Sell it or improve it?

[Wgizmo]

Hi,

This is my pc:

Motherboard: Asus M2N4-SLI

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+

Memory: GeIL CL4-4-4DDR2-800 x4

GPU: BFG GeForce 8800 GTX

HDD: MAXTOR S TM3320820AS SCSI Disk Device

DVD: TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M ATA Device

OS: Windows Vista 64 Ultimate

How to improve this or how to incress speed of my pc? Buy another hdd and put them in raid? Buy new GTX and put in SLI? Invest in woter cooling and overlock? What do you think guys? Invest less and smart to set all components in good way or sell all and buy new?

 

[Rastalovich]

Tough.

Where does it feel lacking to u ? Or u just going for improvements for improvements-sake ?

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

That isn't actually a bad system, get yourself a decent air cooler and overclock the CPU a bit

 

[Wgizmo]

I have some cooling on my GPU and some case and main power supply upgrade but cant post pics till 15 posts lol. What iam looking forward its it if its good idea to buy another hdd and put him in RAID? And how overlock my cpu/gpu? Iam the begginer in this overlocking thing. What i can do so far its replace or change all phisical things in pc but programin(overlocking in bios/sustem) cpu/gpu iam NooB

 

[Talonaer]

woudlnt say you'll see blistering performance increases with new kit tbh, good stuff there, not far off top stuff still. Im no pro at OCing so ill leave that to the others but id say pushing some OCs would give you a nice boost for free relative to the amount youd need to spend to see a drastic improvement

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Well, to get an overclock all you really need to do is up your FSB and voltage when required.

Start by locating your CPU options in the BIOS, see if you can find somewhere in there were you can change your FSB, voltages and RAM timings etc.

Let me know if you can find this, if you can I will explain further on what is required, although it is an AMD, I am sure that Intel's ways still apply

 

[Pat123]

Hmm, buying a new mobo and CPU (intel) would probably allow you to oc more and would give a nice little boost in perf. But there isnt much wrong with your current hardware

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Agreed, if you're in the market for some new stuff, buy yourself a nice P35/P45 depending on budget, get yourself a Dual/Quad core and overclock it

The dual core, well the E21** and the E22** models overclock like hell, I can get a 118.5% overclock out of mine.. but not recommended for every day use!

If you're stuck on what to buy, please don't hesitate to ask!

 

[Wgizmo]

Just downloading 3Dmark/Pcmark Vantage to test my pc before i will start doing enything. Looking forward to that Raid setup with two hdd. WHat do you think about it? Buy to hdd 7,2 rpm with 16mb cash and put them on raid or just buy the same hdd which i have now and put them in raid?

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

The hard drives have to be the same make, same size and same cache..

RAID does not offer very much extra performance for us normal desktop users, the only time you benifit from it is really in networking when you need high burst speeds to be able to access data fast, don't spend on it, you will not see much of a performance increase. Although going back to a single drive from RAID.. it seems to crawl along LOL!

 

[Rastalovich]

It's a tricky situation as to some extent u can throw money at the rig and waste it more on one thing than another.

• Buying another harddrive to setup Raid.Buying another 320g drive to twin the one u already have. U cant ~really~ put that down to waste. U could simply buy another drive and install ur OS on it and use the existing one to install games/utils/mp3 etc on and similarly have a snapier system. But in my world, buying more drivespace is hardly ever a bad idea. Even if u see the light after raid fails on u for the 10th time, falling back to installing the OS on a separate drive and having more capacity is an investment. They work on future mobos etc, so hey.
  
• Buying a faster cpu.Literally no point in the current climate unless the one u have breaks. Any expense on mobo/cpu/memory has to be weighed up against the lifespan of the equipment. If ur cpu breaks and u replace it, soon after ur mobo goes and u want to buy a similar mobo cos u only just bought the cpu.... bah - no point. 775 mobos and cpus are going to be cheap cheap for the next year+, so expense in that section would be a waste of money and time. IP35 + Q6600 + 4g is very supprizingly cheap, considering what that can do, and theres not a groundbreaking amount of competition for the 3. Sure theres newer stuff, but realistically vS cash, theres no contest. One of the easiest combinations to overclock to, with a good basic %age gain.
  
• Buy another 8800GTX for SLI. The card is a good solid one, buying a second - even tho cheaper in comparison to what it was, would be wasting money on old tech. (with the exception of finding a crazy-stupid bargain on eBay or whatever) SLI isnt always a barrel of laughs to play with. Sure its great when it works, sometimes not as great as u think it could have been, and perhaps the drivers arent iron-clad. Its great for benching imo, but for 24/7 I'd personally get a single card. Thats not to say there arent people out there who will swear by it, equally for me there are people who'll live & die by raid - good luck to them imo. These days a pcie card is an investment. If u bought the 8800gtx when they first came out, those laughing at the money paid for them are now feeling foolish considering how good for so long theyve been.
  

Thats it really. Investment vS how much u want to spend vS options down the road.

Ofc a simple reinstall can make a system feel better. Yes the gear u have is pretty aged by todays standards, but even so, u can pack a heck of a punch with it still.

IP35+Q6600+4g (heck u got 4g, and ofc thats a line of non-SLI mobos) would be my personal choice, plus a drive for separate OS install. Use the 8800 til u save again just for that replacement.

 

[Wgizmo]

Cant post link or image lol "You are only allowed to post URLs to other sites after you have made 15 posts or more." but i will write down my score from 3D Mark Vantage:

3DMARK SCORE: P5484

GPU SCORE: 6081

CPU SCORE: 4235

Dont know if its good or really bad. Rastalovich what do you sugest to buy? Lets say i can invest 250 pounds in that. What good performance upgrade i can do for it? Gpu and ram its not bad i think. Can easyly invest in mobo and cpu. If some money left can buy some 32mb cache hdd.?

 

[Wgizmo]

Core 2 Quad Q6600 i see from reviews looks like nice cpu. Abit IP35 (Intel P35 + ICH9R) rev. 1.00 looks like nice thing to overlock too. I think its good combo and i should fit in 200 pounds. And incress my performance easy by around 30% ima right? What do you think and which model/company(asus/abit/gigabyte/msi..) i should buy motherboard and whihc model of cpu?

 

[ionicle]

if your mobo suports it, you could get a phenom, that would give you a nice little boost in speed

all i can think of though..

i wouldnt sugest intel, maybe its just me, but amd seem like the better choise

 

[Pat123]

Ide say get yourself a Q6600 and a P35 mobo.. That should come in at about £220.. Then get yourself a nice air cooler and bobs your uncle.

That will give you the largest performance boost in my opinion, with some simple overclocking.. RAID is a nice luxury but you wont see much real world boost unless like rast said your networking.

As for another 8800, one is enough really, seems a tad pointless to add old tech. And extra RAM? why bother you already got 4GB DDR2 anymore is wayyyy overkill.

 

[gotmaxpower]

I'd say get an E7200 and a P5Q Pro. It comes to around about ~£180-200 and leaves you an awesome board and one of the best bang for your buck CPU's out at the moment.

Best of luck with the upgrade.

 

[Wgizmo]

Then guys E7200 or Q6600? I have 4gb 800mhz ram then i cant go to fast or to high with overlocking on the cpu. Which one will be the best for me? Lets say with that setup i would go to change cpu and mobo. But wchich one cpu and which one mobo? Price to max 250 pounds.

 

[gotmaxpower]

I'd definitely go for the E7200 unless you're a frequent multi-tasker.

Like I said, the E7200 offers great bang for your buck and brilliant overclocking capabilities. As for the Q6600, not many games can utilise 2 cores, nevermind 4 cores.

 

[Wgizmo]

What about Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P Intel P45 Socket 775 DDR2 + Q6600? You think its good choice? Can somone write down the good setup for future? Like good not to expensive mobo and midle class cpu? I know and i see from tests not always latest or expensive mobo is the best like cpu. The example is Phenom x4. I heard from friend intel planing to put on market new processor and it will be chipper than this quad ones like it wos with celeros.

 

[°TheMadDutchDude°]

Get an Intel Core2Quad.. why get 2 cores when you're going to have to upgrade again later on?

You can get a 3.6GHz OC on an Intel Q6600 on air.. so what is the big difference? One thing is to watch out for the temperatures, espesh if you don't have a good case to take all the hot air out!