Buying and selling advice.

Azza

Currently looking to upgrade my current rig which is

Intel E8400 3.00Ghz Dual Core
Asus P5E (X38 Chipset)
Radeon HD 4870 512MB
4GB Geil DDR2 PC2-6400
Windows Vista 64bit OEM

To

Intel I7 950 3.06Ghz Quad Core
EVGA X58 SLI3
EVGA GeForce GTX 580
Corsair XMS3 6GB DDR3 PC3-16000
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit OEM

This is primarily used for gaming. Wondering would it be a worth while upgrade? Of should I just update the graphics card now and hold off the rest for another year.

I'm happy with case, psu, hard drives, sound card, mouse/keyboard and monitor I have now. The monitor is 24" and I want to run as many games at 1920x1200 as possible.

Games I be playing are.
Crysis series
Cod series.
Stalker series.
Meto 2033
Fallout series.
Dragon Age.
Borderlands.
Mass Effect Series.
Civ 5
Starcraft 2
Dawn of War 2
Arma 2

Also wondering how much I would get for the current components I have listed above.

Venom

I think you would be fine just upgrading to a GTX 580 and Win7 64bit but with the new 6900 series just around the corner it might be worth waiting to see what the story is with them first.

marco_polo

No need to get anything remotely near as powerful as the 580 for playing games at 1920 X 1200 IMO, at most something in the range of the 6870 would be good enough for gaming at that resolution for a good while yet.

Something like the 6870 and the addition of the best C2D quad you can find/afford for your board would squeeze another couple of years out of that setup for sure.

EDIT: Lest this looks like I was being picking an argument with Venom over the 580 I replied before seeing his post . I am just pointing out that the more budget option of the 6870 will be good enough for almost anything @1920X1200. If you have the money then by all means aim higher (But the law of diminishing returns kicks in at a certain point).

Azza

Being on an OEM copy limits my options right. If I replace the motherboard I have to get a new copy of Windows right.

If I don't switch motherboards now and got an OEM copy of Windows 7 I would have to get it again if I switched motherboard.

Should I even bother with Windows 7?

What would be the best Quad core CPU for my current motherboard.

VenomIreland

Azza wrote: »

Being on an OEM copy limits my options right. If I replace the motherboard I have to get a new copy of Windows right.

If I don't switch motherboards now and got an OEM copy of Windows 7 I would have to get it again if I switched motherboard.

Should I even bother with Windows 7?

What would be the best Quad core CPU for my current motherboard.

If you have an OEM version of windows (like me), when you change motherboards it will say "this copy is not geniune", but they give you a toll-free number to ring up and re-activate for free, IIRC.

I've never done it before, however.

marco_polo

Azza wrote: »

Being on an OEM copy limits my options right. If I replace the motherboard I have to get a new copy of Windows right.

If I don't switch motherboards now and got an OEM copy of Windows 7 I would have to get it again if I switched motherboard.

Should I even bother with Windows 7?

What would be the best Quad core CPU for my current motherboard.

Yeah you can upgrade the Vista OEM license to Windows 7 but it remains tied to the motherboard. If you intend getting Win 7 may be as well to bite the bullet and pay the difference between the upgrade and full retail versions.

That being said a fully service packed Vista really isn't that bad in fairness, compared to its released state. I had it before Win7 and never had any fuunctional issues to be honest, barring that Win 7 just feels more polished somehow.

Haen't time to look up the motherboard for CPU support right now, c'est Friday and the pub calls. :pac:

VenomIreland

marco_polo wrote: »

Yeah you can upgrade the Vista OEM license to Windows 7 but it remains tied to the motherboard. If you intend getting Win 7 may be as well to bite the bullet and pay the difference between the upgrade and full retail versions.

That being said a fully service packed Vista really isn't that bad in fairness, compared to its released state. I had it before Win7 and never had any fuunctional issues to be honest, barring that Win 7 just feels more polished somehow.

Haen't time to look up the motherboard for CPU support right now, c'est Friday and the pub calls. :pac:

Or if you get Win 7 and change MoBo's just ring up the number to re-register it.

marco_polo

VenomIreland wrote: »

Or if you get Win 7 and change MoBo's just ring up the number to re-register it.

Used to be easy alright, certainly with XP, not so sure about nowdays (Only because I haven't done it in years so I honestly don't know either way).

Azza

Think your right about Windows 7 and going for a full retail copy that I can transfer to any upgraded PC in the future. Cost isn't as much as I was expecting. For the sake of €30-40 euro I will go the hole hog.

As for a CPU is there anything faster than a Quad 8400. Or should that overclock easily enough to the 3GHz range. I have a decent heatsink on at the moment. Ram I have should be good enough.

Azza

Went with Q8400, HIS HD6800 and Windows 7 Retail.

Tested it out with a few games.

Everything at stock speeds, latest drivers etc.

Assassins Creed 2. Looks to run fine at 1920x1200 with 4xAA and max settings. Problem is the game keeps crashing at the exact same point early in the game. Very frustrating.

Call of Duty Black Ops. Performance is good at at 1920x1200 with 0xAA and max everything else. Some slight stuttering every now and then but I think its more to do with the game being very badly optimized more than anything else. Multiplayer is to me unplayable. Massive hitching in it. Seems a common occurance.

Civilization 5. 1920x1200 with max settings and no AA. Frame rate seems fine feels like high 20's low 30's but framerate isn't too important in a turn based game. Looks good with all the bells and whistles on.

Crysis. 1920x1200 with 0xAA and everything set to max otherwise. Playable frame rate, feels high 20's to low 30's with some occasional bits of stutter. Suspect in the later levels (the carrier) will have to lower settings though.

The Witcher. Some hassle getting this installed due to Tages DRM needing 64 bit drivers to install (removed with latest patch anyway). Need to re-install it twice because of patching issues. Needed to install Riva Tuner and use Direct 3D overider to enable Vsync. Also need to install Creative Alchemy and tweak it to get EAX to work properly under Windows 7. When all said and done I could max it out at 1920x1200 with 4xAA. Frame rate is good but there is a small bit of stutter here and there. Perfectly playable at these settings.

My optical drive is giving me problems now. Only reading certain discs. Can't install Arma 2 or GTA 4 off the discs. Other discs like Assassins Creed 2, Crysis, GTA: Episodes from Liberty City and The Witcher worked but it seems the drive takes alot longer to read discs. Windows installation took a long time because of this.

Solitaire

Sounds like the laser module is dying. Don't know what you have but its an infuriatingly common issue with Sony/NEC/Optiarc lasers in both drives and hi-fi equipment! :mad:

It might die within days now. But it might live another 5-10 years in its dying state. Even so you'd still have to replace it; its inability to read discs will slowly get worse and worse, and a DVD drive that can't read 90% of the stuff you stick in it is no DVD drive at all!

Azza

Yes its very frustrating all right. This is about the 3rd or 4th optical drive thats done this to me. All of them different brands. This particular one is an Asus optical drive. Can you recommend me a good reliable DVD drive.

Serephucus

Any of them? I've been using the same NEC one in a desktop for close to six years. The LG I've got in my own has been running fine for two.

Azza

Just an update.

Went back to playing Crysis. Everything went smoothly till I finished level 2. The map or texture map for level 3 was corrupt (a known issue) would not load. Required a re-install of Crysis. This fixed the issue and everything was fine until level 4 when I noticed black liquid like textures on enemy soliders. First I though it was paint camo but noticed the textures changed with distance. Restarted game and the problem was gone. I finished level 4 and then as soon as mission 5 started, the ground and mountain textures where missing. Decided to reload and the textures where now pyschedelic. Okay so I restarted the game. Entire map was missing, only sky and smoke effects visible. Loading up previous maps, resulted in the same thing. Rebooted PC and loaded the level again. Once more pyschedelic textures returned. Stopped playing. Tried again the next day. Issue resloved itself. I changed no settings.
Game at this point played fine until the final two bosses, where the frame rate dived to an unplayable state. Lowering settings to medium did not fix the issue but was still able to complete the game, it did crash before end credits though. Googled the issue and it turned out to be a memory leak. Tried again a day later loading up the final two bosses under DX9 with settings to high and it was perfectly playable, only small amounts of stutter. Tried again with DX10 and all very high settings and while there was a good bit of stutter it was much more playable. Still crashed before finishing end cut scene.

After that I did notice one or two minor graphical issues during the course of the game. Was some slight stutter at one or two places outside of the final bosses but nothing that had an effect on gameplay. The game was playable at 1920x1200 on DX10 with all very high settings, Vsync enabled and no AA for everything up to the last 2 bosses, which in all amounts to 10 minutes worth of gameplay. Best to restart the machine and reload the game at that point.

Its tough being a PC gamer.

Civ 5 is now constantly crashing on me. Both in Direct X 9 and 11. Known issue. Game is very buggy at the moment.

Haven't been able to reslove my Assasssins Creed 2 issues.

Arma 2. Gave me alot of problems. This was due to me incorrectly installing the expansion. Which mean't patching failed and the expansion kept crashing in the menu. However I obtained these games digitally directly from the developer and they did lack installation instructions for the expansion. Some graphical issues occured. Working fine but again I'm get pyschedelic textures. This time when I access the menu. Also there is a brief but massive graphically glitch that occurs at certain location. Basically the whole screen turns white, until you move or turn away. Known issues with ATI graphics cards. Otherwise game is working fine. Frame rate in mid 30's with everything set to very high except video memory which is on high. Anti Aliasing is off. Resolution is 1920x1200 and view distance is 2,000 meters.

Solitaire

Mad textures is the hallmark of an unstable, overheating card. Given how highly stressed and heat-spewing the average HD4870 is, its not a huge surprise; you've just been unlucky and got a suboptimal GPU that should have been cut down and stuck in a HD4830/50 and can't quite cut running flat-out at 750MHz

Azza

I ran furmark to stress the graphics card. Seemed okay. Temp was around 89 degrees under load, checking with Anandtech that seem right for this type of graphics card.

Going run a longer stress test of it now though.

cherryghost

Texture issues are with the Nvidia drivers. Older drivers had flickering shadows, new drivers have ****ed liquified textures. Tis hard being an Nvidia owner :pac:

Azza

Man I'm not having much luck. This is getting annoying.

Tried Crysis Warhead, which I downloaded from Steam. Again max DX10 settings at 1920x1200 with no AA. Performance was fine, about the same as Crysis, ood 1 or 2 spots of minor stutter but nothing serious. Game played fine for first 4 chapters then crashed loading the 5th. Rebooting the PC resloved this issue and the game played fine after this all the way through to the end. No graphical isssues bar a minor known issue on the train section that everyone gets. Overall least issues since upgrading.

Dragon Age Origins from EA store downloaded with EADM, installed fine. Would not patch said installation was corrupt, re-install. So I did, then tried starting the game without patching, launcher would boot up but the game would give an error when I clicked play "Fatal Error: Random CRC does not match". Re-installing again did nothing.

Stalker Call of Pripyat. Retail disc, installed fine, loads to the menu fine. Crashes as soons as I try and start the game regardless of settings.

Outside of games Windows 7 seems much more responsive than Vista did and generally happy with the smoothness of the system. Just gaming so far has been very frustrating. I've never had so many issues before and most of these games all worked more or less fine on my previous setup.