Upgrade for Gaming!

Twilightning

Hey guys! I'm hardly entirely knowledgeable when it comes to the ins and outs of computer architecture and what exactly to upgrade with but I'd like some help as to upgrading my PC so it can handle a bit more when it comes to gaming. Current specs:

Genuine Intel(R) CPU 2160 @ 1.8GHz (2 CPUs)
ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series
2048MB RAM

As it is it's not too bad but I think it could always be better. I wanna be able to play a game like Crysis at high settings without a single stutter in FPS. I'm thinking I could upgrade to a better processor, graphics card and maybe another GB or two of RAM. Budget would be in and around €500.

Thanks!

Ardscoil Ris

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850X2 2GB GDDR3,

However, we need to know the maker of your mainboard because some boards cannot handle certain processors.

Twilightning

Would this be the same as my motherboard?

TerrorFirmer

Yes.

Is it a self built PC or one from Dell, HP etc?

Twilightning

The motherboard is a ConRoe1333-D667. And it was a pre-built PC last year, from this website.

Slutmonkey57b

#1 gaming upgrade is always your graphics card. Crysis is a bitch though, so you'd probably want an e8400 Core2 or a Q6600 Core2Quad. Your mobo doesn't support Quad Core though. Crysis will also eat all the Ram you throw at it. In fact, Crysis eats everything due to very poor scaling coding. I don't know af anything you could build for €500 that would avoid stuttering in Crysis at high settings.

Twilightning

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

#1 gaming upgrade is always your graphics card. Crysis is a bitch though, so you'd probably want an e8400 Core2 or a Q6600 Core2Quad. Your mobo doesn't support Quad Core though. Crysis will also eat all the Ram you throw at it. In fact, Crysis eats everything due to very poor scaling coding. I don't know af anything you could build for €500 that would avoid stuttering in Crysis at high settings.

Well it's not a problem if I can't get Crysis to run perfectly, I was just using it as an example as it's one of the most demanding games out there to date and a true test of PC performance.

The e8400 Core 2 sounds like a reasonable purchase and RAM isn't all that expensive. The Sapphire card mentioned earlier looks and sounds spectacular but I don't know if I'd be willing to spend that much on it. Recently occurred to me that I should invest in a HD monitor too since this 17" isn't doing me much justice! Any suggestions on monitors too would be greatly appreciated.

Slutmonkey57b

If you're using a 17" monitor you don't need anything more than a 4850 - even that is overkill.
To use up the power in a modern graphics card you'd need 22" or more.
If your budget is €500 and your aim is gaming, I'd invest in a 22" monitor, a 4850, and an e8400. All that should be around €550.

TerrorFirmer

This'd be a pretty decent upgrade for 500 delivered. Don't forget you'd get cash as well for your 17", 2160, HD2400 and 2Gb Ram - perhaps about 120 or 130 euro.



Forget Crysis as a base for performance, you could build a machine with a Q9550 and GTX280 for double your budget that'd still stutter in Crysis on occasion. If you want to stick with your old 17" you'd only need to spend about 400 for a killer machine.



There are countless options really. You could go for a 20" monitor, emphasis on the CPU over GPU or vice versa depending on what else you do, maybe squeeze in a new budget mobo for overclocking to get a lot out of a budget CPU (like keeping your current 2160, which has excellent OC potential) so on and so forth.

Twilightning

That was a really insightful post! I had never thought about selling my older equipment! Although I might be able to put them to use since I have 2 older computers lying around that could be used elsewhere around the house. Nevertheless selling the stuff for a bit of quick cash sounds tempting aswell, although I thought I would have gotten more!

TerrorFirmer

Unfortunately I'd say Marx Computers is probably a rubbish place to buy pre-built machines and I'd imagine you got a poor deal...

The 2160 is a low end budget piece, it shines when overclocked but it's basically the cheapest budget dual core (aside from the Celeron, which unlike the 2160 has absolutely no gaming potential no matter what you do with it). You could still use this in a new build, and overclock it - at about 2.8Ghz it'd be plenty fast for the latest games really. It's worth about 30-40 second hand.

The HD2400 is also a budget video card, designed more for ultra casual games/older games playing or HD playback. It's worth about 25-30 euro 2nd hand and a brand new 45 euro card like the HD4550 would obliterate it.

The ram is probably some generic 2gb kit, which would be worth about 20 euro. Ram is ridiculously cheap these days. The monitor - hard to say without a model/brand, but considering you can get high quality 19 to 21" monitors from 120-150 euro, it couldn't be worth more then roughly 50 euro.

Personally what I would consider actually would be this, so you could keep the 2160 and overclock it to a decent level.

Twilightning

I suppose you would be right with alot of the points you made there. I don't know a whole lot about overclocking though. I know there are many advantages but aren't there risks associated with doing it too? Since I'm not really experienced with it I'm sure I'd end up frying my CPU or something.

AlmightyCushion

It could limit the life of your cpu (It should easily out last the life of your system though) or you could fry it. The latter shouldn't happen if you are careful so I wouldn't worry about it.

Twilightning

Sounds like it's worth a shot for the moment since if anything does go wrong I'll be getting a new one anyway. How exactly do I go about it?

AlmightyCushion

A quick google brought up the following guide.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

Twilightning

I'll probably get a bit of help with that later on. Some of the stuff in the guide was fairly baffling at first so I'll hold off for now, out of fear for my CPU. xD

The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Terror suggested earlier is looking to be the likely contender, as is the 21.5" monitor, so cheers for those finds man.

Still looking at the graphics cards though.

Slutmonkey57b

I can tell you now if you replace other stuff without upgrading your graphics card you are wasting your time. But you've got the right idea about overclocking - if you're not 100% sure of what you're doing, avoid it. It's easy, and the dangers are easily avoided, but it's not something to wander into blindly.

Twilightning

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

I can tell you now if you replace other stuff without upgrading your graphics card you are wasting your time. But you've got the right idea about overclocking - if you're not 100% sure of what you're doing, avoid it. It's easy, and the dangers are easily avoided, but it's not something to wander into blindly.

I'll steer clear of it for the moment until I learn more about it.

And yeah, I know I would be wasting my time, I'm just seeing what's on offer. I might be getting an even bigger HD monitor, possibly a 26", so I'm gonna need a good one to handle the higher resolutions.

If anyone has anymore finds it'd be greatly appreciated, already taken note of the ones previously mentioned!