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Upgrades for an Aging Gaming Rig.

L

letired

Member
Hi guys,

I've been out of the computer building realm for quite some time now, recently came into some cash though and figured I'd start looking at upgrades. I don't know what will give me the biggest boost in performance. I mostly play Warcraft 3 and DOTA, but I've been playing some more demanding games lately (Crysis demo, UT3 Demo) and was looking for suggestions. And I heard about the 9600GT card and it got me wondering...

Also to note, my case/PSU are quite crappy right now, are these things worth upgrading, even though they may not boost performance in-game?


I am generally comfortable with overclocking, though I haven't done so in quite some time.

I have $300 (USA) right now, but I will have more money as time goes on to continue upgrading.

Specs of the current rig are following.

Thanks!

Spencer

EDIT: I'm thinking of waiting for an e8400. I get paid every 2 weeks and have some disposable income right now, should have another $200 in a week, so I might as well blow like $500. I just bought a PSU recommended in the PSU forums, was a great deal especially with the $10 Google checkout discount.

Corsair VX 550W ATX - $55 shipped AR. What a deal!
http://www.buy.com/prod/corsai...loc/101/205852646.html
That's almost HALF the price of the one on Newegg which is $85+SHIP AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817139004

I love this case:
Antec 900 Black
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811129021
(What can I say, I'm a sucker for blue lights.)

Anyone have experience with this case? I may just suck it up, give my old case a good thorough cleaning and save the Antec for a luxury purchase...though my mobo didn't ever mount quite right in it...




Operating System - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (SP2)

CPU Type - AMD Athlon 64, (2200 MHz) 3500+ [SOCKET 939] NEWCASTLE
Motherboard Name - MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (MS-7125)
Motherboard Chipset - nVIDIA nForce4 Ultra, AMD Hammer
System Memory - 1 Gb (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)OCZ OCZ4001024PDC-K@ 200 MHz 2.5-3-3-7


Display
Video Adapter - NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT (256 MB)

Multimedia
Audio Adapter Creative SB0090 Audigy Player Sound Card

Storage
Disk Drive SAMSUNG (160 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Disk Drive WDC (74 GB, IDE)


 
Snag an Intel E2*** series for 60-80, a P35 chipset mobo for 60-90 (Abit IP35-E, Gigabyte P35-DS3L), and 2GB memory for 40 AR. I bought all these components for a little over 200 after shipping and tax. CPU from B&M Microcenter, RAM from eWiz, mobo from Newegg.

Wait a few more months and get a new video card then, ask for recommendations then. Drop around $200 for this.

Upgrade the HD if you feel like you don't have enough room; 500GB for around $100.
 
There is No point to pour money into a dead platform.

Abit IP-35-E, $60 after rebate - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...7031&Tpk=ABIT%2bIP35-E

Intel E2180, $80 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819116052

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2, $35 after rebate - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820146565


The Mobo has onboard Giga Network card.

Optionally as is with just aising the FSB this combo usually would OCed to 2.8 - 3.2 GHz.

$175 + Ship, with the potential for easy Upgrade to a Mean Gaming/Crunching computer if so desired.

The rest of the money you can put toward a Video Card, or PSU (if needed).


 
Start with a video card upgrade and a modest OC on that CPU. A 9600GT is likely your best bang for the buck upgrade; an 8800GT would also be a good choice. You can sell the 7800GT to help offset your costs.

Later you can upgrade the mobo, CPU, memory and hard drives. Again, you can sell the older parts to help off set the costs of the new upgrade.
 
Originally posted by: Rike
Start with a video card upgrade and a modest OC on that CPU. A 9600GT is likely your best bang for the buck upgrade; an 8800GT would also be a good choice. You can sell the 7800GT to help offset your costs.

Later you can upgrade the mobo, CPU, memory and hard drives. Again, you can sell the older parts to help off set the costs of the new upgrade.
Click to expand...


^^^^ What he said.

For $150-$200 a new vid card would perform easily at 2 times your 7800gt and can be moved in the future to your new rig ...

And a 10-20% OC would be quite possible and might get you a nice little bump in frame rates with that new video card.
 
I'd try to sell the current box in tact for a few hundred dollars and rebuild around the intel core duo and p35 set ups as mentioned by Jack and China above....

The rig is a bit dated in other areas that a new video card just isn't going to resolve. Getting more memory and a faster cpu will help with alot of tasks and yes even gaming.
 
Thanks for all the responses guys, I really appreciate the feedback. I like the idea of upgrading the CPU/Mobo/RAM - thank you very much for the links Jack. I've been searching around AnandTech for a CPU comparison article and couldn't really find any, do you guys know of any offhand?

Also - I seem to have misplaced my XP Home CD. Ugh. The fact that I may have to buy a new OS copy makes me want to puke, but I've heard buying Vista may make me want to puke even more. If I have to do this should I just go for XP Pro?
 
Originally posted by: jterrell
I'd try to sell the current box in tact for a few hundred dollars and rebuild around the intel core duo and p35 set ups as mentioned by Jack and China above....

The rig is a bit dated in other areas that a new video card just isn't going to resolve. Getting more memory and a faster cpu will help with alot of tasks and yes even gaming.
Click to expand...

What do you think a reasonable price would be? I'd remove one of the HDD for myself, but is $350-400 reasonable?

Also - if I do this I think I might as well jump on the bandwagon and grab an e8400, they sound really awesome and like a solid upgrade.
 
After talking with my roommate who is quite into building computers as well, (my first build was in 7th grade, his in 9th - now we're seniors in university 😀), I've decided to wait for the e8400. I think I'll start right now with either a new case/PSU or the 9600GT as was recommended by a few of you. My case/PSU really are horrible, I skimped badly on them and ended up with a huge tower that is honestly ALMOST as loud as a dustbuster while on, and a crappy generic PSU that comes with it, which I guess I thought was okay.

175$ for the new CPU/RAM/MOBO is quite tempting, but when I know I can get the latest and greatest (well, if such a thing really exists) for probably $200+RAM/MOBO it just makes me want to save a few more paychecks...

I hate to keep having this conversation with myself, but as I'm sure you all know, putting together a new rig, especially after such a long hiatus is quite exciting. (ha - I was shocked to see Intel on top of all the benchmarks!)
 
to me the case is a luxury
the PS may be a necessity, a poor PS can kill components which is what we call 'A Bad Thing'
also with a quieter PS you might find that the case is suddenly be quieter too 😉

out of curiosity, what PS do you have now? (model no and/or specs if you can get them easily)
 
I actually found a review of my case. Couldn't get inside to check out the power supply on my own one, but here's a picture of the same thing from the review.

http://www.overclockercafe.com...perAlien/pics/1025.jpg

http://www.overclockercafe.com...X-SuperAlien/index.htm
The review from forever ago...

EDIT: I found out I MUST update the power supply, I had forgotten I was jerry-rigging this one from the start by plugging in the cable to the mobo leaving the last two 4 pins uncovered. Long story from ancient tech...can't remember all the specifics now. 😀
 
Originally posted by: letired175$ for the new CPU/RAM/MOBO is quite tempting, but when I know I can get the latest and greatest (well, if such a thing really exists) for probably $200+RAM/MOBO it just makes me want to save a few more paychecks...
Click to expand...

Saving a few more paychecks is by far the wisest decision.
Doing incremental upgrades at $200-300 is worse than doing a single $600-800 upgrade. You might be able to save some cash from month to month due to price drops, but you're still gimping yourself in some areas. On top of that, doing incremental upgrades will make you feel like you got cheated since you won't get your "full" system for another month or two, where prices are likely to keep dropping.

You can build a banging system now for $800.
 
I think as far as the upgrades right now go - I've ordered the new PSU and will order Vista Home Premium OEM 64bit for $110.00 as I have most certainly lost the XP disks, and I haven't bought an OS since I got this one through a Gateway in like 2003 which I reconfigured and reconfigured until there were no original parts remaining...haha.

Leaves me with around $110 bucks. Maybe I'll snag that case...or just save it for the e8400.

 
nevermind, saw your edit, great PSU choice

and in case you had any doubts:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...wzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

It should be noted that I stopped testing on the first Apevia unit we had after Test #3 because the unit began to melt. I could not completely identify where the unit was melting from nor photograph it very well because the unit had to remain in tact in order to get an RMA as these units were purchased at retail. However, the second unit we received also began to melt during Test #3 but not nearly as badly and from what appeared to be a different location. This time the melting was obviously from some of the caulk used to secure the components on the PCB. It would seem that the temperature rating by Apevia may have been for a good reason, however it should be noted that even at these temperatures the manufacturer should not be using caulk or plastics that should melt. This unit is supposedly UL certified and if so I would be interested to find out how that happened.

. . .

With only a 50% load the unit violated the ATX specification for output voltages, and during the 75% test the units 12v rails dropped as low as 11.08v. Output voltages at this level would most likely result in unstable systems if the systems would boot at all.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, I already had to RMA one of these things as it was DOA inside my case. That was like 3 years ago though, this thing has run okay since then but occasionally whines and makes scary noises...and sometimes won't boot. I am really glad I'm getting the Corsair.
 
Seeing as e8400's are impossible to find right now, I'm curious as to just how much of a performance boost in games I will see with one compared to a cheapo e2200, especially if I'm going to be GPU limited by stuff like Crysis. How much of a difference do you guys think this e2200 (I plan to do a large OC on it) will have against my 3500+ Socket 939?

I don't game at huge resolutions though (1280x1024 is my LCD Resolution), so this may end up being an issue when I get a new GPU. I read the X2 vs e8400 post and that scared me, but it seems like for most things it will end up being the GPU no matter what. Do you guys think the e8400 warrants a $200 price tag for the chip alone in a gaming upgrade like this - if most of the time, even with a 8800GT - I will be GPU limited at 1280x1024? Or is this resolution low enough to cause CPU bottlenecking?

I would get one of those e2200 for $90 bucks, the abit IP-35-E for $60 and then just 2 kits of Crucial Memory for $70 for 4gb of RAM. = $220 grand total AR, just like suggested above.
Is the extra money worth it? Should I get a nicer Mobo that I wouldn't need to swap out if I decided to upgrade to e8400 later?

I already spent the previous money on a new PSU/Vista Home Premium x64/Antec 900 Case. This stuff would be for next week's paycheck, probably got around $250 expendable cash.
 
Intel spec comparison gives the only difference in e2200 vs e2180 as the clock speed, which of course I'll be messing with anyways, thanks for reminding me to save the $10. Stock cooler any good on these things, or do I have to invest in an aftermarket?

Do you own one of those Abit boards? I was thinking the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128059 as I have had great experiences with gigabyte in the past...but I'm totally open to trying new things.

I also will probably grab an e8400 when they drop back down to stable prices around $200 shipped. Think this mobo will pair decently with it? I never need any fancy stuff like RAID or SLI which is what most fancy mobos seem to offer as justification for the whopping price increases...

I think I might grab 8gb of that RAM...read an analysis on Tom's Hardware saying it was one of the best ways to take advantage of Vista x64...may be overkill but with it so cheap it's kinda hard to say no.
 
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