• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Upgrading advice

C

cukoodukoo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Messages
233
AS the title states I am considering an upgrade.
My present rig specs:
Intel I7 920 stock[dunno how to overclock nor felt the need to overclock yet]
asus P6X58D premium
Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 3x2GB
Evga GTX 480
corsair 850 watts PSU
Dell 3011 Monitor.

The monitor has been the last addition and I havent had any problems untill i got hit by Metro 2033.
With Dragon age 2 and BF3 on the horizon I was wondering If i need to upgrade .
1.Would my 850 watt PSU hold another 480 in SLI?
2.Would my system become less stable if i plan to SLI ?
3. with the G skill ram offer, does jumping to 12 GB make any sense[least Imp IMO]
4. Any guides to overclock the CPU?I am on a H50 cooler .

Any help would be appreciated. I see that newegg has teh fermi card for 369 after MIR . I payed 500+ :(. Guess I payed the price as an early bird.
 
How much at most are you willing to spend on upgrades? Many of our recommendations would be pointless if you have enough money for only one component.

You don't need to upgrade your processor, RAM, or motherboard. You don't need more than 6GB of RAM for gaming. If anything, you may want to consider overclocking, and there are plenty of guides available in the Intel MoBo's, Intel Processors, and Overclocking & Cooling forums here. Remember, Search (or Google/Bing) is your friend. ;)

Considering the maximum resolution of your monitor, you would benefit from SLI. If you want to go with two GTX 480 cards in SLI mode, buy the second card used. As a point of reference, the GTX 570, which offers performance on par with the GTX 480, costs around $350 new. That's the limit you should be spending on your second card; any thing more and you're better off buying a new GTX 5xx or Radeon HD 69xx card.

However, a dual GTX 480 setup with (a possible) CPU overclock may push the limits of your 850 watt Corsair. I say "may" because I've seen mixed "reviews" (for lack of a better term) about its general capabilities. If you can afford to, I recommend a quality name-brand PSU of at least 1000 watts or 80A of (combined) power in its 12V rail(s). But "name-brand" doesn't always equal quality; there's a reason why we often recommend Antec, Corsair, Silverstone, Enermax, and Seasonic.
 
Thank you .As far as the budget goes,It is not a concern.I don't want throwing away money though.Just trying to get the best out of the $.I just ordered a Superclocked evga 480. It 369$ after MIR.I hope my PSu will hold them together.Thanks on the RAM suggestion .
 
Is the Superclocked GTX 480 the exact same card as what you currently have (never mind the cost)? And what's the before-rebate cost?
 
Nope its not,I have an evga vanilla 480 GTX.I hope I can pair them together.I was told I could run them SLI as long as they r the same chipset.The price before the rebate is 419.I hope evga stands by their rebate.I prefer a new card to be certain of the warranty.
 
The two cards in SLI mode will run as well as the slower card -- in your case, the vanilla GTX 480.

I know that you agree with me that $419 is too much for that card. (I personally don't count the $50 MIR until the check/card is in my hand.) Is the warranty worth that much for peace of mind?
 
Yeah the warranty is big deal for me. My 8800GTS died after 3 yrs and evga promptly replaced it with a 9800 series card.No questions asked.
 
Since you've already bought the GTX 480, there's no sense in beating that dead horse any further.

I still recommend a more powerful power supply, but I'm kinda paranoid about that.
 
I would recommend a 1000W psu at least. I'm running my sig pc off a Corsair 1000W and it's been great!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top