Main hardware to upgrade to increase performance

[kaelzen07]

I was doing some research and had a question, of all these parts in a computer, what are the main things that should be upgraded (in order of priority where 1 is highest priority) on a computer as far as gaming goes in order to get the best performance and quality out of your system and game? Any thoughts are appreciated, thanks guys and gals.

[Mirishka]

Generally your video card, the amount of RAM and the quantity/speed (e.g. dual core, quad core, etc) of your machine's processors will make the greatest difference.

Doubling the RAM in my current machine made an incredible difference in performance, literally night and day in some games.

[zakayron]

Entirely depends on the game. Some games are CPU bottlenecked (WoW in many cases) most are GPU bottlenecked. Good CPU's, however, tend to be overclockable. Really though the biggest thing is what you have right now in your rig. Sure 7970's have amazing performance but if you have a core 2 duo sitting in your case the CPU would clealy be more important.

[kaelzen07]

My computer is actually running a six core processor, but how do i know if each core is running at max? And also im really new to the overclocking biz, is there some sort of starter thread or anything i could browse to read up more about how to?

[Zanno]

Before someone says RAM...

CPU and video card will make the most difference. RAM comes absolutely LAST. Even having an SSD will give you more of a performance boost than RAM will.

Let's say for example you have 4 gigs of RAM. Do you think going from 4 to 8 will give you any performance? Nope. And if it does it's negligible. Anything over 4 gigs is there for programs so that they may store information. This makes it so that the system can access this information much quicker than it could if it were stored on a hard drive. The more RAM you have, the more info it can store. Higher amounts of RAM are needed for programs like video renderers. Games tend to use RAM as well, however it's used to access game information and NOT to render the game itself. That's the job of the video card.

Again, CPU and Video card is what you want to concentrate on if you have 4 gigs of RAM or more.

[Butterland]

Generally your video card, the amount of RAM and the quantity/speed (e.g. dual core, quad core, etc) of your machine's processors will make the greatest difference.

This. But in general if your computer is 4+ years old, everything has to change because the processor requires a specific motherboard (2 parts), RAM is much cheaper and faster today (quality 8 GB RAM goes for 50$), games push video cards to their limit (MMOs used to be CPU-heavy and GPU-friendly but more and more they require good GPUs even with lower settings - see Rift, SW:TOR and the upcoming GW2) and everything together will require a good PSU to run it. Considering how those parts usually account for 80%+ of a computer's price, it's just better to rebuild from scratch every few years.

If your computer is not that old, it's really just dependent on what you are currently using and what games you want to play. You can play WoW on a very old graphics card (say the 7600GT) but will need at least a i3-2100 to run WoW (at low settings) in raid environments. On the other hand, Battlefield 3 will require a much newer graphics card but the i3-2100 will not necessarily require to be changed.

[Zanno]

My computer is actually running a six core processor, but how do i know if each core is running at max? And also I'm really new to the overclocking biz, is there some sort of starter thread or anything i could browse to read up more about how to?

I would learn a bit more about computers before you start overclocking. That's a serious business and can really damage your PC if you don't know what you're doing.

If you are REALLY adamant about it, then you can check out TomsHardware. Just google it. They have great information on their site.

[kaelzen07]

thanks for the input everyone. I actually dont have a really old computer (only about 2 years old). Unfortunately, this rig doesn't have intel, currently using a AMD Phenom II x6 1055T, Nvidia GEforce GT 430, 4g (2g each) of ram, 700w PSU with my core speed sitting at 2800MHz according to CPUz.