Upgrade path?

[Aditlojs]

Buddy of mine just asked me about upgrading his rig.

He said he has no specific games in mind, he is just bored and wants a project. It seems he has a pretty well balanced rig.

q9450
780i mobo
4gb ram
9800gtx
Corsair hx 650w (this really surprised me, I thought cyberpower or whoever would have thrown in a crappy unit)

I am thinking I'll just tell him to google overclocking and use that to have some fun. I imagine he is on the stock cpu cooler so that will quickly limit him.

Any suggestions?

 

[Dangman]

Grab this 3rd party HSF:
$26 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156

OC that Q9450 as far as safely possible. Then upgrade the video card to better fit the max resolution of his monitor.

 

[Aditlojs]

Grab this 3rd party HSF:
$26 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156

OC that Q9450 as far as safely possible. Then upgrade the video card to better fit the max resolution of his monitor.

I think that is what I am going to tell him... Thanks for the link, I couldn't remember this particular cooler. In using the search button, the 212+ seems popular,,, I haven't built an air cooled rig since 2006. Not my area of expertise.

 

[Dangman]

What is the max resolution of his monitor anyway?

 

[Aditlojs]

Probably 1080p...

 

[bigdogchris]

I would start with a new GPU. a GTX 560Ti or 570 would be good for him. Also as mentioned, maybe OC that CPU to 3GHZ or so. Wouldn't be much extra taxation on the system but could provide a little extra that he needs. You could also reinstall Windows for the sake of cleaning out the crude (or even upgrade to 7 and an SSD (use AHCI mode) ). That always give a nice speed increase.