Thinking of re-building

[Dorkenstein]

Here is my system

E8600
4x2 gb G.Skill DDR2-800
Samsung Spinpoint 750gb F1
Pioneer DVR-115 dvd drive
Biostar Tpower I45 motherboard
on-board sound
gtx 260 (216)



I was wondering if some of you could tell me which part of my system would benefit the most from an upgrade. I realize what I already have is not bad by any means, but I was interested in perfecting this system.

Would I benefit from DDR3 in games? I see more and more people buying it and displaying it in their sigs but the cost makes me bite my fist every time I see it. Would a newer chipset motherboard like X48 be beneficial since I am planning on overclocking? If DDR2-800 is behind the curve, what is a good step up? Thanks.

 

[krnmastersgt]

DDR3 = People buy it because they need to, i7 doesn't work with DDR2 unfortunately, hence the reason a total i7 system is much more costly than a Core2, the cpu's aren't that far apart in price.

CPU: Doesn't get any better for dualies.
RAM: Not really much variation in memory, maybe tighten timings to their limit?
Hard drive: 7200 rpm hard drive, maybe upgrade to a Velociraptor for a faster hard drive? Maybe an SSD drive for lightning fast load times with games, and improved latencies over your internet connection if you load your connection drivers on the ssd.
Dvd drive: Doesn't affect performance.
Motherboard: Doesn't really affect performance assuming it's stable.
Dound: If you're satisfied with the audio quality, no reason to upgrade it.
Video card: One of the best cards out there, maybe put the cash for a GTX295 down if you really feel the 260 isn't giving you enough performance? If you're gaming at 1920x1200 though, there won't be much, if any, difference between a 260 core 216 and a 295.

Not much to really upgrade on your system, just the harddrive and maybe the video card depending on your resolution for gameplay.

 

[Dorkenstein]

I am aiming for a 24" lcd soon also, so I want to play at about that resolution. Is it common to game at higher than 19x12 on a 24" monitor?

 

[krnmastersgt]

Well if you're gaming at 1920x1200, your GTX260 should be more than enough horsepower for all your games. So that only really leaves the hard drive as a viable upgrade option.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Hmm, the gtx260 really can do that? I tried Clear Sky in Directx 10 mode with most, but not all bells and whistles enabled and my video card was struggling to keep up.

 

[krnmastersgt]

I suppose with Dx10 and all of the settings turned up, even a 4870/gtx260 would have a bit of a hard time. But then you can't really justify the upgrades to gtx295/4870x2 since you're likely to run into games that they don't scale well in, unless you plan on buying both which would be a bit absurd just to play games if you ask me.

 

[videogames101]

HDD, try a raptor.