Hello, advice on what should I try to upgrade

[methus]

Hello, first of all I would like to thank everyone for the input they will give.

Even though I had this PC for 3-4 years I am still a bit of novice when it comes to these things. My current setup is :

Processor : Amd Athlon(tm) II x2 240 Processor 2.81 Ghz
Installed Memory(RAM) : 4gb
OS:Windows 7 x64
Gfx: Nvidia 9800 gt 512 ram think it is ddr3
Monitor : 20 inch 1600x900 rez

Let me know if you need any other info and I will try to look it up.

My question is with games like Gw2 and WoW pandas coming up, what should I try and upgrade to get any improvements. Atm I am a student and my part time job doesn't leave me with much money to buy a new rig or some other expensive stuff. So I figured I would ask you fine folks who know more on what I should try and upgrade. Probably not gonna do it right away but it's nice if I knew what I should buy when eventually I save enough money. Also not sure but I think I don't have anything overclocked. Would that be an option as well? Furthermore I hear that overclocking stuff can cause your pc to "burn out" sooner in the long run.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Deleted]

we need to know a few things before we can give you tips:

whats your budget
and do you know what kind of PSU you have?

[methus]

Hmm don't know about the PSU, as for my budget was thinking something between 100-200 euros.

---------- Post added 2012-08-02 at 03:17 PM ----------

Opened my case and found out that my PSU is 450w. Anything else let me know.

---------- Post added 2012-08-02 at 07:14 PM ----------

Anyone around?

[methus]

Bump for help

[vesseblah]

Your budget doesn't really give much room for improvements, as everything is rather low spec.

If your motherboard supports it, you could switch the processor to a PhenomII x4 955 or 965, whatever comes cheaper/easier. Difference between the two is about 5% before overclocking which is good to keep in mind when comparing prices. That should boost WoW/GW2 by about 30-40% especially on high settings.

Another thing to buy would be Radeon 6850 or preferably 6870 graphics card. That'll be another 30-40% speed boost for most games, but smaller difference for MMORPGs.

Those two would be around 250€ together which is above your budget, but if you're willing to go above, you should switch motherboard and CPU to Intel side, something like i3-2100 and cheap motherboard for around 150€ and another 150€ for the new graphics card to get the computer upgraded to this decade from four years ago.

[methus]

Thanks. My budget will probably increase as time goes by, that was how much I was about to fork at that time. As for the gfx not sure, had some issues with ati in the past that's why i switched to nvidia. Might do that. Do you think my psu is good enough since I hear that some parts might require a better one. Not sure just what I red on the internet.

[Xuvial]

Hmm theoretically a 450w is plenty....but I hope it's not some shoddy no-name PSU. Did you buy it separately, or did it come with the build, can you see what brand the PSU is?

[Drunkenvalley]

Did you see what it was beyond a 450w? Brand or anything? Many older and cheaper powersupplies try and abuse unknowing customers by making a huge amount of that power 5v or 3.3v only, which is silly to say the least.

[Deleted]

Looking at the AMD comparison chart Here
I can see your using an AM3 Capable Mobo.

I believe (without knowing which Mobo your using) a suitable upgrade would be
(this is assuming that your main use is for World of Warcraft gaming)

Processor AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, S AM3, 3.4GHz, 8MB Cache, 125W, Retail £87.55
PSU Corsair 650W Power Supply (PSU) £70.38

Total £168 €213.68

or
if your looking to switch CPU manufacturers at a later stage (Intel are kicking AMD's ass for gaming at the moment, but are a bit more expensive) you could look at a GFX + PSU combination. The reason I am suggesting a combination with a PSU is to allow you to have some head room later on. Whilst a 450watt PSU may be doing you fine now. once you upgrade to a newer CPU, and a new GFX card you may find yourself running low on power (after adding all other hardware in ofc) also a 650W PSU will last you a long time, I have been using a hipper 650watt for about 6 years now, and still haven not managed to run out of juice


What I would strongly suggest you do, is make a list of CPU, Motherboard, Ram etc (Download CPU-z this program will give you all the details you need) list them here, and then find out what people suggest. as of this post I cannot see what Mobo your using so I dont know if your on DDR 2 or DD3. No matter what happens though, if you are serious about upgrading then I would save a bit more than what you have. This will open a lot more doors in regards to what upgrades we can suggest.

[methus]

Hmm so far I found these : http://ark.intel.com/products/53426/...ache-3_30-GHz) for cpu
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...155/P8H61M_LX/ motherboard
http://eu.msi.com/product/vga/R6870-...=Specification for v-card

The video card and the motherboard+cpu are around the same price, so I was wondering which one would give me a better performance. Also i think for the motherboard+cpu I will need to buy at least one 4 gb ddr3 ram to be compatible since i think it won't work with my ddr2.

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 01:50 PM ----------

Looking at the AMD comparison chart Here
I can see your using an AM3 Capable Mobo.

I believe (without knowing which Mobo your using) a suitable upgrade would be
(this is assuming that your main use is for World of Warcraft gaming)

Processor AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, S AM3, 3.4GHz, 8MB Cache, 125W, Retail £87.55
PSU Corsair 650W Power Supply (PSU) £70.38

Total £168 €213.68

or
if your looking to switch CPU manufacturers at a later stage (Intel are kicking AMD's ass for gaming at the moment, but are a bit more expensive) you could look at a GFX + PSU combination. The reason I am suggesting a combination with a PSU is to allow you to have some head room later on. Whilst a 450watt PSU may be doing you fine now. once you upgrade to a newer CPU, and a new GFX card you may find yourself running low on power (after adding all other hardware in ofc) also a 650W PSU will last you a long time, I have been using a hipper 650watt for about 6 years now, and still haven not managed to run out of juice


What I would strongly suggest you do, is make a list of CPU, Motherboard, Ram etc (Download CPU-z this program will give you all the details you need) list them here, and then find out what people suggest. as of this post I cannot see what Mobo your using so I dont know if your on DDR 2 or DD3. No matter what happens though, if you are serious about upgrading then I would save a bit more than what you have. This will open a lot more doors in regards to what upgrades we can suggest.

Motherboard is ASRock N-68s
PSU is from delux 450w
CPU- Amd athlon II x2 240
Ram is 4 gb ddr2 from kingmax

[glo]

I'd simply just wait until your budget allows for you to buy GPU / CPU / mobo + RAM. Regardless of which one you choose, the part(s) you don't replace are going to severely hold back your new stuff to the point of very little performance increases.

[methus]

Hmm is this psu any good : http://www.emag.ro/surse/sursa-inter...ef=vp_ap_assoc Ignore all the writing in Romanian. The specs should look fine. Also for instance last night my cpu for gw2 was around 60-90% on its own but guess it could have something to do with them trying to fix servers so maybe it was that since i noticed I had lower fps compared to the last beta weekend.

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 02:13 PM ----------

I'd simply just wait until your budget allows for you to buy GPU / CPU / mobo + RAM. Regardless of which one you choose, the part(s) you don't replace are going to severely hold back your new stuff to the point of very little performance increases.

Well idk some performce increase, will be better than none and I think when I manage to find a decent job I will be able to buy some better parts than some of the ones I linked now.

[glo]

It isn't a PSU appropriate for gaming. It has really low amperage on the 12v rails (18a), so it would only be able to power pretty low end cards. It also only has a single PCIe power cord instead of 2 which most decent GPUs require. I'd suggest a few from the site if I could understand the language. :P

[methus]

It isn't a PSU appropriate for gaming. It has really low amperage on the 12v rails (18a), so it would only be able to power pretty low end cards. It also only has a single PCIe power cord instead of 2 which most decent GPUs require. I'd suggest a few from the site if I could understand the language. :P

Well give me a link from a store and I will try to find the appropriate one. Also according to what someone linked http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/vi...Force+7800+GTX my video card should be enough to play gw2 at least on medium which leads me to believe it might be my processor that requires an immediate upgrade.

---------- Post added 2012-08-10 at 07:25 PM ----------

Well I will probably get the cpu+motherboard and maybe a better psu if someone can link a decent one, and upgrade my video card later.

[Deleted]

From what you have stated then your best possible upgrade at the present (if your looking to start playing GW2 asap) would be a processor / GFX card.
Going down this route will lock your decision about switching brands of CPU at a later stage as your current motherboard would mean you are looking to get an AM3 Processor. Then at a later stage you would need to upgrade your motherboard and ram to get the best out of the processor / CPU combination that you have.

However

if you do go down the route of CPU+GFX card, I would suggest that you save a little more money so that you can get a good combination of CPU + Graphics card and also invest in gaming PSU at the same time. CPU+Graphics are two of the biggest drains on your PSU so having one that can not only give enough power, but is of sufficient quality that it has the correct connectors and is providing the correct amount of power to each item is important.


if you do decied to go down the CPU+Motherboard, you will need to factor in the cost of memory as well. Any AM3 Processor will work in that mobo, so you could look at spending a lot more on processor and use your current hardware for a while and save the additional money towards a GFX card.


I am in a similar position, I am running a Phenom II 555 and a 6950 GFX card on a DDR2 motherboard. As soon as I have the spare funds I am either looking at upgrading Motherboard and ram, or saving more and swirtching processor packages to an I5 system which means Mobo, Ram and Processor

[methus]

Hmm so far I have decided on these parts :

Psu- Corsair CMPSU-650TX V2 650W, ATX2.3
Mobo- Asus P8H61-M/LX/REV3.0, Socket 1155
CPU - Processor Intel® CoreTM i3 2120, 3.3GHz, socket 1155, Box
Ram - Memory Kingston 4GB, DDR3, 1333MHz, CL9 ValueRam

Are they a good choice?

As for gfx I will probably get MSI Ati Radeon 6870, 1024MB, GDDR5, 256bit, DVI, HDMI, PCI-E but at a later date since after buying all of these I will have no money and probably owe some as well.

[methus]

Bump for final imput

[Drunkenvalley]

What store are you ordering from? It'd be easier for us to see what alternatives we could offer with that available.

[methus]

What store are you ordering from? It'd be easier for us to see what alternatives we could offer with that available.

Hmm well it is gonna be a store in my country in Romania and unless you speak the language it will probably not go so well.

[n0cturnal]

Hmm well it is gonna be a store in my country in Romania and unless you speak the language it will probably not go so well.

Most people around here are fluent in Google translate, give us a try.