Advice on intel system upgrade

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Grendale

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Jan 15, 2017
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Good day


I have an older PC that I'd like to upgrade so that my kids and wife can play some of the more recent games. Not on ultra high specs or anything, I'd like to keep the cost to something reasonable, like around 500 dollars.


Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Deluxe (uses the LGA775 socket for intel CPU's)

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6870

PSU: Coolermaster 600watt

RAM: 8 GB

OS: Windows Vista 64bitt


This PC is hooked up to our 40 inch TV so the resolution in games doesn't go below 1024x 768. With that in mind I'm not sure if I should upgrade the GPU or the CPU. With the older mother board socket (LGA775) the CPU options for something better is rather limited. I don't know if I can do any overclocking on the CPU and just compensate with a cooling system (I'd have to learn how to overclock) or if I'm just out of luck and need to upgrade everything, starting with the Motherboard. I guess what I'm asking is what would make the bigger difference (in your opinion) upgrading the CPU or just sticking in a better GPU with a more powerful power supply (if required).

I am definitely going to upgrade the OS (was thinking of Windows 7 64 bit) and get an internal SSD for the OS to run off of.
 
Solution
Mightyena
My advice would probably be to find a cheap Core 2 Quad CPU and overclock it - my PC currently has a Xeon E5450 (basically a Q9650) overclocked to 3.6GHz, and a GTX 570, and it will run games quite happily at 1080p. The 6870 should be enough for playing modern games at low-medium at 1080p - I'd consider possibly seeing if you could find a used GTX 670/680 or a Radeon 7900 series card (7950 or 7970), as those will perform great and can sometimes be had very cheaply, depending on how much you're willing to spend. What games are you planning to run?

If you overclock, have a read of this Core 2 overclocking guide

Also it might be cheaper to find a used LGA771 Xeon processor, and performing the Xeon mod to run it in your 775...
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Rahul_Ignited

Rahul_Ignited

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Apr 17, 2016
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Upgrading the CPU would require you to buy new motherboard and RAM as well. That Core 2 Duo is very old but performs fair. You can get something like a GTX 750ti, GTX 1050ti or RX 470.

You can even get cards such as RX 480 or GTX 1060 but your CPU might bottleneck those
 
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Mightyena

Mightyena

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Oct 21, 2014
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My advice would probably be to find a cheap Core 2 Quad CPU and overclock it - my PC currently has a Xeon E5450 (basically a Q9650) overclocked to 3.6GHz, and a GTX 570, and it will run games quite happily at 1080p. The 6870 should be enough for playing modern games at low-medium at 1080p - I'd consider possibly seeing if you could find a used GTX 670/680 or a Radeon 7900 series card (7950 or 7970), as those will perform great and can sometimes be had very cheaply, depending on how much you're willing to spend. What games are you planning to run?

If you overclock, have a read of this Core 2 overclocking guide

Also it might be cheaper to find a used LGA771 Xeon processor, and performing the Xeon mod to run it in your 775 board, like what I have done. The Xeons are generally much cheaper than their C2Q equivalents - my E5450 was around £25, whereas a Q9650 would have set me back £40-60. Your bioard should be compatible, as others here have gotten it to work with 771 Xeons

Hope this helps a little
 
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Wolfshadw

Wolfshadw

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Question from Grendale : "Advice on intel system upgrade"





 
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