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CPU or Graphics card upgrade?
Due to some of the newer games not working very well I was wondering what I should upgrade to last me a few months until I buy a new computer when sandybridge comes out. The cpu is a intel core 2 duo @1.8Ghz and the graphics card is a 9500GT. The upgrades would be either a Core 2 quad @2.5Ghz or a gts 450 although I hear you need a HD screen for it.
Rest of the specs are:
OS: Windows xp SP3
RAM: 2Gb
Asus motherboard with a LGA 775 socket
Screen resolution: 1280x1024
I'm aware of the fact that this isn't a very good gaming PC but I've had no problems running games like AOC, Aion and Mass effect 2 on max settings without a problem so I never bothered to get a new computer but with the new crop of MMOs coming out along with sandybridge I'lll upgrade then.
Thanks for the help!
Comments
That looks like the sort of system where games will run, but not very well. If you're maxing settings on that, then presumably you're not bothered by low frame rates.
To get a modern computer, you'd need a new processor, which would take a new motherboard, which would require new memory. You'd also need a new video card, and likely a new power supply to run it all. At that point, the sensible thing to do is to just get a new computer. You could sink $300 into upgrading the processor and video card, and would still be stuck with something not that great, and not much of a further upgrade path.
If you're willing to wait for the start of the new year as it sounds, then do so, and then get a Core i5 2400 or 2500 (Sandy Bridge) and a Radeon HD 6750 or 6770 (Northern Islands). That would take a motherboard with an LGA 1155 socket and a P67 chipset. None of that stuff is out yet, but it will be in four months. Add in 4 GB of DDR3 memory (in a kit with two modules of 2 GB each) and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and you'll have a reasonably nice gaming machine.
Also, get a good quality power supply rated around 500 W to handle it all. Don't go for a high wattage rating with loose voltage regulation that will fry things.
Both 9500 and 450 are crappy low performing cards. A 460 GTX with 1 Gig will give you a lot better performance.
The processor and ram are also close to the limit of what can run games today, but at last with a 460 performance will be greatly improved.
My honest opinion is that you will need a new computer very soon but starting with the GFX card works fine as long as you don't get a crap 450.
What is a HD screen? That is just used about TVs and any GFX card can run 1280 x 1024. No problem with that for you, even if I would wish myself a new and better screen for X-mas or something, they really dropped in price.
If you've got a $2000 budget, then that's a lot bigger than I expected from what you had now and the upgrades you're looking at. You could get a Core i7 2600 (or 2600K if you're overclocking), a Radeon HD 6870, and a good 120 GB SSD on that budget, easily.
You'd see a substantial performance improvement from the upgrades, but I don't think it's worth pouring $300 into a system only to replace it four months later. Intel charges ridiculous prices to upgrade to a Core 2 generation processor even now, basically just because they can. Or are you going to keep the old computer and still use it a lot, too, even after getting the new one?
Agreed, upgrading the processor is pointless at this time.
A good graphics card is still never a bad investment (But I prefer the 480 GTX myself as long as you have a large tower for the PC). Problem is that any GFX card with more than 1 Gb ram wont perform as good as it should because of XP.
There's no sense in buying a new video card just before a major new architecture launches if you're not going to get the new computer until after it's out. Whatever video card he gets now would be discarded as soon as he gets the new computer. Well, either that or you'd spend $2000 on a new computer and be stuck with a video card that will be a completely ridiculous choice when you get the rest of the computer.
Besides, a high end video card would be horribly bottlenecked by the processor if it's paired with a 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo.
I plan to keep the old computer but not for gaming or well extreme gaming anyways, It's main use will be browsing the net and playing a few f2p games every now and then. But yeh in general 80% of my computer time will be on the new computer once I get it.
Also Like you stated, getting a really high performance graphics card like the GTX480 would be a waste considering the slow processor.
@LOKE666";What is a HD screen? That is just used about TVs and any GFX card can run 1280 x 1024. No problem with that for you, even if I would wish myself a new and better screen for X-mas or something, they really dropped in price."
From what I heard the gts450 only has a HDMI attachment and since I have a VGA cable for my screen it won't work.
I'm considering just leaving this computer the way it is, although Just for even general use would the processor upgrade be a good investment ($150) or for casual use is this core 2 good enough? The main reason I was upgrading was because I had some problems with FF14 and thought I might aswell put some money in to make the games playable until I get a new computer.
Board manufacturers can put whatever monitor plugs they want on their cards, and sometimes they'll put different ports on different models of the same card even. Most modern cards have at least one DVI port and sometimes two. Some have a VGA port and some don't--and those that don't will often include a DVI to VGA adapter. Some have an HDMI port and some don't. Newer AMD cards will often have DisplayPort, but Nvidia cards usually don't. You can pick out a card that has the particular ports you want.
If you're looking for a short-term upgrade, you might want to go cheaper than $300. The reason why I recommend quad core processors now for new gaming systems is more for a few years from now than the immediate future. I expect that games will increasingly be able to take advantage of, and ultimately require, more than two cores. But we're not there yet, and for a short term upgrade, you don't need a quad core. If your motherboard has the appropriate BIOS update available, this one takes the same processor socket as you have:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116347
If you're willing to mess with mail-in rebates, then this would be a cheap upgrade that would roughly double your video performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125304
That has the VGA port you need. Neither of those would require a new power supply, either.
For non-gaming use, you'd notice a huge difference from a good solid state drive, but nothing else would make a noticeable difference.
If you're going to do a lot of web browsing on the old computer, something like this would be a great upgrade:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227461
Put the OS and various small programs on the SSD and no more sitting and waiting for the computer to respond. It won't help your frame rates in most games, though. For a new computer with a $2000 budget, I'd recommend a larger and faster SSD than that, though.
Thanks a lot for the reply, I will more than likely go for the new processor but won't get the SSD due to having about 200G+ on the hardrive already and some other issues with finding the windows XP disk. As for the Graphics card, are you sure that would double the performance for games? From what I had heard it was only a bit better than the 9600.
It's about double the performance of the GeForce 9500 GT that you said you had above, and comparable to a GeForce 9600 GT. A 9500 GT is essentially half of a 9600 GT.
Oh, Wasn't aware of the fact that there was such a big difference between a 9500 and 9600. Will give the card another look then!
Basically, the first digit gives the generation, the second digit gives the relative performance within that generation, and subsequent digits or letters are to distinguish cards further. Well, that's how AMD does it, at least. Nvidia increments the first digit whenever they feel like it, which may or may not correspond to a new generation of parts. Nvidia also has GTX > GTS > GT > G, and sometimes GSO or GX2 or GS or random other letter combinations.
If you have a GeForce 9600 GT, then I'd just keep it until you replace the whole computer, as it should run just about anything just fine if you're willing to turn graphical settings down as far as necessary.
You can build a really good gaming computer for under $1000. There really is no need to spend more unless you really want to throw money away.
Personally I only buy AMD processors even though I recognize the Intel processors are a bit better. Just think if what Intel would charge if it had no competition. Forget the Nvidia 450, the 460 is far far better for just a bit more.
Personally the AMD X2 555 black edition is a real bargain and almost any AM3 motherboard, just as long as it has USB 3.0 support. You have to remember the vast majority of games won't use more than two cores, so anything more is overkill. The graphics card is far more important in playing games than the CPU, but you can easily over clock this CPU if that is your desire.
The above CPU with a motherboard, 4gb of DDR3 of memory and a Nvidia 460 will run you less than $500, that includes a decent after market CPU cooler for overclocking.
Basically you pretty much change motherboards these days when you change CPU's
I would have more than 2 gb of ram if I were you. Not exactly sure what all your mother board supports without having to look it up. That processor is ok I guess. Although, I have a 940 BE quad 3.0 ghz, I OC to 3.3 ghz . Like somebody else said you should get the 460 graphics card.
"When it comes to GW2 any game is fair game"
Certainly you can get a nice gaming computer for $1000. But you can get a much nicer one for $2000. It's beyond about $2000 that spending more really doesn't bring much benefit.
There's going to be a period of probably around 6 months between the launch of Sandy Bridge and the launch of Bulldozer where Intel has the high end all to itself and AMD isn't even remotely competitive. There won't be any real reason to look at an AMD processor in a high end gaming system in that period.
But don't worry about AMD. They'll have the $200+ video card market pretty much all to themselves at the same time. They'll also grab a large chunk of the laptop market at the same time, as there probably won't be any real reason to look at anything Intel has to offer for a budget laptop. There would be if Intel slashed prices to compete, but Intel doesn't like to do that, and AMD will be selling chips that are vastly cheaper to produce. And then AMD will at least be competitive again in the server and desktop spaces with the launch of Bulldozer.
I actually found a 9800GT for 100 bucks which is faster than the gt240 so I'll probably go for that along with the 3Ghz dual core, although my little brother who was going to be using this computer suggested that I just sell this computer and put those extra 300 bucks into buying a laptop for him to use at college. But that's a totally different topic and I've got all the help i need here, so once again thanks everyone for the help!
A GeForce 9800 GT for $100 is a horrible value. It's only slightly faster than this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871
but it's also way behind in features and uses a lot more power.
And if you're willing to pay $100, you could get this, which is much faster, while using considerably less power and having much better feature compatibility:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102859
Besides, if what you really want is a three year old GeForce 9800 GT, then you can do a lot better than $100:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500154
I still wouldn't get it over any of the other cards I've linked for you, though.
You should probably also check your power supply. If the computer came with a GeForce 9500 GT, then it may well have a power supply with no PCI-E 6-pin power connectors, and be unable to run a GeForce 9800 GT or the Radeon HD 5750 that I linked.
I would like to know what game on the PC is worth the money to go out and by more hardware? I have spent my last dollars on my hardware because I know that consoles and corporate assholes are going to ruin PC games and they won't be worth buying anymore. Consoles have the luxury of HD TV's now days, so they are not limited anymore, the business will grow, but there is still that FPS game on PC that just can't be beat when playing it on the PC so there is still a difference, but corporate greed doesn't care!
I actually had a Geforce 7 series card when I bought the computer but that fried and I replaced it with the 9500GT, yeh I wasn't very tech savy at the point so this seemed like a good card. And I've decided to just stick with the GT240 you suggested since I can get that for like 45 bucks with mail-in rebate.
As for the other post, With things like onlive and cloud base things in general gaining momentum I would say in the next 5 years they will be a lot more popular but until then you still need something to game on eh.
I'll be absolutely shocked if Onlive or some analogous service is competitive with an $800 desktop in the next decade. Actually, I'll be pretty surprised if it's competitive in my lifetime. Maybe Onlive twenty years from now will be competitive with today's $800 gaming desktop, but not a desktop that you could get for $800 then.
At minimum, bandwidth will need to become cheap enough that ISPs don't care if a lot of their users use around 1 TB per day, and while that may happen eventually, it's not going to happen soon. For comparison, a cheap 1080p monitor today uses 1 TB of bandwidth through the monitor cable in a little over half an hour.
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Whether upgrading hardware makes sense depends on what you have. A year ago, I had a Radeon X1300 Pro, and an upgrade from that was very worthwhile.
My gaming rig costed me around 500 $. To be honest, you'd be better off purchasing an ATI 5750. It's easy to find it for around 100 bucks and will give you a way better performance than a GTS 240.
As for the CPU, I totally agree with the mate who recommended the AMD Phenom X2 555 Black Edition. You could also get the 550 Black edition for ab it less. Both are damn easy to overclock and you can unlock the cores and make them a Quad core processor running at 3.6 Ghz for under 120$.
Whatever you end up getting, good luck with the purchases.
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
AMD Phenom II X4 B50 OC'd @3.8 Ghz
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB DDR5 OC'd @ 855/1310 Mhz
4 GB RAM DDR3@1333 Mhz
That doesn't fit an LGA 775 socket. Add in a motherboard replacement, too, and it's not such a great deal anymore.
Very true, but you can still find a nice AM3 MoBO for under 100$. The one in my signature costed me about that, and you certainly can not go wrong betting for AM3 architecture.
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
AMD Phenom II X4 B50 OC'd @3.8 Ghz
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB DDR5 OC'd @ 855/1310 Mhz
4 GB RAM DDR3@1333 Mhz
Except that, if you read the whole thread, he's going to replace the computer entirely in about four months, and keep it only as a secondary computer. Sandy Bridge won't drop into Socket AM3, and even if you want to stay with AMD, neither will Bulldozer.