Upgrade time....

[MobBoss]

Well, I havent upgraded my computer in a few years, so I am feeling the itch, although my PC still runs games pretty well. The purpose of this thread is to get some recommendations on what upgrades I should do.

Specs:

Intel E8500 dual-core CPU.
Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 meg video card.
500 Gig HD
22 inch LCD monitor
2 gig memory on the board. motherboard is a Gigabyte bargain board that I only paid about 80 bucks for about 4-5 years ago.
Use on board audio.
Still using Win XP svc pack 2.

I know more than a few games are going to be requiring Win 7 support in the coming year or so. I tend to play games with more emphasis on playability/framerate so I tend to play at a lower resolution level w/shadows often turned off if needed and vsync off and minimal AA/AS.

Instead of building a whole new box like I usually do was just thinking of upgrading to either a GeForce 460 GTX card (currently about 170 bucks) or a Radeon 6870 card (currently around 200 bucks), and adding a couple more gigs of onboard memory while upgrading to Win 7.

Thoughts?

 

[tokala]

What's you power supply? The 460 will draw a bit more power, but if you already have a halfway decent one, you won't need a new PSU.

The 460 is indeed one of the most cost effective cards at the moment, and with your display size and emphasize on framerate over maximum eyecandy the 768MB version will probably be the better choice, it's almost down to $100

Upgrading the memory to 4GB is a sensible upgrade, too.

Anything more than those two upgrades, and you better look for a completely new machine

Oh, one other thing: Get a SSD for the Win7 installation. You won't regret it
Preferably one of the new Intel ones. Those are maybe not the fastest in all aspects, but more than fast enough and with a proven controller design. The 120GB for $200 looks like the sweet spot there.

 

[Zelig]

Your 22" monitor probably doesn't go very high for resolution (1680x1050?) - with a 460 GTX you should be able to play everything at native resolution, so you won't get the blurriness LCDs have at non-native resolutions.

Probably worth googling your motherboard model to ensure it will access memory properly with 64-bit Win7 - if by the off chance it doesn't, I wouldn't bother upgrading to Win7 32-bit.

 

[KMRblue1027]

Wow that's scary how similar our current 2 computers are.

 

[GoodGame]

It is funnier, because my comp is very like that, even in video card spec.


Replacing the PSU should be cake, if needed to go for an intel i-series.
The main thing I would question would be how much electricity bill you're willing to pay for your comp. I think the i-series CPUs require a lot of juice to run.

You might consider just stockpiling some legacy motherboards instead.

 

[MobBoss]

What's you power supply? The 460 will draw a bit more power, but if you already have a halfway decent one, you won't need a new PSU.

The 460 is indeed one of the most cost effective cards at the moment, and with your display size and emphasize on framerate over maximum eyecandy the 768MB version will probably be the better choice, it's almost down to $100

Upgrading the memory to 4GB is a sensible upgrade, too.

Anything more than those two upgrades, and you better look for a completely new machine

Oh, one other thing: Get a SSD for the Win7 installation. You won't regret it
Preferably one of the new Intel ones. Those are maybe not the fastest in all aspects, but more than fast enough and with a proven controller design. The 120GB for $200 looks like the sweet spot there.

Your 22" monitor probably doesn't go very high for resolution (1680x1050?) - with a 460 GTX you should be able to play everything at native resolution, so you won't get the blurriness LCDs have at non-native resolutions.

Probably worth googling your motherboard model to ensure it will access memory properly with 64-bit Win7 - if by the off chance it doesn't, I wouldn't bother upgrading to Win7 32-bit.

Ok, took the time to look it up and here is the Mobo and PSU:

Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Mobo.

Pc Power and Cooling 610 watt PSU.

I should be good on that Power supply I think as its actually SLI/Crossfire certified and I plan on only running a single card solution.

And yeah, you were right on the Max resolution for the monitor maxing out at 1680x1050, but as I dont really game at anything higher than that, its good.

 

[warpus]

Funny, I upgraded from an 8800gts 640 to a gtx 460 back in december (my 8800 died, had to upgrade)

Make sure that your mobo is compatible with the new card. I have a 4-5 year old mobo and a video card I bought
before I got the 460 wouldn't work with it.. at all. Apparently they weren't compatible - something I missed when doing research.

I also used to have 2 gigs of ram and I upgraded to 6 when I got my new video card. Make sure that the specs are the same..
If you get faster ram, and you have those old 2 sticks in there, the new ram will run at the speed of the slower sticks

 

[tokala]

PSU should be more than good enough
As for the memory, the same specs are not enough, it should be the same chips and module design for making sure they cooperate with the old modules. This will probably only be the case if you have some JEDEC conform no-frills modules from first party manufacturers like Crucial/ Micron or Samsung. Some second-tier manufacturers like Kingston also have a consistent module design (same part number=identical modules).

 

[warpus]

They don't really have to be the exact same chip though.. I don't even think the timings have to be the same. Obviously if they are exactly the same there will be less of a chance of them not playing nice together, but as long as both sticks are the same type (ddr2 or ddr3 or whatever) it should be fine. No? I mean, it makes sense to make sure that both have the same clockspeed, cause it'll run at the lower clockspeed if they're different anyway, but it should still run fine. The one thing I can think of is two sets of ram requiring different voltage settings (for some reason) and the bios only allowing you 1 setting for all your sticks, which would be a problem.

 

[tokala]

Different modules working together or not involves a lot of luck, some mainboards are more tolerant than others in that regard. Of course in principle a hodgepodge of four different modules SHOULD work together on the smallest common denominator timings if everything WOULD behave according to the specs. Good look getting something like that to run stable or even at all

On the other end of the compatibility spectrum would be using just a pair of identical modules from the memory compatibility list of the mainboard vendor.

I would estimate that crappy memory (read: anything sporting a heatspreader ) is second only to crappy PSUs in causing mysterious system instabilities

 

[warpus]

Maybe I've been really lucky with my ram then, cause I've been mixing and matching for years and I've never had problems.. Right now I'm using 2 1gb sticks of ocz 5 5 5 12 ram and 2 2gb sticks of "insert company name I forgot here" of 5 5 5 15 ram and my system has been incredibly stable. Could be luck I guess

 

[MobBoss]

Well, I ordered all my stuff from newegg, so I have good access to lists/descriptions of everything I buy.

Warpus, that mobo issue you had....did you try updating the bios (i.e. flash it?)?

 

[warpus]

Yeah, it didn't help. Eventually I got a confirmation from the video card manufacturer that the two were not compatible.. when I was first doing research I was assured that it was.. so.. you never know

 

[Quintillus]

See you've already bought the hardware, but if you decided not to upgrade to Win7, any particular reason you've still on SP2? It hasn't been receiving updates for more than half a year so it's slowly becoming a major security liability. And XP still has more than enough marketshare that it's a primary target for the type of people who would take advantage of that.

Unless you're on XP 64-bit, in which case SP2 is the latest one and still updated.

Guess I've been lucky mixing and matching memory, too.

 

[MobBoss]

See you've already bought the hardware, but if you decided not to upgrade to Win7, any particular reason you've still on SP2? It hasn't been receiving updates for more than half a year so it's slowly becoming a major security liability. And XP still has more than enough marketshare that it's a primary target for the type of people who would take advantage of that.

Unless you're on XP 64-bit, in which case SP2 is the latest one and still updated.

Guess I've been lucky mixing and matching memory, too.

I stuck with XP for the ever so slight game performance boost it gave. Now that games are going to start requiring Win7, its going to be time to upgrade that as well.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I stuck with XP for the ever so slight game performance boost it gave. Now that games are going to start requiring Win7, its going to be time to upgrade that as well.

See, this is a bad reason to stick to XP. Win 7's much better memory management and better process handling means that games (unless they're very old) run better on Win 7.

 

[MobBoss]

See, this is a bad reason to stick to XP. Win 7's much better memory management and better process handling means that games (unless they're very old) run better on Win 7.

No doubt.

Anyway, I think I have made my decision. Checking prices it would seem I can now get a Radeon HD6870 for around 190 bucks. Been a Nvidia Geforce guy for a pretty long time, but thats a pretty hard price/peformance combo to turn away from just for brand loyalty.

Thoughts?

 

[illram]

So I just did something similar a few months ago and it was like I had a new PC for $300.00

I bought a new HD, a new video card (nothing special, an HD 5770), 2 GB of RAM (to make a total of 4GB) and Win 7 to install on the new HD. I now basically have a brand new computer that runs smooth as silk and starts up super fast. I can access the old HD for all my old files from Win7 and can still boot to my old copy of XP if I want to. I also have a much older and worse processor than you, I got an old C2D E6600 in there, and it still works like a charm and I can do light gaming (Civ 5, for example) at 1920x1080 just fine.

I have a LGA775 mobo like you as well. From what I have read any PCI-E 2.0 or 2.1 should work fine even though LGA775's are all PCI-E 1.1, I think. (I initially thought only 2.0 would be compatible but others on here have said 2.1 is also compatible. You just can't get the extra goodies that 2.0 and 2.1 offer over 1.1.) I highly recommend doing this if you want the new computer experience but without the new computer (or the new mobo, which is basically like buying a new PC anyway).

Honestly the component out of all those that probably gives you that "new computer" experience is the HD. A brand new uncluttered HD will always seem nice and quick. I would suspect that "upgrading" XP to Win7 and keeping all that old clunkiness will negate some of that fresh, fast feeling you get from a fresh install, but I could be wrong. (So you could reformat your HD then too I suppose, instead of buying a new one.)

 

[Genocidicbunny]

No doubt.

Anyway, I think I have made my decision. Checking prices it would seem I can now get a Radeon HD6870 for around 190 bucks. Been a Nvidia Geforce guy for a pretty long time, but thats a pretty hard price/peformance combo to turn away from just for brand loyalty.

Thoughts?

If you plan to run UNIX/Linux at any time, stay away from radeon. Also bear in mind that nVidia's drivers are a bit better than AMD's imho.

 

[IglooDame]

Quick suggestion: consider getting an SSD hard drive, big enough for your OS and program files (as they're much pricer per-GB), and only pushing pics/music/videos/whatever to the bigger/cheaper spinning-platter drive.

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/04/25/andrew_ssds_upgrade/