- Sep 25, 2003
- 2,541
- 1
- 76
Hello all,
I need a bit of advice in determining what exactly I should do with my rig. I have the following system:
E8500 @ 3.4 ghz under an Arctic Cooler Pro 7
ASUS Rampage Formula
XFX Radeon 4890 stock cooler and speed
4 Gigs DDR2 Corsair RAM
WD Caviar Black 640 gig HDD
Silverstone Strider 700w PSU
I play games at 1900x1200.
I would say, overall, I find my system satisfactory. There are occasional hiccups when I push things, but generally it is fine for surfing, e-mail, video stuff, etc.
I also have an occasional issue while playing WoW (screen hiccups - I actually have to turn settings down to get the game to run smooth) and some other games, like TF2, COD:WaW, and especially, Empire: Total War.
Essentially, I want my rig to run those games at or near max and not struggle with the more than "occasional" hiccup during gaming, which I just find frustrating as hell. My options are:
1. Upgrade the bottleneck CPU and RAM without replacing the Motherboard (e.g., get a Q9550 or 9650 and some new RAM)
2. Go all in for an i7 setup and essentially be left with an arbitrary machine (not the worst thing in the world).
What I'm really concerned about is all these waves I'm hearing about Intel phasing out the i7/1366. I don't want to be left with a dead socket when I get the upgrade itch again in like a year. Is it worth it to go i7, or should I just stick with the high-end Quad CPU? Is the i7 a dying platform? I know they're going i5, but from what I saw that chip was inferior, no?
Please advise.
I need a bit of advice in determining what exactly I should do with my rig. I have the following system:
E8500 @ 3.4 ghz under an Arctic Cooler Pro 7
ASUS Rampage Formula
XFX Radeon 4890 stock cooler and speed
4 Gigs DDR2 Corsair RAM
WD Caviar Black 640 gig HDD
Silverstone Strider 700w PSU
I play games at 1900x1200.
I would say, overall, I find my system satisfactory. There are occasional hiccups when I push things, but generally it is fine for surfing, e-mail, video stuff, etc.
I also have an occasional issue while playing WoW (screen hiccups - I actually have to turn settings down to get the game to run smooth) and some other games, like TF2, COD:WaW, and especially, Empire: Total War.
Essentially, I want my rig to run those games at or near max and not struggle with the more than "occasional" hiccup during gaming, which I just find frustrating as hell. My options are:
1. Upgrade the bottleneck CPU and RAM without replacing the Motherboard (e.g., get a Q9550 or 9650 and some new RAM)
2. Go all in for an i7 setup and essentially be left with an arbitrary machine (not the worst thing in the world).
What I'm really concerned about is all these waves I'm hearing about Intel phasing out the i7/1366. I don't want to be left with a dead socket when I get the upgrade itch again in like a year. Is it worth it to go i7, or should I just stick with the high-end Quad CPU? Is the i7 a dying platform? I know they're going i5, but from what I saw that chip was inferior, no?
Please advise.