I am looking for the most cost effective upgrade

[jdw1032]

Hello,
My pc is getting some age on it, and I want to upgrade it some for better gaming performance, specifically SWTOR.
Here are my current specs:

Win 7 64bit
Asus P5NE-SLI mobo
C2Duo E6750 2.66
2 gb ddr2 800mhz
Radeon HD 4850 1gb
600w psu

Right now I am looking at getting a hd 6870, and 2 or 4 more gb of ram. Should this be a decent perfomance boost, or do I just need to find the money to get a new mobo so I can get an i3 or i5 and ddr3 ram? If I upgrade mobo, cpu, gpu and ram its gonna be around $400, but I'd prefer to stay in the $200 range. Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

[joedastudd]

Short term instant upgrade would be a third party multi-socket (so you can use it on a new build) heatsink, 2 or 4 gb ram (which ever works out cheapest per 1gb) and 6870 or better.

OC'ing the C2D (3+ghz shouldn't be hard).

 

[Gothams Finest]

Personally I would upgrade to sandy bridge and get a 2500k, 4GB ddr3 memory and a 560Ti/6870 minimum, but of course thats going to cost more than $400.

It all depends on what your willing to spend.

You need to decide what your budget is.

There is a big difference between what $200 will get you and what $400 will get you.

 

[Flying-Q]

Hello,
My pc is getting some age on it, and I want to upgrade it some for better gaming performance, specifically SWTOR.
Here are my current specs:

Win 7 64bit
Asus P5NE-SLI mobo
C2Duo E6750 2.66
2 gb ddr2 800mhz
Radeon HD 4850 1gb
600w psu

Right now I am looking at getting a hd 6870, and 2 or 4 more gb of ram. Should this be a decent perfomance boost, or do I just need to find the money to get a new mobo so I can get an i3 or i5 and ddr3 ram? If I upgrade mobo, cpu, gpu and ram its gonna be around $400, but I'd prefer to stay in the $200 range. Thanks for any advice in advance.

Definitely get more memory, at least 4GB. My machine has 8GB DDR2 (4x2GB) and runs W7/64. With a game running on the primary monitor and a few memory hungry utilities on the second monitor the usage is in the 4-6GB range. I hardly ever see the virtual touched. Match the speed of your existing memory unless you are going full replace with 2x4GB sticks. Keeping all running utilities in main memory and not touching virtual will show a really great boost.

I have just installed an HD6870 and I am thoroughly pleased with the improvement but my old card (nVidia 9500GT) was very much less capable than your HD4850. You will certainly see improvement from the card upgrade alone but not as significant as with the memory boost. What you will get on the gfx card is native blu-ray decode and better handling of AA (show off your game's prettiness). Remember the 6870 is not a generational 5870, but more like a 5850. Check out Tom's 'Best Graphics Card for the Money' especially the chart at the end.

Enjoy the boost.

Q

 

[joedastudd]

My recommendation was on the basis you have about $200 free available now, but plan on a rebuild.

 

[jdw1032]

Yea I looked at overclocking my cpu, but my temps were already kinda high, so I was scared to try it since I've never done it before. What is that multi socket heatsink you are talking about, that sounds like a good option for future upgrades.

 

[joedastudd]

Pretty much any heatsink which has mounting options for other sockets. Really you want something with support for 775 and 1155. Most good quality heatsinks should offer this.

 

[Gothams Finest]

Yea I looked at overclocking my cpu, but my temps were already kinda high, so I was scared to try it since I've never done it before. What is that multi socket heatsink you are talking about, that sounds like a good option for future upgrades.

What is your budget? $200 or $400? You mentioned both in your original post.

 

[jdw1032]

Probably gonna have to stay around $250 for the time being. BUT if stuff I am getting for $250 is not gonna be sufficient, I MIGHT do more since newegg has the preferred account where u can spend $500 and pay over 12 months with no interest, so thats still an option. It sucks cuz I want to go ahead and get it setup to last a while, but I don't have a lot of extra money.

Another question while I'm here. My original plan was to upgrade the mobo, cpu, gpu, ram, and get Win 7 (already did that part a couple weeks ago), and use my existing case, psu, and hard drive. I am pretty sure my HD is a SATA 3.0 gb/s, will this cause problems with everything else being new? Like will it be a bottleneck with the slower speed and kill some of my performance?

 

[jdw1032]

Best answer selected by jdw1032.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey