Looking for Help/advice with Upgrading Parts for My PC

[DarthVandal]

Hello peeps, just a quick introduction as im new to the forum, im Dan 23 year old and been a intermediate ish user of PC's since i first started secondary school in 2003 :p

Anyways, im looking for some help and advice with regards to what to go for when i decide to upgrade my PC.

I currently have:-

OS - XP SP3
Graphics - Geforce 8600GTS
CPU - AMD Athlon 4400 2.31Ghz dual core
RAM - 2GB DDR2 it is the unbranded stuff you can get from Ebuyer.co.uk
PSU - is either a 650W or 750W
Motherboard - GeForce6100PM-M2
Nothing on my system has been overclocked or tampered with everything is as factory standard.

I am looking at starting to play some more high end games and of course my system need to be up the task first :p I currently play games such as BF2142, URT 2004, WOW, Section 8 (when i eventually get it to work - keeps crashing and shutting down on the start video sequence)

If you need any more info ill be more than happy to help. Im basically looking for peoples suggestions as to what to upgrade first and what to go for.

Thanks in advanvce.
Dan :P

[Fordy]

Hey Dan, welcome to the forums.

For gaming, you'll see best improvements from a new GPU.

What's you're budget?

Currently, without knowing a budget, I'd recommend an Asus ENGTX460 768MB for £113.

A decent branded PSU would also be worthwhile, along with Windows 7, to take advantage of DX11 features such as tessellation.

[anthonyla65]

I would say perhaps that GTX460 is too much for what your CPU can process. Games are starting to phase out older dual core designs, we can much see by BC2. BC2 runs alot more smoother on a Quad than a Dual Core. It was like my Celeron 2.8GHz not being able to let my 7600GT work at its full potential, I saw massive FPS improvements (Over 40%) when giving it to my friend and he had a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz HT. Your CPU could possibly limit the GTX460 to like GTS250 levels on some games.

I assume you have a ECS GeForce6100PM-M2. By ECS's site, your motherboard is capable of taking any AM3 and AM2 CPU up to 95W. I would recommend you to get a AMD Athlon II X3 445 for £56 and a HD5670 or 9800GT for about £60~70. Thats a much more balanced upgrade for gaming.

Also as Fordy said, if you're running some Generic 650W or 750W PSU then its a good idea to replace that, as if it breaks down PSU's are capable of taking alot of components to death with it. Although now I need to ask you a question, what resolution do you run your games on? I'll explain why I've asked this question later.

Fordy, remember that dude trying to recommend his GT240 to people? Glad he hasn't gone round posting.

[Fordy]

Yeah, the CPU sprang out at me too, I do concur with that.

My view was just that, with a higher budget now, I'd get both.

With say a £100ish budget now, I'd get a GPU that leaves CPU as a bottleneck, and pop a new CPU in a bit later.

The GPU release rate should start to slow down now that we've seen the launch of the GTX 560 Ti and HD6990.

A budget would be pretty helpful, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

[anthonyla65]

Ah I see what you mean now. Better get a good GPU now, then save up for a better CPU later than get a medicore CPU and GPU.

Back then, I knew I should of bought a Athlon II X3 and 2GB of RAM then upgrade to 4GB, instead of getting 4GB of RAM and Athlon II X2. Now if I had to upgrade, it costs too much and I would have a spare waste Athlon II X2.

[DarthVandal]

I would say perhaps that GTX460 is too much for what your CPU can process. Games are starting to phase out older dual core designs, we can much see by BC2. BC2 runs alot more smoother on a Quad than a Dual Core. It was like my Celeron 2.8GHz not being able to let my 7600GT work at its full potential, I saw massive FPS improvements (Over 40%) when giving it to my friend and he had a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz HT. Your CPU could possibly limit the GTX460 to like GTS250 levels on some games.

I assume you have a ECS GeForce6100PM-M2. By ECS's site, your motherboard is capable of taking any AM3 and AM2 CPU up to 95W. I would recommend you to get a AMD Athlon II X3 445 for £56 and a HD5670 or 9800GT for about £60~70. Thats a much more balanced upgrade for gaming.

Also as Fordy said, if you're running some Generic 650W or 750W PSU then its a good idea to replace that, as if it breaks down PSU's are capable of taking alot of components to death with it. Although now I need to ask you a question, what resolution do you run your games on? I'll explain why I've asked this question later.

Fordy, remember that dude trying to recommend his GT240 to people? Glad he hasn't gone round posting.

Yeah, the CPU sprang out at me too, I do concur with that.

My view was just that, with a higher budget now, I'd get both.

With say a £100ish budget now, I'd get a GPU that leaves CPU as a bottleneck, and pop a new CPU in a bit later.

The GPU release rate should start to slow down now that we've seen the launch of the GTX 560 Ti and HD6990.

A budget would be pretty helpful, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Ah I see what you mean now. Better get a good GPU now, then save up for a better CPU later than get a medicore CPU and GPU.

Back then, I knew I should of bought a Athlon II X3 and 2GB of RAM then upgrade to 4GB, instead of getting 4GB of RAM and Athlon II X2. Now if I had to upgrade, it costs too much and I would have a spare waste Athlon II X2.

Thanks for the replies guys, i would say my budget is probably around £150-£200 mark, however with that budget i would like a new CPU, GPU and also an upgrade on my RAM. I think i can gsafely source a decent RAM upgrade for around the £50 mark so £150 ish for a new CPU and GPU.

Are you sure my MB can take a AM3 socket CPU the booklet only says sockets AM2 etc unless i am missing something which is quite possible lol :p

Do you think i will benefit more from upgrading the GPU first then as opposed to the CPU?, am i right in thinkin that the higher cache and Ghz the CPU gives then the better it will be compared to my current CPU beacause i have seen an AMD 7850 dual core CPU which seemed to me like an upgrade choice to go for as it had more cache available and was almost 3.0Ghz but again i may be wrong whats your thoughts on this?

With regards to the GPU i was actually looking at either the 9500GT or the 9800GT but i cant remember which one tbh also can you explain the GDDR to me as my current GPU has i believe 256MB GDDR3 im unsure as to what this means. I no it means i have a card with 256Mb of Ram but im puzzled by the GDDR part.

I cant remember what resolution i play my games at but either tonyt or tomorrow ill drop a reply n let you no. I also think that my PSU may be an Antec or something but again i will double check either tonyt and tomorrow and let you guys no. Thanks for your help and sorry for my longwinded reply

Dan :P

[anthonyla65]

AM3 CPU's are backward compatible with AM2 Sockets. It said on your Motherboard site, that your model supports all 95W AM3/AM2 CPU. Unless you are going for Vista or Windows, then having more than 2GB on XP is a waste. But if you insisted on replacing the unbranded RAM you have at the moment, then you might aswell get 4GB which is about £50.

For Gaming, GPU is much more important that CPU. Don't get the 9500GT, its basically the 8600GT which a different label. It was rebranded by Nvidia to promote the sales of 8600GT as too many was produced I guess, and they didn't sell enough. 9800GT is obsolete, if you are looking for a GPU upgrade then atleast get a HD5750 or GTS450 if you want to see massive performance jumps. They cost from £80-90, so it leaves you with £50-60 for CPU. Now I wouldn't get the 7850+ dual core because its old and produces alot of heat and slow compared to, if you pay £7 more you can get the newer Athlon II X2 250 3Ghz, which is alot faster compared to the 7850+ as its newer technology. A Athlon II X2 250 at 3Ghz would be faster than a 7850+ at 3Ghz because its on a newer architecture which is more efficent.

Here is the trouble some part. If you game at or under 1440x900 then I would recommend you to get a Triple Core Athlon X3 445 for £57 on Scan and a XFX HD5750 1GB GDDR5 for Scan for £85. As you are gaming on a lower resolution, the graphics complexity is low, so the GPU processes the data faster than the CPU, waiting for the CPU to finish before feeding it with more data. So that is called "CPU bound/Bottleneck"

Now if you game over 1440x900, Like 1680x1050, 1920x1080 etc. Then I would recommend you to get a GTX460 that Fordy linked for £110 and the Dual Core Athlon II X2 250 for £45. This is because since the resolution is higher, the graphic complexity goes up, so the CPU waits for the GPU to finish processing the data. So a better GPU is more needed than a CPU.

And ofcourse the rest of your budget, goes to your RAM. Decent RAM suppliers are Hynix, Samsung, Kingston, Crucial, Corsair, Mushkin etc. Just giving you a idea. If your PSU is a Antec then thats fine, they make high quality PSU's.