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Would you guys upgrade?

M

MarkSparks

n00b
Joined
Nov 25, 2005
Messages
21
Current system :

GIGABYTE GA-M55SLI-S4 AM2 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
EVGA 8800GTS 320mb video card

The system just isn't getting it done for me. Games are sluggish and when I record digital audio from my Line6 UX2 into Ableton Live, I get heavy latency and the CPU load is high. I'm running Vista 64 as my main OS.

I was thinking of going to an AMD 9950 Quadcore, 4 gigs of ram, new mobo, but that upgrade is gonna be 600 bones. In this day and age with stuff costing so much, that's alot of $$. I'm still a nerd, but now I'm a nerd with a wife.

My question is, for heavy gaming and sound recording apps, would you guys suggest just getting another 2 gigs of ram and upgrading to a x2 6000+ AMD (which I can do for less than 150-200 bucks), or should I not compromise and just save up and get the quad core? Is it really that big of a difference going from dual to quad core? In addition are the newer south / north bridges better than the ol' tried and true NForce 4?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Mark
 
Unless the programs you use are made to use 4 cores you would be better off with a core 2 duo. I would recommend you get an E7200 and a cheapy p45 board. This would be around $200 if you look for deals. Then you can look towards a new graphics card.

edit* and if you plan to continue with vista-64 get 4gig of ram :)
 
Agreed, the slow CPU is the weakest link, close next is only 2GB ram or the GTS 320 depending on the game.
What res do you intend to run at and which games are you looking to play?
 
I have a Dell 2405FPW, 24" monitor that hates running anything less than 1920x1200. The refresh rate variance is either 70 or like 72hz, so anything other than max resolution and 70hz and the monitor is all skewed.

Resolution is waaaay too high for the 320m 8800gts, but I got it on the cheap about a year or so ago. The games I play are Assassin's Creed and Everquest 2, both of which are sort of resource hogs.
 
For gaming at that res you need at minimum a better CPU and GPU, closely followed by more memory.
To reduce recording latency, can you use ASIO?
A faster PC will help but ASIO may be acceptable on your current kit.

I recommend at minimum an HD4870 or GTX260 + E7200 or higher.
 
I use the UX2 in ASIO mode, when I'm in Cakewalk / Ableton and Gearbox application. It's much better in 64 bit version of Vista, but since my system specs are so low, even ASIO recording is taxed due to limited resources.

I'd love to be able to run EQ2 at full res, full armor and model texture resolution and in a perfect world, shadows.

If I go with the dual core AMD (or Intel. If I go AMD I won't have to swap out motherboards), get 2 more gigs of ram, I can always save up for a hoss video card. If I went quad core with new mobo and new ram, it'd be alot longer before I get a new videocard.

Recording is acceptable, I just have to do a couple takes if I get alot of pops and cracks. If I upgraded the whole rig for more gaming, I'll have more headroom and probably stop all the pops and cracks without having to increase buffers (which increases latency but makes more stable).
 
Mark immediately hook yourself up with an extra 2gb of ddr2. There are so many deals in the [H]otDeals that will cost you next to nothing if you wanna play the rebate game. At these prices 4gb is a must.
Your lack of mentioning it suggests to me you don't OC is that right? If you did you could probably OC your 4200+ a bit. But as you mentioned a 6000+ doubles your cache and gives you more cpu speed as well.
Finally that video card is looming for ya. A 260 would mate decently with a 6000+. Prices hover just over $200 but deals are always surfacing not to mention Black Friday
 
I was a huge AMD fan (S939 and earlier) but havent ever had an AM2 system so its a bit out of my league now.
I'll let others assist with an AM2 CPU upgrade.
The faster the better though, clock speed is still king.
The CPU may not be able to max out the newer gfx cards but you will still get a big step up in performance from the GTS 320.

There is a possible downside staying with your current motherboard in that it may be part of the cause of your high latency.
I pose this as a question rather than a statement.
Check to see if the PCI slot you are using is sharing an interrupt with any other system devices.
If so, try to find a PCI slot that has its own interrupt or less devices sharing the interrupt, hopefully this will resolve the problem.

When I was running my S939 system with a clocked 4200+, Audigy 4, I struggled to use Guitar Rig due to high latency.
Once I got ASIO working, it was great and even allowed extremely low latencies that were reported not to work.
On lesser kit it can work, so maybe a bit more tweaking will help?

edit:
as mentioned, try clocking your current CPU, it will help your latency problem, not sure how much though but it might give an indication of whether the problem can be solved with a faster CPU on your board.
 
Yeah, I don't overclock. I always ended up pushing the envelope and cooking the chip. I leave everything default now to limit my tension headaches due to crashes and instabilities. >.<

I know folks who are great overclockers, and I admire you guys for that.

I did some preliminary newegg pricing to see what I'd need to upgrade, ballpark-wise. 6000+ CPU is 100 bucks, the 260 I can get for about 250 and to get another 2gb of ram, which is a another 2 gb of my original above-listed ram, is 40 bucks. 400.00 isn't too bad, and should last me for a year or so.

Nenu, I'll look at my IRQ routing tonight and see if there's anything that's trying to share resources. I had the system pinned down to little / no IRQ sharing when I was on XP 64, but now I'm beta testing Vista in my household, so routing could have gone wonky.

Thank you for the advice and the help. I'll check back often to see if anyone else posted. I am in your debt.

Mark.
 
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