- Jun 24, 2004
- 15,628
- 5
- 81
My current machine has an Athlon X2 4800+ (overclocked to 3 GHz) and a Radeon 3850 512MB. Looking to upgrade in the next couple months.
First of all to answer the stickied questions:
1. Used for gaming and video encoding. Currently my most demanding game is Company Of Heroes, which is pretty demanding. I have to dial back the settings a fair amount even in single player and even more in multiplayer. I'm also interested in getting a few more PC games this year and would like to be able to run new ones as they come out. As for video encoding, I recently got a new car stereo that has both audio and video playback, but converting some of my videos to a compatible format takes a long, long time. Obviously my CPU is the bottleneck there.
2. Budget is flexible up to about $500. I'm getting a decent tax return. I'm also thinking of doing a staggered upgrade - mobo/CPU and graphics at two different times.
3. I'm in the USA.
4. No significant brand loyalties. I sort of prefer AMD and ATI over Intel and nVidia, but only enough to choose one over the other if all other factors are equal. Performance/price is more important.
5. Current parts to be reused:
- Lian-Li PC-A05B case
- Corsair VX550W PSU
- 500 GB SATA hard drive (currently a data drive)
- Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU cooler
There are a few other parts that I am considering upgrading but I haven't decided:
- 250 GB SATA hard drive (currently a boot drive; considering changing it out for a 640GB-1TB as a new boot drive)
- 4x1GB Corsair DDR2-800 RAM, CL5 (might want to replace with 2x2GB of CL4, not sure if it's worth it)
- 16x IDE DVD burner (considering a 22x SATA burner)
6. I have read a lot of these "recommend me a system" threads so I have a pretty good idea of what I want, but I had a few questions on specifics.
7. I do plan to overclock.
8. I would like to build it starting fairly soon, maybe in two or three weeks. I'm also considering a staggered built to spread out the cost - get the mobo/CPU first, then upgrade the GPU later (since I think my current CPU is more behind than my GPU).
So what I was thinking was a Phenom II X3 720 combined with that Biostar 790GX. The combo is around $250 and seems like great performance/price. On the Intel side of things, it would be a little more expensive to get an E8400 and decent mobo. I personally like the idea of more than two cores and I'd probably like the X4, but that's significantly more than the X3 and the black edition is even more on top of that. Of course the other option is the E5200 which I can overclock for now and later upgrade the CPU to a C2Q, but I'm not sure the E5200 is enough of an upgrade over an X2 to warrant the cost.
As for RAM, I have four 1 GB CL5 modules. Not sure if it would help at all to upgrade to just two modules and use CL4 or if I should just stick with what I have. I could find a buyer for my old RAM though, pretty easily.
Then there's the video card. The 3850 I currently have isn't terrible, but it could be a lot better. I've been looking at vid cards for a while now and it seems the best deals are the Radeon 4830 (not hugely better than the 3850 though), Radeon 4870, Radeon 4850X2, and GTX 260. At the moment, video card prices seem to be in flux, so I'm thinking of doing the video upgrade later in a staggered upgrade once things have settled down a bit. Once that's done, though, I had two questions:
- Is the 4870 512 MB, which is significantly cheaper than the 1 GB version, really that much worse? I'd be gaming at 1680x1050. Maybe by the time the video card situation sorts itself out, the 1 GB will not be so much more than the 512 MB.
- Does the 4850X2 with 1 GB of VRAM actually have 1 GB in crossfire mode, making it equivalent to having two 1 GB 4850s in CF? Or does that refer to the total VRAM and running it in CF mode would mean that there is only 512 MB of available VRAM? Am I correct in assuming that X2 cards work by allowing you to use them either as two distinct cards or in tandem?
Finally, I'm not really interested in SLI/CF. If there's a board that has it for not much more, fine, but all I'm really interested in from a motherboard is good overclock ability. CF is a secondary feature.
Since this is a long post, cliffs:
- X3 720 or E8400 for gaming + video encoding if I'm overclocking?
- 512 MB VRAM enough for 1680x1050?
- Upgrading from CL5 to CL4 worth it if net cost is low?
First of all to answer the stickied questions:
1. Used for gaming and video encoding. Currently my most demanding game is Company Of Heroes, which is pretty demanding. I have to dial back the settings a fair amount even in single player and even more in multiplayer. I'm also interested in getting a few more PC games this year and would like to be able to run new ones as they come out. As for video encoding, I recently got a new car stereo that has both audio and video playback, but converting some of my videos to a compatible format takes a long, long time. Obviously my CPU is the bottleneck there.
2. Budget is flexible up to about $500. I'm getting a decent tax return. I'm also thinking of doing a staggered upgrade - mobo/CPU and graphics at two different times.
3. I'm in the USA.
4. No significant brand loyalties. I sort of prefer AMD and ATI over Intel and nVidia, but only enough to choose one over the other if all other factors are equal. Performance/price is more important.
5. Current parts to be reused:
- Lian-Li PC-A05B case
- Corsair VX550W PSU
- 500 GB SATA hard drive (currently a data drive)
- Xigmatek HDT-S1283 CPU cooler
There are a few other parts that I am considering upgrading but I haven't decided:
- 250 GB SATA hard drive (currently a boot drive; considering changing it out for a 640GB-1TB as a new boot drive)
- 4x1GB Corsair DDR2-800 RAM, CL5 (might want to replace with 2x2GB of CL4, not sure if it's worth it)
- 16x IDE DVD burner (considering a 22x SATA burner)
6. I have read a lot of these "recommend me a system" threads so I have a pretty good idea of what I want, but I had a few questions on specifics.
7. I do plan to overclock.
8. I would like to build it starting fairly soon, maybe in two or three weeks. I'm also considering a staggered built to spread out the cost - get the mobo/CPU first, then upgrade the GPU later (since I think my current CPU is more behind than my GPU).
So what I was thinking was a Phenom II X3 720 combined with that Biostar 790GX. The combo is around $250 and seems like great performance/price. On the Intel side of things, it would be a little more expensive to get an E8400 and decent mobo. I personally like the idea of more than two cores and I'd probably like the X4, but that's significantly more than the X3 and the black edition is even more on top of that. Of course the other option is the E5200 which I can overclock for now and later upgrade the CPU to a C2Q, but I'm not sure the E5200 is enough of an upgrade over an X2 to warrant the cost.
As for RAM, I have four 1 GB CL5 modules. Not sure if it would help at all to upgrade to just two modules and use CL4 or if I should just stick with what I have. I could find a buyer for my old RAM though, pretty easily.
Then there's the video card. The 3850 I currently have isn't terrible, but it could be a lot better. I've been looking at vid cards for a while now and it seems the best deals are the Radeon 4830 (not hugely better than the 3850 though), Radeon 4870, Radeon 4850X2, and GTX 260. At the moment, video card prices seem to be in flux, so I'm thinking of doing the video upgrade later in a staggered upgrade once things have settled down a bit. Once that's done, though, I had two questions:
- Is the 4870 512 MB, which is significantly cheaper than the 1 GB version, really that much worse? I'd be gaming at 1680x1050. Maybe by the time the video card situation sorts itself out, the 1 GB will not be so much more than the 512 MB.
- Does the 4850X2 with 1 GB of VRAM actually have 1 GB in crossfire mode, making it equivalent to having two 1 GB 4850s in CF? Or does that refer to the total VRAM and running it in CF mode would mean that there is only 512 MB of available VRAM? Am I correct in assuming that X2 cards work by allowing you to use them either as two distinct cards or in tandem?
Finally, I'm not really interested in SLI/CF. If there's a board that has it for not much more, fine, but all I'm really interested in from a motherboard is good overclock ability. CF is a secondary feature.
Since this is a long post, cliffs:
- X3 720 or E8400 for gaming + video encoding if I'm overclocking?
- 512 MB VRAM enough for 1680x1050?
- Upgrading from CL5 to CL4 worth it if net cost is low?
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