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Increasing ram and upgrading processor.
I am using a dual core 3.0ghz processor and 4 gb of ram. I recently invested in a new ATI 5770 series video card and i am quite happy with the performance. However i have some spare cash left and would like to make few more upgrades.
I would like to know if i will get any boost in performance for gaming if i get a new quad core and increase memory upto 6 gb? like i said for now i can play just any game on max settings at 1680x1050 resolution but since prices have gone down for the quad cores i was wondering if its time to make a little upgrade?
Thanks in advance for suggestions.
Comments
If I had to guess based on the frequency of your current CPU and your looking at upgrading it to a quad, Im assuming you're running an e8500 on a socket LGA 775?
If so and you're considering upgrading to a Q9650 (which would be the only reasonable quad core upgrade from an e8400) then no, you wouldnt see a performance boost. You'd actually be better off upgrading to an E8600 overall, and youd also save around $50
the ram might be a worthy investment if you're only running 2 gig and using a 64 bit OS. Even still, you probably wont notice any performance boost, but ram is so cheap now upping it from 2 gig may reduce some hard drive thrashing.
Jut another idea.
depeneding on how old your equipment is you might get better bang for you buck by updating your MB. i think that ATI card uses PCIe 2.0, so if your MB is old it might be using a 1.0 slot. You could probably find a MB that will take your current CPU and RAM.
If you're on lga775 then look for a secondhand q6600 and overclock it to anywhere between 3.0 ghz and 3.6ghz, obv this will only benifit you in multi-threaded games but the extra oomph is always nice to have just in case
if you're on socket am3 then i'd whack a phenom II 955 in there, or if you're not sure about spending that much an athlon II 630
4gb to 6gb wouldn't be worth the upgrade
i7 920@3.6ghz//Titan fenrir//asus p6t se//6gb patriot viper pc3-12800//powercolour hd5970//CM-690// OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w//500gb WD caviar black and 500gb WD caviar blue//3x 24" monitors running in eyefinity
Another item to think about would be your hard drive.
You could bump up to a 10,000 spin which will help if you are thrashing
you current HD. But if you are able to run everything on MAX settings as is
then just save your money or get a bigger monitor or something like that.
Assassin's like to do it in the dark and from behind.
Apologies, i meant Core2duo E8400.
only an ssd might make a big difference
deactivating indexing(at least all that isnt locked(w7-64)will gain you 200 mb and will speed up average performance but will take a bit more loading but at the speed the drive are today this isnt a big issue!
If you're looking for a good upgrade then like the above said, I'd go atleast a Q6600 and OC it to atleast 3.0Ghz if you current board is compatible. I have a Q6600 and it's still kicking strong at stock clocks, I've yet to run into a game that bogged it down or gave me bad frame rates because of it. However, you'll probably have a little trouble finding this processor since it's about 3 years old now but if you can find it, it'll be pretty cheap and have amazing bang to buck value especially when OC'd. Otherwise I suggest this CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16819115130
Clock for clock, the Q9650 while not only sporting more cache (12mb) offers roughly 10-15% more performance than the Q6600 and has a reputation to go to 4GHz+ on air. Sure, it's a bit more than an i7 processor, but at just under the performance (performs roughly 5-15% under the i7) you have to consider you're only buying a CPU as you're using your old motherboard. That said, you're saving money by not upgrading to an i7 because you wont need to buy a new motherboard and possibly RAM.
Getting more RAM wont help performance any unless you do some serious multitasking, which I find highly unlikely. If you get more RAM it wont matter, it'll just be sitting there in your PC never being used thus wasting your money.
Honestly, I would've put the extra money you had into a 5850 instead of a 5770, but that's just me. So basically your options are, go for a Q6600/Q9650 (Cheapest route). .or save up some more money and by an i7 and a new motherboard. Take your pick, hope this helps.
-Cheers
Your CPU is good enough, it's the GPU that does all the work in the games anyway.
I guess that you could upgrade your RAM to 8GB but if I were you I would trade in your 5770 for a 5850 because the graphics card is the most important thing in your computer.
And a quad core over your already good dual core wouldn't boost your game performance in any significant way so it's a waste of money.
It's all about the graphics card.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Your system sounds pretty good from what you said. 4 gigs of ram is plenty and upping to 6 wont do much, I have 12 gigs personally and it just sits around looking pretty except for when I'm heavy multi tasking and running multiple games at the same time. Again the same is true with the processor, Quad core wont make your computer much faster over the dual core unless you are heavy into multi tasking. Especially if you are already running games on max settings.
So on to my recomendation: The current bottleneck for most systems are the hard drives. I have no idea what your set up is, however if you tell us a bit about that and its an outdated setup, you could see a HUGE boost in performace by investing in a raid setup or even solid state drives depending how much money you want to blow. Also, not knowing much about your mother board, if that is fairly dated, upgrading that will make future upgrades that much smoother, also you can save quite a bit if you find a good mobo/cpu bundle and still snag that quad core you want.
A more complete list of system specs would help people better identify where your system currently is choking the most or where the problems will become noticeable in the future. If everything is running great, it might just be wise to save your money as parts get cheaper the more dated they become, you can get the same upgrade in 12 months for half the cost when it might actually improve your computers performance with the lastest games.
Still don't know if he has a P4 dual core 3.0Ghz or a core2duo e8400 3.0ghz there's a huge difference. If he has an e8400 he doesn't need to upgrade it, if he has a P4 he definitely ought to.
he replied back on page one. easy to miss because he didnt really follow anybodys post up, just said once sentence basically that he had an e8400
Oh, oops you're right. Yea no need to upgrade the CPU. Easiest way to tell if you need to upgrade your cpu is to lower your graphics settings and see if your FPS goes up. If it goes up then your CPU is fine. If it doesn't change it means your CPU is too slow. If anything the OP could put a modest OC on the E8400 and not have to worry about it at all.
And 4GB is definitely plenty of ram.. only thing to look at is upping the GPU even more.. either Crossfire the 5770 with another, or sell the 5770 and buy a 5850..
Yeah an E8400 is definitely more than adequate as a CPU. Not only that, but most will reach 3.6ghz without even a voltage increase. This is a good target for a light/moderate OC because you can just put your FSB up to 400mhz, which means that 800mhz DDR2 will run synchronously with the CPU. It's easy, and it yields a big advantage.
A singly 5770 is also an alright GPU, although they really do scream in Crossfire.
Go with an SSD.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/adata-s599-100gb-ssd-review/
It should be close to coming out or already out.
Thanks for all the replies and after reading the suggestions i think it would be waste of money to eaither get the ram or processor. So only things left to upgrade is either the video card (upgrade to 5850 from 5770) or get a new hard disk.
You guys are right my hard disks thrash a lot and even after swtiching off indexing, it didn't make much difference. Thanks for the link for the hard disk but it is not released yet. So if anyone can suggest me any faster hard disks or the one that you guys are using in your system, it would be awesome
my current two hard disks are nothign special.
One is Hitachi 160 GB Sata 300 3.5' 7200 rpm and second is Samsung 160 GB Sata150 3.5 NCQ 8mb cache.
I ran out of money when i was building this system so i bought whatever hard disks i could, didn't think much about hard disks back then. Here is detailed specs of my PC.
Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Speed : 3GHz
Cores per Processor : 2 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Dual-Core
Computer
Mainboard : Gigabyte G33-DS3R
BIOS : Award (Phoenix) F6 11/22/2007
Bus(es) : X-Bus PCI PCIe IMB USB i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 4GB DIMM DDR2 DDR3
Chipset
Model : Giga-Byte P35/G33/G31 Processor to I/O Controller
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 333MHz (1.33GHz)
Total Memory : 4GB DIMM DDR2 DDR3
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 400MHz (800MHz)
Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4DHX 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-22-6-3)
Memory Module : Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4DHX 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-22-6-3)
Memory Module : Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4DHX 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-22-6-3)
Memory Module : Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4DHX 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-5-5-18 3-22-6-3)
Video System
Video Adapter : ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series (SM4.1 850MHz, 1GB 1.2GHz, PCIe 2.00 x16)
Graphics Processor
Adapter : ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series (10C 850MHz, 1GB 1.2GHz)
Storage Devices
Hitachi HDS721616PLA380 (160GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 7MB Cache) : 149GB
ST3160815AS (160GB, SATA150, 3.5", NCQ, 8MB Cache) : 149GB
ASUS DRW-2014L1T (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Platform Compliance : x64
Get a Western Digital Black Caviar in whatever size that you can afford.
It really is the best non SSD HDD on the market.
And go with the upgrade from 5770 to 5850.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
There are two types in Black caviar one is cache 64 and the other is Cache 32, could you please tell me the difference and which one i should get?
The one with 64MB of cache would be the better one and the difference is that more cache equals higher performance.
Whats the size of that HDD anyway?
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
4gigs of ram is enough. Like what everyone here says, Graphic Card is the main purpose now!! save money now, and buy a 500 series nVidia GTS board!! :d
500 GB
which is more then enough for me.
The WD Caviar Black hard drives are great but the 500GB models are overpriced at $70.. the 500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3 is faster and $55, and the Seagate 7200.12 are almost as fast and also only $55. Once you get up to 750GB and higher the WD Blacks are priced really well though.
Yeah it's more than enough so no need to worry unless you want to store a lot of movies.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
What the guys have been saying, I agree with 100%. The Hard drive would be the next best thing to upgrade. 4 gigs is plenty of memory, and the processor is fine, for now. The vid card... well, ATI's numbering system can get confusing; a lower 5xxx isn't as good as a higher 4xxx for gaming. Throw on the hypercooled overclocked versions and ya almost wanna walk away and buy an abacus.
If you could raid a couple SSD's, you'd have some serious stuff going on. Virtual memory would just fly!