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Help me figure out what needs upgrading please

Hi everyone. I had made a gaming PC rig a long time ago from custom parts awhile ago (years). It was awesome, but now it seems to be very lacking for just 'decent' games.. like Planetside 2, natural selection 2, etc.

Can you help point out if my graphics cards or processor need to upgrade? Should I just dump it all and get a new rig? Or is it just an 'insufficient ram' issue?

Operating System: Windows Vista™ Ultimate (6.0, Build 6002)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 4094MB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+ <-- running SLI (2 of them)
5 answers Last reply Best Answer
More about figure upgrading
  1. cpu is a little weak for heavy multiplayer depending on the game, the 9800GTX's are now very old, http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/521?vs=647 this is a 8800GT vs a 660Ti (mid level gaming card, I'd take this with a pinch of salt but it's indicative, the newer cards will be significantly faster, and you'll probably only need one.

    Try a GPU upgrade first and see what happens.
  2. Best answer
    In my opinion ... time for a new PC.

    You're running a very old socket CPU at a fairly low speed. Additionally I would bet your RAM is DDR2 ... probably 800. Your graphics cards are pretty dated as well.

    There just isn't an upgrade path that doesn't require upgrading multiple parts at the same time, ie CPU upgrade requires mobo and RAM upgrade. I would start from scratch and start building a new PC.
  3. Spaniard United said:
    In my opinion ... time for a new PC.

    You're running a very old socket CPU at a fairly low speed. Additionally I would bet your RAM is DDR2 ... probably 800. Your graphics cards are pretty dated as well.

    There just isn't an upgrade path that doesn't require upgrading multiple parts at the same time, ie CPU upgrade requires mobo and RAM upgrade. I would start from scratch and start building a new PC.


    however buying a new gpu is a must-do, so therefore buy it first and see what happens, if it is still good enough then he's in luck, if not then he'll have to spend to upgrade the lot.

    With regards to his ram, even if it is ddr3 (which it could be), it'd be 1.65v or higher, and not suitable for latest processors.
  4. Thanks guys --- I figured at much but was hoping...
  5. I went from Q9550 to I5-3570k, much much faster, smoother, especially on cpu intensive apps.
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