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July 26, 2009, 07:07 AM
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#11 (permalink) |
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Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
The smart compromise is to effectively gut your system but leave any bits which don't expire/date quickly or at all. Spend the $850 If you keep the case, monitor, peripherals, hard drive if it's SATA 2 (though you'll need a new OS) and optical drive, you will save a lot of money. If you've never re installed the OS you can reactivate it to a new motherboard once. I think. I might be wrong. Then all you need is a motherboard, processor, card, ram and PSU. Get a decent PSU with a one pcie cable for $40-60. After that you have a choice. I think as you're still not quite in the high budget area, you'd be better of with an AMD processor, which are slower than intel's range but destroy them in bang for your buck. I'd get a higher end gforce. I'm not sure if an X295 with a lower end triple core phenom of an X285 with a higher end processor would work better but triple core is more than enough for wow, which only multi threads to a limited extent. If you spend about $200-250 on RAM and a motherboard, $50 on a PSU you have a combined $500-550 for a processor and card. Usually the card is the biggest bottleneck. But having a really old school processor will slow things down. The X2 4200+ isn't a bad processor in all honesty and will not bottleneck what you have. Just getting a better graphics card would provide an upgrade but it would be limited. The $150 option is more cost effective and if you never play anything but WoW will probably at least be playable for the forseeable future. By which I mean by the time the new blizz MMO comes out. The processor can bottleneck your system but with the setup you have, it isn't. More than a moderate upgrade and it might. |
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July 26, 2009, 10:05 AM
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#12 (permalink) |
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Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
Thanks much for all the feedback. |
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July 26, 2009, 01:42 PM
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#13 (permalink) |
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Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
Something I forgot actually. Along the lines of "ignore fanboys". Each graphics card does have pros and cons, same with processors, but at the moment it's largely a case of each duopoly having one market segment sewn up. This changes every couple of generations mind you but right now, Nvidia and intel are the premium choices, AMD and erm.., AMD/ATI tend to be better value on a tigher budget and cross over in the mid market. As graphics are more important for gaming I'd say AMD/Nvidia is the way to go with a lower mid range processor and a highermid-high end card for outstanding performance. Or just a mid range card for value for money in your upgrade. And yes, they're being investigated under anti trust at the moment. ATI/Nvidia slicing it like that deliberately was dubbed very possible by the US government I believe. While Intel was done for exploiting it's monopoly back when it was "one is better than the other in every way" and they couldn't compete fairly. I digress even if this does sort of affect you. |
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July 26, 2009, 05:39 PM
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#14 (permalink) | |
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Character Info
Jasturdz 80 Undead Warlock Bruning Blade US PvP Guild: The Currupted Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
Quote:
here i built a comp for ya,, its under 850 and shippin is usually cheap. click the links and add them to the cart and it will all b there at the end.. case Apevia BlackBlack X-Plorer ATX Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side, Fan Controller, Front USB and Firewire Port ATXB8KLW-BK at TigerDirect.com MotherB. EVGA nForce 750i SLI Motherboard -NVIDIA nForce 750i, 45nm Support, Socket 775, ATX, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, Gigabit LA, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, RAID 122-YW-E173-TR at TigerDirect.com Graphics card EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Video Card - 896MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, VGA Support 896-P3-1255-AR at TigerDirect.com Power Ultra LSP650 650-Watt Power Supply - ATX, SATA-Ready, SLI-Ready, 135mm Fan, Lifetime Warranty at TigerDirect.com Ram Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB) TWIN2X4096-6400C5 at TigerDirect.com CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 Processor BX80580Q9400 - 2.66GHz, 6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Yorkfield, Quad-Core, Retail, Socket 775, Processor with Fan at TigerDirect.com hard drive Western Digital WD5000AACS Caviar Green Hard Drive - 500GB, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM at TigerDirect.com Blue ray lol Lite On IHES206-08 Blu-ray Disc Reader with DVD Writer Combo - 6x  -ROM, 16X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 16X DVD-R, 6x DVD-RW, SATA, Lightscribe at TigerDirect.comit all comes to 826.91... i live in MN and it was like $24 to ship it to my house so shipping is cheap. its not the lastest and greatest but it will get the job done. if you wanna go ATi and AMD use thses and not the other 3. MotherB Asus M3A78-CM Motherboard - AMD780V, Socket AM2AM2+, MicroATX, Audio, Video, Hybrix CrossFire, DVI, DP, VGA, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, Serial ATA, RAID at TigerDirect.com CPU AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad Core Processor - 3.20GHz, Socket AM3, 6MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MTs) FSB, Retail, Processor with Fan HDZ955FBGIBOX at TigerDirect.com Graphics card HIS Radeon HD 4890 Video Card - 1024MB DDR5, PCI Express 2.0 x16, CrossFireX Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV H489F1GP at TigerDirect.com the ATi and Amd set up comes to 806.91 so its a lil cheaper. Good luck man |
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July 27, 2009, 09:35 AM
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#15 (permalink) |
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Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
That's awesome - ty much Jas |
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July 27, 2009, 04:06 PM
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#16 (permalink) |
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Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
If you keep the old case and DVD drive, you can save money or even shift one of the components up a notch. |
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July 27, 2009, 05:31 PM
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#17 (permalink) | ||
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Character Info
Lephlock 80 Blood Elf Warlock Earthen Ring US RP Guild: Team Awesome Talent Spec: 0/55/16 |
Re: Need some advice on how to upgrade
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I'd suggest the 4850 as well, but the equivalent nVidia card will do just as well. Second, if it comes down to CPU time, the tests and benchmarks I have seen do not seem to support spending additional $ for a quad core. Take a look at current pricing, but most of the benchmarks I've seen show that even a slightly higher core clock speed dual core will beat a slower quad core in most games. Unless you are doing video editing/processing, a faster (or more overclockable) dual core will be the best bang for the buck. Quote:
Have a read of that whole guide, great info there. Overall, you've got nothing to lose by upgrading the video card first and trying it out. 
__________________
http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t48311-simulationcraft_post_3_1_specs/ Lephlock 80 Demonology Warlock <TEAM AWESOME> - Earthen Ring US |
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