What should I upgrade first for a performance boost?

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iolas

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May 16, 2010
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I built my gaming PC about 3 years ago exactly. It has had no changes, and I feel it needs an upgrade. It just has a general sluggishness to it now. Maybe a fresh install would help also? I'm not sure, it's still using the Win7 install from 3 years ago.

Here are some of the specs...

CPU: Phenom II x4 BE 955
Memory: G.Skill ripjaws 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 PC 103666

Graphics: XFX 5850
HDD: 1 TB Samsung f3 spinpoint

I am thinking in order of what I need is...(I can't afford all at once):
1. 8GB memory(any suggestions?)
2. SSD drive
3. Graphics card
 
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mattius92

mattius92

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If your gaming frame rates are fine, I say upgrade to faster memory DDR3-1600 or 1866 and add a SSD. That combo will help speed up your PC.

Video card is little dated but for overall sluggishness, update your RAM and add a SSD
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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Dec 17, 2012
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the deneb can't work with faster then 1600 ram... and frankly most denebs have issues with 1600 as they don't support it natively. I have 1600 ddr3 ram with my deneb, and i've underclocked it down to like 1466~ ish to stabalize my system, as at 1600 my system isn't particularly stable.
 
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mattius92

mattius92

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Huhh... thats weird, well with that said, a Solid State Drive and a fresh install of windows 7 will do wonders.
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

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Dec 17, 2012
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yeah the SSD will spoil you, once you have one you'll never want to work on a pc without one again... and part of the issue with the Deneb and ddr3 1600+ memory speeds is the HT/CPU-NB design. I know some people can get them to work with ram at that speed or faster, but it seems overclocks and system stability as a whole takes a huge hit from ram at those speeds or higher. I saw that first hand with mine.



Well, i would suggest you find a good peice of ram with low voltage numbers. any ram that runs natively at 1.6 volts is likely factory overclocked... any ram that runs natively lower then 1.5volts is likely designed for whatever speed the box says it runs at. Don't worry too much about heatspreaders... they're mostly for show, unless you've seriously overclocking and your pc sucks at airflow you don't really need to worry too much (and you can get 3rd party heat speaders for like $10 that look imho much better then the junk these companies like to stick on their ram)

don't worry too much about the ram's clock speed, if you get 1600 speed ram you can underclock it if you need to (if your system gets unstable like mine did). i'd get something with 1.5v or lower at about 1600 clock speed (technically the deneb can run ram at that speed as can your mb) and a 9 or lower CAS latency.

if you want top of the line ram, Mushkin and Samsung make some of the best out there, but in the end the difference from high end and low end ram is almost indistinguishable so i wouldn't worry too much what the name says...

 
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iolas

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Do the heat spreaders come off? I was looking at these...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345

and they seem huge. My heatsink actually sits over two slots of memory at the moment, covering one stick.
 
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