Budget upgrade options?

[JDrew]

Hi everyone,

My current setup is about 3 years old (with some upgrades along the way) and I am looking to see if there is a good upgrade path for my purposes. I tend to do a major overhaul/new system every 3 or 4 years and upgrade at the mid-point (usually the video card). Anyhow, current specs:

Q9550 (currently at stock, but can get to 3.4ghz easily) w/ Coolermaster Hyper 212+
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R
4GB (2X2) Corsair XMS2 DDR2-PC6400 800mhz
80GB Intel 320 series SSD (for OS and main programs)
640GB WD Black (for storage and games)
GTX 570 Twin Frozr II
Corsair HX650W power supply

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Primary system-intensive use is gaming. Most of my games are FPS/RPG; on my to-do list are Skyrim, Crysis 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Rage, etc...

That being said, if I upgrade my system I'll probably first end up playing Rise of the Triad and Gothic 1 again...that's the way it works

As far as upgrades go - I am not into specific numbers as far as benchmarks - it's all about smooth gaming and responsive day-to-day tasks.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

About $500 CDN before shipping/taxes

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

Canada, (NCIX, Newegg...)

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

I'm used to Intel as far as the CPU goes, but I am flexible for any part suggestions.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

I assume the video card and PSU are still fine, so I'll keep those. I would like to reuse as much as I can. Note - case is the Coolermaster HAF922; it's in good shape so I would keep that as well.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Probably keep at stock; want to keep things cool but am open to overclocking if it is sufficiently idiot-proof

8. What resolution will you be using?

1920x1200

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Within the next few weeks

Thanks for your help!

 

[DSF]

Wow Rise of the Triad, there's a blast from the past I haven't heard mentioned in ages.

So is your system currently having trouble running anything you want to play? If not, your machine is really no slouch. The CPU is getting a little dated, but not so bad that I'd rush to upgrade it if it's handling things OK.

If it's not working out the way you want, it looks like CPU/RAM/Mobo is the upgrade to go for, and you should be able to fit something like a Z77/3570K with RAM into a $500 budget with room to spare. Then you can reuse your 212+.

The video card is close enough to current that I can't see a compelling reason to upgrade it on your budget.

Edit: Word to the wise: changing out the core of the system is likely going to prompt an OS reactivation. If you have a retail copy that shouldn't be a big deal, but if you bought an OEM copy of Windows you may need to budget for a new OS as well.

 

[JDrew]

Thanks for the feedback. The system still seems to be holding out fine on a day-to-day basis, but since I have no point of comparison I am wondering if I am losing out on reasonable performance I could be getting (like when I first got my SSD I did not think that much about my startup/loading times, and then when I upgraded I really noticed it when using other machines).

I also wonder whether I would see sufficient benefit in an upgrade given that my MB does not have some of the newer features (ie only has SATAII, and I wonder how much that noticeably affects the performance I could be getting on a newer SSD, etc...)

Also, thanks for the reminder about Windows...my copy is an OEM so I would need to repurchase that as well if I swap out the MB...

 

[riversend]

Agree with DSF. Unless there is some noticeable downside to what you are currently using then you should be ok. In your case you can probably just wait for Haswell and then move the GPU over at the time. I'm still running a Corsair HX520 from 2006 on a i3570k system with no issues. CPU and GPU power usage is trending down so you should be fine for some time to come.

 

[daveybrat]

I really can't see any pressing need for you to do a big upgrade right now. Your system should be fine till next year when Haswell or Piledriver come out.

Only thing i see sticking out is that 4GB of ram. If you want smoother performance, then double that to 8GB.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16820145184

$64 shipped to you for the same ram you have seems like a nice cheap upgrade for now.