Minimially invasive upgrade

[ahenkel]

My cousin emailed me earlier asking about upgrades to his current desktop. I'm wondering where I should upgrade. He said he has a budget of 400 dollars.
I'd like to avoid any motherboard swaps and anything else that might require a reinstall of windows.

Corsair 500watt PSU
biostar am3 870 Motherboard (it will SLI)
Amd phenom II x4 840
4gb ddr3 pc1333
galaxy gtx460 768mb
1tb hard drive

Specifically he asked about getting better graphics and making it a bit faster.

 

[Puppies04]

Buy a faster GPU, buy an SSD, tell him to suck it up and reinstall windows to the SSD I can pretty much guarantee the reason he wants to make it "faster" is because he has snarled the windows installation up with 4 billion tons of crap over the last few years.

While you are at it speak to him about how he backs up his data, he sounds like the sort of person wo has all his sentimental pictures/videos/useful files on the 1TB HDD just waiting for it to bite the bullet.

 

[ahenkel]

Yea the problem is I'm the one that's going to have to "suck it up" and do the work and while I agree with the SSD idea he's not the kind of person that's going to remember to manage the smaller amount of space.

 

[Puppies04]

If he can't remember that small programs go on C: and games and files go on E: then I don't think he deserves your help.

 

[Ken g6]

Yea the problem is I'm the one that's going to have to "suck it up" and do the work

I know the feeling, which is why I'm planning to get my Mom a small SSD cache for mother's day. For a little more you can get an even better one.

What's his monitor resolution, what games is he playing, and have you OCed his CPU?

For software, see also....

 

[ahenkel]

resolution is at most 1920x1080. He plays a lot of RTS and FPS games. His most taxing game is probably BF3.

I have not overclocked and I might a little bit. I could also upgrade the memory too.

I guess at this point my first thing to tackle is what video card to get.

 

[Ken g6]

For a really fast, no-fuss video card, I suppose I'd go with this XFX 7850 OC@975, with a lifetime warranty. Or you could wait and see what nVIDIA comes up with; but I expect that it will take 2-3 months before they have something new in this price range.

 

[ahenkel]

I was eyeballing a 7850 or a 560ti 448 edition. My concern is whether or not his phenom II x4 would be a bottleneck

 

[richaron]

I was eyeballing a 7850 or a 560ti 448 edition. My concern is whether or not his phenom II x4 would be a bottleneck

That processor should be fine if you're keeping the motherboard. It mightn't have quite the performance, but it's probly not worth spending the money on any other AM3 chip. It's also lower power, so maybe $30 on a heatsink/fan & an overclock would bring out the best of it.

I would also recommend a small SSD if you can squeeze it in the budget, makes a world of difference.

 

[mfenn]

A Phenom II X4 840 is really an Athlon II X4 because it has no L3 cache (the rarer 840T does have it). Dunno what AMD was thinking with that one.

While a GPU upgrade is probably necessary and will help with enabling higher detail settings in BF3, your minimum frame rates aren't going to really improve without upgrading the CPU.

 

[ahenkel]

yep the cpu is a big should we question. Do I have him dump more money into a dying platform? I found an x6 1045 for 102 after rebate on tiger direct. Then I figure for a gpu we'll go with the 7850.

I can get my hands on a phenom II x4 830 from the computer I built for my brother he moved and went with a laptop. So I'll go that route for the cpu, up the memory to 8gb and get a 7850.

 

[richaron]

yep the cpu is a big should we question. Do I have him dump more money into a dying platform? I found an x6 1045 for 102 after rebate on tiger direct. Then I figure for a gpu we'll go with the 7850.

Imho whether to spend ~$100 on an AM3 CPU isn't a hard question to answer. If you look up the specs of a 1045t you'll see it's base frequency is 500Mhz slower, & turbo up to the same. More cores don't help in games. It should be an upgrade (if it manages to maintain turbo), but barely noticeable especially if you take give the 840 a safe 10% overclock.

It will be more of an "upgrade" with an small ssd reading 5 times as fast as his hdd. & for defs a new gpu.

This gives him a nice upgrade, but also good stuff to use when he can save another ~$200 for much better cpu/mobo/ram later on.

Edit: ..or using a more quantitative comparison of CPU options, perhaps you can be convinced to keep the chip (Athlon 2 645 is slower than yours. Phenom 2 1055T is faster than 1045T).

Edit2: an 830 is not an upgrade for an 840. & 4gb ram is mega cheap if you feel it's needed..

 

[ahenkel]

the only reason I'd go with a 830 swap is the 830 has 6mb of l3 cache that the 840 doesn't

 

[mfenn]

yep the cpu is a big should we question. Do I have him dump more money into a dying platform? I found an x6 1045 for 102 after rebate on tiger direct. Then I figure for a gpu we'll go with the 7850.

I can get my hands on a phenom II x4 830 from the computer I built for my brother he moved and went with a laptop. So I'll go that route for the cpu, up the memory to 8gb and get a 7850.

Honestly, I wouldn't dump any money into the AM3 platform, certainly not $100. If you can get a better CPU for free that's all well and good, but $100 gets you almost halfway to a Sandy Bridge quad.

 

[richaron]

the only reason I'd go with a 830 swap is the 830 has 6mb of l3 cache that the 840 doesn't

Yes, I realise why you think it might be better. But it is a sidegrade.