PC specifications

[Atanas Penchev]

Hey , guys i have a question about hardware.
When i was buying my laptop last year the tradesman asked me what will I use it mostly.I said gaming of course.
Then he began a long conversion and a lecture about dependency of more Processor or Fast Video card for 3D games.
So he convinced me to buy for a reasonable price : T4400 with ATI radeon 5650.
I have noticed that many of the games that requires above my processor /In case i play F1 2010 and WoW Cataclysm/ on many sites like canyourunit.com etc i have Failed status for Recommended settings.
But indeed I'm playing these without any problem on high settings.
I know that is good both to be balanced but still. What you think, fast processor or fast video card for 3D games?


P.S Actually when i play games I'm using AMD GPU clock tool to boost the graphic engine and the memory clock of the Video card.

 

[Jim Cole]

The key to having a great gaming exp is balance. If you have a fast CPU but slow GPU, then you don't get the FPS you want. If you have a slow CPU and fast GPU then you still don't get the FPS you want. The laptops use an integrated GPU, which a lot of sites like you mentioned don't see correctly so they can't tell if your system meets the specs they want or not. The problem is that integrated GPU's rarely have as much dedicated ram as GPU's you buy and put into a desktop PC. This is where integrated falls down.

If your system is running the games you want though, don't worry about what the sites say, just enjoy the fact that you have a laptop that is capable of doing so.

 

[Alexander Rhodes]

As Jim says, the clock speeds of either are neither good nor bad, it's the bottle-necking caused by the difference that needs to be addressed. The same goes for RAM, HDD data transfer speed, TCP/IP etc, there will always be a bottle-neck somewhere in any system, trying to make that bottle-neck effect reduced is what makes a good system. This is why many overclockers tend to up the bus speeds, and not the clocks of certain components, and up the clocks and not the bus of others, in an effort to balance out the data in the system, and reduce the bottle-neck.

Once-upon a time, it was southbridge that was guaranteed to be the bottle-neck, these days it's most likely RAM or clock differences that cause it. So when you look at minimum specs, your looking at specifications that could have been tested with a bottleneck that may have effected the results in a different way, therefore the only way to know if you can run a game, is to benchmark it, and alot of the high-end publishers have benchmarks available for download. Try them first, then work on areas that need improving.

 

[Jamie Shorting]

I'm looking to upgrade to get some better performance. Are there any computer gurus out there that could maybe give me some tips on what to do or if I have to just start from scratch all over again.


Win. xp 32
Intel Core2Duo E6550 2.33Ghz
3.5Gig Ram. Can't remember what speed.

GeForceGTS250 1G DDR3

Asus P5Q Pro Turbo MoBo

 

[Alexander Rhodes]

What budget do you have? That would be a starting point, take a look at what you can get for the money you have, try to worry more about data transfer speed than data processing speed, I doubt we're at the point where a quad core will have issues keeping with the transfer speeds available.

 

[Jamie Shorting]

I don't want to spend more than 1000 Canadian dollars. Does that help? Should I try to Vista 64bit first?

 

[Jim Cole]

The OS should be the last thing you upgrade unless you are planning on using more than 4Gig of ram. Speaking of ram, how are you getting 3.5gig of ram in your system?

One hint on upgrades, if you want to upgrade the CPU it most likely will involve replacement of the motherboard and ram as well. Keep this in mind when planning out upgrades.
From what you have listed, which isn't much, I would say spend the money and get an i5 2400 with a decent motherboard and 4Gig of DDR3 ram in 2X2Gig configuration. This upgrade will probably show you the most improvement in system speed. Make sure the motherboard isn't using onboard video unless you have no other choice.

For the ram, I prefer Crucial ram, though there are other manufacturer's that are just as good. I would also suggest you invest in a decent power supply and decent CPU cooler to make sure your system has the ability to be upgraded later without additional expenses.

If you are going to upgrade the graphics, I would not get anything less than the GTX 470, or the ATI HD 6950. The reason for this is your graphics card is already decent, though not top of the line anymore. Upgrading to anything less and you won't see much improvement on what you already have.

If you have additional funds left after finding these items, look into hard drives. If you are not running at 7200RPM drive minimum, you can see some improvement in system speed from an upgrade. I would recommend nothing larger than a 360Gig drive for the boot drive though, as larger drives tend to take longer to find data and are mostly geared towards data storage rather than program access.

 

[Jamie Shorting]

I've got 2 2gig sticks of ram but it shows 3.5 on system information so I'm assuming because I'm using 32 bit that's what the OS is actually using?


My power supply unit is a pc power and cooling 610 watt. Cooling in the computer is all stock. Cooler Master HAF tower

I've got a 250 gig hard drive but I don't know the speed. Thanks for the info!!!