upgrades! (need help on what to choose)

F

Fat Mule

Member
Okay, everyone my computer is custom built soooooo heres my specs:
Scout Storm-Case
phenom II X4 @2.6 (810...i think)
Biostar motherboard T-series
Gigabyte HD Radeon 6870 OC
6 Gigs of DDR 3 - Super Talent
575W PSU
500GB western digital HDD
ANNNNDDDDD 6 or 7 fans (internal obviously :0)
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mouse-deathadder
keyboard-saitek: Cyborg V5 keyboard ( it was a cheap deal :/)
Asus 22" display
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So i need some help choosing my upgrades, please help me choose :D my price range as of now is between 600$-1700$ (1700$ wont be till the end of the summer though)

-Mule
 
It's already a pretty good rig. What kind of upgrade are you talking about? You could drop in a second videocard, that would be a quick and easy upgrade. You may want to get a bigger PSU if you do that though. What configuration is the RAM in? 6GB just isn't a good idea unless you are running tri-channel. The hard drive would be too small for me but if you're good with the capacity, leave it. I suppose you could add an SSD for a fast boot drive. A really extreme upgrade would be to rip out the Phenom II and motherboard and replace it with a Sandy Bridge- maybe an i5-2500K and a Z68 mobo.
 
im just talking about upgrades, gaming is my main priority, so all games been doing fairly well with my 6870 OC. except GTA 4, but thats because GTA 4 uses alot of processing power... :dah: crysis runs at 60 fps and so does everything else... MAYBE an eyefinity setup?! i dunno if i need that but it sounds cool, and it would just require 200$ more roughly, that would be crackin :tophat:
 
XCVG said:
rip out the Phenom II and motherboard and replace it with a Sandy Bridge- maybe an i5-2500K and a Z68 mobo.
Click to expand...

YES. :awesome:

Then you can take your Phenom II board, connect it to an inexpensive power supply and video card, and use it on your TV for emulators and digital media.
 
Seems like a waste of a Phenom II to do that, if you ask me.
If you have such a big budget, just build yourself a new rig and sell this one for money.
Get an i5 2500k and a cheap MSI/Gigabyte/ASUS Z68 motherboard.
Vidya card, go with a 6950 or keep the 6870.
Me, though? I'd overclock the CPU to run GTAIV and if anything, crossfire another 6870. Pretty useless to upgrade so much for so little.
 
lol, i wanna keep my rig :p why sell this one! i can just upgrade what i can! idk how to OC a cpu.... and have you seen the gigabyte 6870 OC?! i had to do a case mod to just fit one O.O I think maybe a new CPU, MAYBE another 6870 made by another company that is smaller than the Gigabytes 6870 :p
cause id like to OC my cpu from 2.6hz.... to maybe 3.0 or higher
 
I suppose you could drop one of the Phenom II X6 processors in. Not sure how well they overclock, but you get two extra cores and a higher clock speed than what you have. Dropping in a second GPU is the best upgrade for gaming- I don't see why it wouldn't fit in you case. Back to the memory- what configuration is it? A 4GB and a 2GB or three 2GB sticks? Like I said, though, you'll probably want a new power supply as well.
 
yeah my gig config is 3, 2 gig DDR3's, yeah my PSU is only 575 so id need around a 600+ wattage to Crossfire cards, and also im getting 2 free Aoc LED razor monitors from work :D! so eyefinity is a definite :tophat: yeah the length of my card is around 11" so id need a companies card that is roughly 10" but im sure thats no problem to find! The thing im kinda not favoring the I7 2500k sandy bridge is that AMD cards work best with an AMD processor. SO! im just kinda nervous that i wouldn't get as good of system when using intel with AMD videocard. But thank you all for all the help you've provided! Its been deeply appreciated :o
 
That's not true, an AMD card will run just as well on an Intel CPU as an AMD CPU.
(Well, unless you find a way to bottleneck the AMD CPU, in which case the Intel setup will perform better :p)
 
Yeah, Intel and AMD will work just fine, even if Nvidia is still superior in every way to AMD (aside from BitCoin mining.) Also, a 575w PSY should suffice for a crossfire/SLI configuration, but if you have the money to spare, I'd get a PSU with 600+ wattage.
 
Nvidia being superior to AMD is 2009 stuff.
AMD has pulled their flax together and you're just being a dick.
 
I found nVidia's drivers and control panel much better, but the cards themselves are comparable. nVidia has CUDA and better 3D, AMD has Eyefinity and better multimedia support. As for AMD cards working better with AMD processors, that is pure BS. However Sandy Bridge splits an x16 into x8 and x8 links for dual videocards, similar to AMD's 890GX chipset. 790 and 890FX chipsets provide dual x16 links, so maybe that's what you're thinking of.

A GOOD 575W power supply should work. What brand is it? Your RAM configuration is stupid- you won't get dual channel. I think you could add another 2GB stick and do it that way. I would recommend those two upgrades plus a second video card.
 
Read a little more closely, the person that originally suggested an i7 also suggested you get a new mobo too.
 
I guess. Im thinking of getting a sapphire 6870 and a new PSU so i can crossfire! then we'll see who can run wow at 200+fps :awesome:
 
Me, with my last rig because WoW is slightly more demanding than Minecraft. Probably less if you enable smooth lighting.

Seriously though, new PSU and second videocard is good. Also, a fourth stick of RAM, bringing your total to 8GB and allowing dual-channel operation. Why did you go with 6GB in the first place? Is it a transplant from an LGA1366 i7 rig?
 
Um, I did not choose my gigabyte amount. I got 6 gigs because the place I got my comp from (where i work now) decided that 6 gigs was okay. AND no its not a transplant
 
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