Would you Upgrade?

[Kobus]

This is my current PC:

Ultra 600w X-Finity Power Supply w/2 80mm / Black
Optiarc 20x DVDRW BLK OEM LightScribe IDE no SW
Intel Quad Core Kentsfield 2.4Ghz Q6600 CPU
XFX GeForce 8600 GT 512MB PCIe w/Dual Link DVI
XFX nForce 680i LT SLI Socket 775 Motherboard
Corsair TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz E.P.P.
Corsair 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz (2x2048MB)
Windows XP Pro 64-Bit
WD 1TB SATA HDD Caviar

Would you upgrade and if so, what would you upgrade?

I don't really have any problems with it, I'm just getting the "itch" to upgrade and was wondering if I should go ahead and upgrade or wait til something good comes out. I have a bad history of getting the "brand new thing" before it was really tested/improved and wasting money.

[viperlasson]

Hmm do you notice any slow downs in any of your current games that require an upgrade? That videocard looks like its the bottleneck in your system, and if you let that go and get something newer... ati 4xxx/5xxx series... I think you'll see a large improvement in frame rates :D

But if you don't need to upgrade, don't! It is indeed a waste of money if you upgrade too frequently.

[Isiolia]

^ I would consider upgrading the video card if you game a lot.

If you want something "fresh", maybe consider making the jump to Windows 7 and/or putting in an SSD boot drive.

[Olo401]

That system looks pretty solid. You will definitely need to upgrade the video card fairly soon, and maybe the memory could use a bump to 4 gigs.. but other than that I'd say you're OK for a while.

[Don Katsu]

I would recommend at least getting a 4890, you can find one for $170.00 which is nice considering it has the performance of a GTX 275 for $90.00 less.

[Celeras]

First priority would be an OS upgrade, XP is done. Followed by GPU, then either a stick or two of ram.. or make the jump to DDR3 with new accompanying CPU/Mobo.

[Kobus]

I have 6GB of ram at the moment. I do have a Windows 7 install I was holding onto for my next build. The harddrive I have has been making some noises lately (6 months old too >.<).

I guess the video card is a needed upgrade, but I don't know a lot about PCI-E 16 and all that. My MOBO only says PCI-E, does it matter which kind of PCI-E xwhatever I get? I know it won't be the fastest in the world but will it really slow me down/not be compatible to put a PCI-E x16 card in there?

If I did get a Solid State Drive, is it better to only have the OS on there and games/files on a second disc?

[Isiolia]

PCI-E should work regardless. IE, a newer PCI-E 2.1 card should work fine in a 1.0 slot, just with lower maximum bandwidth than if it were in a 2.1 slot. From what I've seen, your mobo is not a 2.0/2.1 one, so you'll have half the maximum bandwidth.

Probably wouldn't recommend breaking the bank on a new card, since the CPU/bus will likely limit a high end one. Still, the 8600 GT is very much the bottleneck in your system now for gaming. You'd see a large performance increase even with a sub-$200 card.


The cost/GB of SSDs currently does tend to restrict their practical use in home machines to the system drive. Usually OS and apps, with mass storage on another drive (or drives). Whether or not you'd install games to it might depend on how large of one you get and how many games you're talking about. From what I've gathered, though they do benefit from it, games don't gain as much from being on an SSD as other types of apps do.

[Cjskater]

I guess the video card is a needed upgrade, but I don't know a lot about PCI-E 16 and all that. My MOBO only says PCI-E, does it matter which kind of PCI-E xwhatever I get? I know it won't be the fastest in the world but will it really slow me down/not be compatible to put a PCI-E x16 card in there?

Pretty sure 680i LT is 2 PCIe1.0 x16 (x8 for SLI?). The difference between 2.0 and 1.0? Not much right now. Unless you get a HD5970 and even then you'd still be raping every game out there.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...Scaling/1.html

Conclusion

...NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 480 is a very fast graphics processor. To maintain its speeds, it would hypothetically require high system bandwidth, leading one to think that lesser PCI-Express configurations would cripple it. The theory couldn't be more wrong, as seen by the mere 2% performance loss going from x16 to x8 (which reduces bandwidth by 50%). To cite results from one of the latest and resource-heavy games in our bench, Collin McRae DiRT 2, that translates into something like 63.2 FPS vs. 62.1 FPS, at 2560 x 1600 pixels resolution - barely a difference.

Edit: nvidia's site says 680i LT is 2 true PCIe1.0 x16, so even if you run SLI it would be x16. I'd upgrade GPU and then use the 8600GT as a Physx card, just because you can.

[Kobus]

Probably wouldn't recommend breaking the bank on a new card, since the CPU/bus will likely limit a high end one. Still, the 8600 GT is very much the bottleneck in your system now for gaming. You'd see a large performance increase even with a sub-$200 card.

see, that's what I was thinking, so I'm stuck as to which mid-range card to get.

I'll probably save my Windows 7 install for when I get a new mobo/cpu in a year or more. I have a Windows Vista Enterprise 64bit hanging in the shadows I can use if I want to get off XP.

[Cjskater]

I wouldn't let the thought that your "CPU will be holding back your GPU" restrain you, everyone has a bottleneck whether they want to admit it or not. A Q6600 is no slouch and you said you would be upgrading mobo/cpu later on anyway.

Even found a review/benchmark for this as well:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...g_3.html#sect0

Conclusion

Now, I’ll try to sum everything up. First of all, the single Radeon HD 5870 does not depend as much on the CPU as it is supposed to. According to my tests (the left part of the diagrams), the Radeon HD 5870 is quite satisfied with an overclocked dual-core CPU manufactured two years ago. And you can even leave the CPU at its default frequency at the high-quality settings and 1920x1200. The only exceptions are Left 4 Dead and Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II. The former game is not a problem for modern top-end Radeons while the latter, on the contrary, calls for a quad-core CPU, preferably from Intel.

Edit: In other words, buy whatever GPU you want. Your mobo and cpu are just fine for now and like you said you plan to upgrade them later anyway.

[Pikarya]

1. OS (There's no reason to be using XP with that setup unless you're using a netbook. You can acquire 7 for free anyways if you look around :3)
2. Cheap 4xxx series or go for the gold with a DX11 5 series.
3. Memory, 2 GB more would be optimal in my eyes. Whatever floats your boat.

You didn't list your cooling options. As over clocking with a sexy cooler + thermal will take that processor a long way.
(I'm guessing you're using the Intel stock cooler since its not listed.)

[Kobus]

It's not a stock cooler, just didn't think about listing it.

Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX is what I have cooling it.

6gigs of RAM isn't enough? lol

I was looking at the ATI 4xxx series tonite, looks like that'll probably be what I pick up.

[Celeras]

You should really get windows 7 first, your upgrade order doesn't really make sense. You want to do GPU->Mobo/CPU->OS.. when the OS would open you up to DX11, which would directly effect your options for the GPU?

Get 7, get a DX11 GPU (5770 is about as fast (maybe ~5% slower) as a 4870, is cheaper, and does DX11), then mobo/CPU.

[Cjskater]

You should really get windows 7 first, your upgrade order doesn't really make sense. You want to do GPU->Mobo/CPU->OS.. when the OS would open you up to DX11, which would directly effect your options for the GPU?

Get 7, get a DX11 GPU (5770 is about as fast (maybe ~5% slower) as a 4870, is cheaper, and does DX11), then mobo/CPU.

I'll probably save my Windows 7 install for when I get a new mobo/cpu in a year or more. I have a Windows Vista Enterprise 64bit hanging in the shadows I can use if I want to get off XP.

He's got DX11 covered, in more than 1 way.

[Kobus]

I got a new HDD and put Windows 7 Ultimate on it yesterday.

[Pikarya]

You're on the right track ;o!

[Celeras]

Yeah, good call~