What to upgrade

A

astrob0y

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2009
Messages
218
My PC specs are in my sig, I'm wondering which part would give me the best bang for my buck. I play WoW a lot and with these specs I still cannot play it in max settings (med-high settings running ~50fps). I've been wanting to upgrade my components but not sure which would give me the greatest improvement. Plus I want to be ready for SC2 :D
 
Video card would be best place to upgrade but please list what PSU are using, if you are willing to overclock your system and how much you are planning to spend on this upgrade.
 
Oh sorry, I have the Antec 650w PSU. Never OC'd before, I wouldn't mind to do so in the future but I don't have much knowledge about overclocking. Well I'm not sure how much to spend but I'm positive that I will be buying parts overtime.
 
Thanks for the input, I will definitely look into those. I never really heard of a SSD before, could someone explain the purpose of it?
 
Shadowssong said:
Long story short, its like a hard drive using ram like cells to store data and it is MUCH faster than any mechanical harddrive (mechanical being a hard drive with spinning or moving parts)
Click to expand...

With one caveat: You need to buy the right drive. SSDs are still relatively new technology, and a number of them have teething issues, some of which are pretty severe-sometimes to the point of being worse than hard drives. Anandtech's SSD Anthology article is a good place to start to familiarize yourself with the technology.

But yeah, like Shadowssong and lt_shiro said, they're a LOT faster than hard drives. Having used them in both of my laptops and one of my desktops, I personally find any system without one to be unusably slow. They drive me insane. It's THAT big of a difference-if you buy a good drive. The one lt_shiro linked is a damn good drive, and there are a number few others on the market as well. The cliff's notes version as to what's good is basically if it's Intel-based, Indilinx-based or Sandforce-based, it's good. Anything else may or may not be.
 
I may have missed it, but what size monitor do you have?

More SSD Info: http://ssd.alphaq.org -- mainly, the top few AnandTech links are good reads for people new to SSDs, though they're getting a bit dated. Check out the other links I have in there afterwards, to get up to speed to today. In short, Indilinx is still your best low-cost solution, Intel is your best midrange, and sandforce is the best high-priced-but-still-affordable, and Crucial/Micron is pretty much king right now aside from their firmware issues (more info at AnandTech/SSD section).

[Anandtech] The SSD Anthology: Understanding SSDs
[Anandtech] The SSD Update: Vertex Gets Faster
[Anandtech] The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD
 
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to be honest I would change the video card, processor and board. no doubt not the answer you are looking for.
 
Enginurd, do you know offhand if Micron has fixed the firmware issue with their drives for sure? I know they ended up pulling the update because of some new issues that came up... The last I heard about it was this post @ AT 6 days ago where they said they were still working on it. I've been avoiding recommending the C300s to anyone until that whole situation has been resolved.
 
Siorus said:
Enginurd, do you know offhand if Micron has fixed the firmware issue with their drives for sure? ...
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last info I read was the same as you. btw, I wasn't recommending one, just saying they're the fastest and cost too damn much, but I agree, I should asterisk that statement above.
 
x4 940 is by no means a slow chip and overclocking it too 3.6-3.8 GHz would be best option at this time. Too get the extra performance you want.
 
What's a good/safe temp to be around, I overclocked it by 10% from 3Ghz -> 3.3Ghz, idle temp is around 49 °C, does that sound about right?
 
yeah i might have to do that, im not the best when it comes to applying the paste. My room temp is high though but yeah I should reapply, thanks!
 
astrob0y said:
What's a good/safe temp to be around, I overclocked it by 10% from 3Ghz -> 3.3Ghz, idle temp is around 49 °C, does that sound about right?
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What cooler are you using?

My CPU was running unreasonably hot, and re seating it with new TIM dropped the temps by a whopping 20c, it matters!
 
the CM hyper 212+ with arctic cooler mx-2. I'll try re seating it in a little bit and i'll post the results

btw, what application method did you guys use? I used the two thin line method.
 
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astrob0y, how long have you used your Antec TruePower 650W PSU for? Which specific model (number) do you have?

The two-line method is fine, as long as you get good overall coverage (of all four CPU cores) with the TIM application.
 
Well I just re seated the cooler, dont think it made much of a difference.. I probably did a bad job applying the TIM again lol..
Here's a picture of my rig:
vyxdtd.jpg

the temp readings:
qn0d8l.jpg


The PSU model is TP-650, been using it since i put the computer together, no other PSU were used during the build.
 
tiraides said:
astrob0y, how long have you used your Antec TruePower 650W PSU for? Which specific model (number) do you have?
Click to expand...

Well according to the pic, he has the Truepower New 650, not the old Truepower Trio 650. So he should be set in the PSU department.

If your room temp is high, that does affect the temperatures of the CPU and other parts in the PC.
 
Could be the case, too. The CM-690 has the POTENTIAL to be an extremely well-cooled case, but the stock fans feel like an asthmatic toddler blowing at you through a straw, and there's only two of them. Throw two 120mm Scythes (any of the 50cfm+ models from either the gentle typhoon or s-flex series) in it as exhaust fans in the top two fan mounts, and consider picking up two more to replace the stock fans.
 
So i bought a 5850 card 2 weeks ago, plugged it in and it ran perfectly, but when i turn off my computer and i turn it back on it doesnt send any signal to my monitor? Then I unplug a fan and replug the pcie power to the card and it works again.. could this be a power issue? It sounds kind of weird.
 
It only happens when i turn off the computer for the night or something and turning it back on. So far probably about 3 times, which is every time i turn off the computer. I just updated my drivers so we'll see if that makes a difference.
 
remove and reseat the card. Also make sure the card is properly sercured to the case with screws and not the screwless clamps that your case comes with. If there is any sag sue to the weight of the card there could be issues.
 
Ok I just looked at my case and see that I didn't bother to remove the clamps either. What I did do is leave the clamps as open as possible and used screws into the same holes.
 
I'll give that a try later, I mean the card is pretty big and it does have a little play. Thanks!
 
Judging from my specs do you think this PSU is sufficient? I'm still having a hard time booting up the pc, nothing will display on the screen. :mad: :confused:
 
Check out the troubleshooting sticky and use the guides and instructions there to narrow down any potential trouble areas.
 
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