PC Upgrading Discussion

C

coneman

  • coneman

Gidday all

just did a system upgrade. how's these specs

Thermaltake WingRS 101 Case
Thermaltake TR2 450W P/S
Intel E6550 CPU 2.33Ghz 1333FSB 4Mb cache
Asus P5K SE M/B
2Gb Kingston 667Mhz RAM (2 x 1G in dual channel mode)
Palit 8600GT 256Mb GDDR3
Seagate 160GB 7200.9 H/Drive
SoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer S/Card

Last two from previous system
 
Since this is a budget PC, I'd say: rocking hell :happy:

Maybe in the future you can upgrade the RAM and the 3D Card (the 512MB version of the 8800GT for example). But for now you are good!!!
 
This CPU can easily be run on 3.6 GHZ with the right biossettings, nice system.

If you want to get a new HDD too, try to get WD Raptor, they are not cheap but they are very fast to use for an OS.

8600GT is a good choice, costs almost the same as the 8500 but is much much faster.
 
  • coneman

Thanks

Yeah thanks everyone

I plan to replace the stock cooler with a Zalman first. (had one on old system. really made a difference in temperature)
 
Hardware advice needed

Hi,

I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel... Been planing a hardware upgrade for some time and have now narrowed it down to two possible solutions.

My current PC is built with a DFI NF4-SLI DR motherboard, AMD Opteron 185, 2 GB Corsair 3200-C2 DDR, MSI 8800GTX, X-FI Fatal1ty, WD Raptor 74 GB and Maxtor 300 GB HDD's, OCZ GameXtreme 1000w PSU, Antec p180 case.

I will keep the 880GTX, X-FI and the P180 case, the rest will be replaced with either:

EVGA nForce-750i SLI, Intel E8400, 4 GB Corsair Dominator 1066 MHz DDR2 CL5-5-5-15, Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA2, WD VelociRaptor 300GB, Zalman ZM850-HP silent PSU

or:

XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI, Intel E8400, 4 GB Corsair 1333MHz DDR3 CL9-9-9-24, Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA2, WD VelociRaptor 300GB, Zalman ZM850-HP silent PSU

I can't decide between the nVidia 750i based mobo or the nVidia 790i Ultra, to me the price difference of about €215 is negligible. I wonder if the 790 will be a better mobo for the long run, I tend to keep my PC configuration for about two to three years with only minor component upgrades along the way.

I'm not going to buy a quad cpu as I don't do much multi tasking and because todays racing sims doesn't utilize all of the cores.

So, despite the price difference - what mobo will give me the best performance and longevity?
:confused:
Kind regards,
Karl
 
DDR 3 is new tech and as with most new tech not fully utalised at the moment but that was said a few years ago about ddr2. The main thing is because ddr3 is new and as of yet not fully tested ddr2 is managing to hold its price.

As for Quad cores and not using it to it fullest youll be surprised if you got one.

Motherboard wise people will always stick to brands they know or trust, but for the last few years Asus have been taking the lead with there tech.

TB drives well depending on your age you may rember when we looked at 8MB drives as masive and said we'd never fill them and now were saying the same about TB drives.

But be warned they can get a touch warm, and extra heat means extra cooling.

The reason Ive not said go for this over that is because it down to personal choice and noone can tell you for fact the life time of DDR2 down to the day 2-3 yrs time may not sound alot but in PC's terms is a long time and alot can happen.

Persoanl choice would be aim for the best you can for the money you have that way will will last some time and you shouldn't have any major probs.

Also rember if your on vista you''ll need a new licence because you have changed too mutch for your licence to continue.
 
I'd go with the 2nd configuration, although I'm not sure about XFX.

I'd agree with Jarrod on the Quad though, If your not shy to overclocking the Q6600 & Q6700 have been known to hit above 3Ghz. Plus it'd be better for your aim of longevity, since I'm sure that games will become better multi-threaded to take hold of quads as it won't be long before we start getting 8 cores.

As Jarrod said you'll have problems with your license key, just phone MS and say your mothboard went and your key needs resetting, saves money :)
 
I would go for the 790 Karl. Only because it can handle just a little bit more. If you plan for 1 year ahead the 750 is good enough. But 2/3 years, better get the latest.

PS. there is a E8500 also. Just bought it 3 weeks ago :)
Vista can just be reinstalled. If the activation is failing because you already used your key, you will be presented with a webaddress and/or phonenumber to contact Microsoft. They are usually very helpful in this.

Although I still wonder why people are still running vista while gaming. There are more compatibility issues, its much slower in DirectX and more resource demanding. Soundcards like the X-Fi are still not fully DD/DTS compatible, only working good if you have an external decoder.
 
Thank you all for the comments :)

I've started to look at the P45 based boards, as I don't plan to run SLI it looks kind of interesting. How do you rate it compared to the 790?

Regarding the Vista license, I'm not affected by the upgrade as I don't have Vista yet :D But I'm chocked to hear that I would be forced to purchase a new license if I upgrade my hardware - that's business Cosa Nostra style ... If only Race 07 would run native in Linux...

Kind regards,
Karl
 
Even if your not planning to get SLI now, the 790 afaik is a brilliant chipset and you always the future option of SLI.
The problem always is that no matter what you do, there will always be something better coming along. I paid £180 for my 8800GT, it's now below £110 from the same retailer. I don't regret it, the 8800GT is an amazing card.
 
  • Jacek Kozlowski

In Poland you can buy q9300 for the price of e8400 maybe just 30-40euros more.I think 4core is better than 2.You can also overclock it to at least 3ghz.I just bought q9300 and im very happy with it.
 
If i were you i should only replace the motherboard, CPU and Memory.

You have an amazing powersupply already and i should keep the raptor. Why invest
so much in components which are already top notch.

You beter go for Quad core now as i notice today sims really use it, i measured it.

So my advise is keep the good things, my Q6600 runs at 3.6GHZ since day one without a problem and i even hit the 4.2GHZ sometimes.

SLI i would never advise, only if you buy two cards at the same time. If you planned to buy another equal card within a year, other cards will have newer techniques which you really want to have at that time. And they will be as fast as 2 older cards.
 
Hi,

Just wanted to put up a message about my progress; I'm expecting the parts for my new PC to come in tomorrow :) After much thought and consideration I finally made the decision to get the following parts:

Asus P5Q3 Deluxe
- A Intel P45 based board that got rave reviews, not much down on performance when compared to a X48 mobo. What really caught my eye was it's low power usage and thus lower heat and noise emissions. I've been a Nvidia fanboy for some years but I've read so many scary things about the 790i that steared me away from it. Also, I've tried SLI in the past and I think the cost and the hassle isn't worth it, I can always install a X2 if I feel the need for some extra juice...

Intel E8400 - I've read several tests were they showed that a Quad CPU has marginally better performance in gaming and that Mhz is what counts. I'm not a heavy multitasker and thus fell for the E8400 as it's a great value for money and that it has scored pretty good in OC tests

Corsair XMS3 DDR3, 4GB, 1300mhz - Basically the same memory as the higher rated 1600 and 2000 Mhz memory, but to a much more attractive price. Easy to OC.

WD Velociraptor 300GB HDD
- I've used the Raptors since they first came out and I like the performance, but I wanted to swap my 34gb and my 74 gb drives for a single drive solution. I'll probably replace my 300gb maxtor in a not to distant future with a 1TB drive from Samsung.

Zalman ZM850-HP power suply - Good reviews over at silentPC, my OCZ 1000w PSU was a bit of a overkill and it's noisy as h*ll.

Windows Vista Premium, 64-bit
- I've been holding of the Vista for some time now, but I have a bad itch that needs to be scratched and now the time felt right to scratch it. If it all goes bonkers I'll just reinstall my trusty old XP...

All of the "old" stuff will be sold off to recoup some of the financial hit, not that I have the need to do so but I think it's better to get a few quid back than having a lot of old PC parts laying in the closet doing nothing.

All in all, I'm very happy with my choices ( so far, crossing fingers) and I can't wait until I have the new box up 'n running ( will have to wait until after the Brno race - don't want to take any chances... ) This setup will serve me well until the time is right to upgrade to the new Intel Nahelm platform.

At the end, thank you all for your help! Now, feel free to smack down on my choice of HW :)

Kind regards,
Karl
 
  • Jacek Kozlowski

Very nice set Karl,but i would still go for Quad processor.:D
 
I own a EVGA nForce 680i (Socket 775) ...very happy with it.

With the latest BIOS my new E8500 can do a stable 4.0 :alla:

Eight hours ORTHOS stable, with only 1.41 Vcore !!!!!!!!

Mem timings 1:1 with 4-4-4-12-1T :jumping: ....memory hand-picked ;)

If you like to overclock, read my interesting thread !!
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/f68/e8500-overclock-result-so-far-113232.html


System:
Game/System: Processor Intel Core 2 DUO E8500 @ 4.0 - EVGA nForce 680i (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 - Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Tenth Anniversary Dual Channel Kit (4-4-4-12-1T) - EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX - Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - Seagate 200 GB, Seagate 80GB
ViewSonic VX912 - Enermax 600 Watt - Windows XP Home Edition.


Hans.
 

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