Upgrade Advice

[koedeen420]

Built my computer a few years ago and just want to start upgrading things here and there.
MoBo- Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P

CPU- AMD 550 3.1ghz Black Edition - OC'd to 3.4 no voltage increase. Idles at 42 goes up to 52 max load stock cooler

RAM- Gskill 4GB DDR3-1333 (PC3 10666) 8-8-8-21(i think)

GPU - Radeon HD 4670 1GB the HIS IceQ fancy edition lol- Stock GPU clock 750 MHz Memory 850MHz - OC'd to 790 and 920 MHz - idles at 45, max load goes to 55ish degrees

Power Supply - OCZ ModXstream-pro 600w

HDD - Western Digital 500GB 7200rpm, nothing fancy

Windows Vista home edition - 1440x900 resolution

Now it runs WoW fine on high. 75 fps due to Vsync in cities and 40+ on fights like Rhyolith 25 man. If i turn on shadows to good or high, there is a very noticeable FPS drop. Not sure whats bottlenecking the system on that.

My goal is just to start upgrading it piece by piece or by pieces. Battlefield 3 is coming out soon and want to run that on a decent setting.
Current budget is $300 US. So any advice on where to start is much appreciated

[Sephiracle]

First upgrades I would go for is going to be a better video card. BF3 runs DX11 exclusively, afaik. Once you get that, get a better cooler to up your overclock a little.

[OhpUldum]

As suggested I would swap the video card for something newer. GTX560 Ti or Radeon HD6870 should fit the budget.

[Deleted]

wait for the 6 series nvidia cards. price differences won't be massive but performance will be.

[koedeen420]

So a new video card. Cpu cooler and maybe some case fans for extra cooling should do it. Can i go gddr5? Not sure if thats a motherboard compatability thing or not. Also thx again for the help.

[Xuvial]

Can i go gddr5? Not sure if thats a motherboard compatability thing or not.

Wuh..? GDDR5 is video memory that comes as part of the video card. I think you meant RAM, and your current DDR3 ram will do fine.

[koedeen420]

Sorry let me re-word what i was trying to ask...is there a huge difference between gddr3 and 5? With my setup what would you guys suggest..id usually google that type of stuff but im at work on my phone hehe.

[OhpUldum]

Here is a couple cards based off what I said earlier.
MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II $224.99 after MIR Get a couple games with this one.
Then we have the MSI Radeon HD6870 Twin Frozr II $179.99 after MIR. Depending on what you want to spend on the budget will really dictate this one. Both of which will handle BF3, just the 560TI will do better but is more expensive.

[Xuvial]

Sorry let me re-word what i was trying to ask...is there a huge difference between gddr3 and 5? With my setup what would you guys suggest..id usually google that type of stuff but im at work on my phone hehe.

Comparing GDDR3 to GDDR5 is irrelevant (it's just video memory), it's more about comparing the whole video card to another video card. HD4670 is a fairly low-end card and you should be looking at something like a GTX560 Ti which is literally 3-4x faster than your current card and far more suitable for running BF3

[OhpUldum]

Video memory only becomes an issue in higher resolutions and multiple monitor solutions. These days any gaming card is going to have at least 1GB GDDR5 though.

[koedeen420]

Awesome thanks again. Gonna go with a HD6850 (middle man) and figure out a decent CPU cooler and that should be well within my budget.

[Wrestler10307]

Built my computer a few years ago and just want to start upgrading things here and there.
MoBo- Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P

CPU- AMD 550 3.1ghz Black Edition - OC'd to 3.4 no voltage increase. Idles at 42 goes up to 52 max load stock cooler

RAM- Gskill 4GB DDR3-1333 (PC3 10666) 8-8-8-21(i think)

GPU - Radeon HD 4670 1GB the HIS IceQ fancy edition lol- Stock GPU clock 750 MHz Memory 850MHz - OC'd to 790 and 920 MHz - idles at 45, max load goes to 55ish degrees

Power Supply - OCZ ModXstream-pro 600w

HDD - Western Digital 500GB 7200rpm, nothing fancy

Windows Vista home edition - 1440x900 resolution

Now it runs WoW fine on high. 75 fps due to Vsync in cities and 40+ on fights like Rhyolith 25 man. If i turn on shadows to good or high, there is a very noticeable FPS drop. Not sure whats bottlenecking the system on that.

My goal is just to start upgrading it piece by piece or by pieces. Battlefield 3 is coming out soon and want to run that on a decent setting.
Current budget is $300 US. So any advice on where to start is much appreciated

Um... Your computer looks really close to mine, the only differences are OS, graphics card, PSU.

Have you tried unlocking your processor to quad core in the bios? Some of the dual core phenom chips were just locked to dual but theres an option in the bios where you can activate 2 more cores... You'll have to drop the OC just a tad though.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...m-turns-phenom

[Xuvial]

Have you tried unlocking your processor to quad core in the bios? Some of the dual core phenom chips were just locked to dual but theres an option in the bios where you can activate 2 more cores... You'll have to drop the OC just a tad though.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...m-turns-phenom

Yes! I had forgotten some AMD chips could do that, unlocking a dual to a try-core would result in immediate performance boosts for WoW since it's optimized for 3 cores

[koedeen420]

Yea I definitely tried that the minute I built the computer hehe. I'm one of the unlucky few who's locked cores are really locked

I have the f2c firmware on the mobo, changed the EC Firmware to hybrid and ACC to auto all at stock speeds and no luck. It would post, but once windows started to load before you could even see a desktop it would just crash. Even tried upping the CPU NB voltage slowly and some other crap and still no luck. Willing to try it again if you have an alternative method.

[Wrestler10307]

Yea I definitely tried that the minute I built the computer hehe. I'm one of the unlucky few who's locked cores are really locked

I have the f2c firmware on the mobo, changed the EC Firmware to hybrid and ACC to auto all at stock speeds and no luck. It would post, but once windows started to load before you could even see a desktop it would just crash. Even tried upping the CPU NB voltage slowly and some other crap and still no luck. Willing to try it again if you have an alternative method.

I'm using the f12 firmware, you might want to try that.

edit: I have rev 1.0, I'm not sure about you