor X 150 (Games), WD Caviar 500GB (Media), Soundblaster xfi extreme music, GTX295, PCP&C Silencer Quad 750, Antec p180.

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The only things that you really need to upgrade are the processor and motherboard. lt_shiro found for you a good deal to work with.

My two cents' worth is that you should consider consolidating the storage into one (640GB or larger) hard drive and selling the Raptor X and Caviar drives. You can now buy a 1TB hard drive for under $100 shipped, and many of the models available can perform about as well as (if not better than) the Raptor X.
 
Upgrade mobo and cpu.

If your a pack rat like me you would have other extra parts laying around to make another computer with your old mobo and cpu. Post it up craigslist and make some profit!
 
Yeah man. Upgrade Mobo/CPU and might as well get 4GB of RAM also. The E6600 CPU, MOBO and 2GB ram can be another secondary build. Definitely don't upgrade the cpu to another Dual Core cpu. You should get a Quad Core already.
 
Thanks everyone for you advice!

I don't feel comfortable using AMD hardware as I have been with intel processors so long (since northwood). It sounds like that is the best bang for the buck right now though. Have to think about it for a bit (and read up). Thanks for the link!

Sounds like a dual core C2D is not a great idea either and this board doesn't support 8 series quads, so best quad I can do is q6600 and that won't help my bottleneck issue since TF2 is not really multi-threaded.

I wonder if I should just wait for core i9 and give her the core i7 mobo proc and ram I am currently using while picking up an i9 mobo proc and ram for my system. She doesn't care much which processor she has, though she has been lagging a bit with TF2 and the e6600 (and she doesn't like that). She expects 1920x1200 2x AA and 16xAF with v-sync on to stay locked at 60 (and she rips it up at TF2 usually finishing 1st or 2nd). I have it OC now to 3GHz and that helps quite a bit. The only problem with this 680i mob is that it doesn't like to push the FSB up too high without problems. Luckily it is a 1066 CPU and OCs like hell.

I think that when I upgrade her, I will use the e6600, mobo and ram for a WHS build. I don't have anything like that now.
 
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