What should I do...?

[goodfellas]

I currently have an AMD 3800x2 System, 2GB Ram, Nvidia xfx 7900gt all on an ASUS A8V-XE mobo...



Had this for a Year now and I think it's time to upgrade... I was thinking about switching mobo's and getting an intel conroe cpu but I'm not entirely sure! What would you advice me to do as I'm not really sure about anything new and upcoming & price drops.


The decision to upgrade came from wanting the game Crysis, and apparently you need some beefed up specs to run the game decently.


Any help would be greatly appreciated, cheers!

 

[rgeist554]

Looks like your board only supports DDR (184 pin) RAM. So you're going to need to buy new RAM along with a motherboard / CPU upgrade as well.

The following will give you a decent boost in performance:

Gigabyte P35-DS3R or the ASUS P5K-E motherboard
E6750 Conroe @ 2.66Ghz
2x1GB of PC6400 DDR2 (OCZ, Geil, Crucial, etc. are all great brands)

Now, that 7900 probably isn't going to run Crysis as well as you'd like it to (or expect it to). So you may want to try going with an 8800GT or an ATI HD3870. Which brings up another question... what are you using as your current PSU?

As for price drops... Hmm... Intel's Q9770 is set to drop in Q1 of '08. That may drop some of the lower end CPU's down a little in price. You could also try waiting for after Christmas sales, etc. and see if you can snag something cheap.

 

[akhilles]

The question is how much do you have for this upgrade?

 

[goodfellas]

Looks like your board only supports DDR (184 pin) RAM. So you're going to need to buy new RAM along with a motherboard / CPU upgrade as well.

The following will give you a decent boost in performance:

Gigabyte P35-DS3R or the ASUS P5K-E motherboard
E6750 Conroe @ 2.66Ghz
2x1GB of PC6400 DDR2 (OCZ, Geil, Crucial, etc. are all great brands)

Now, that 7900 probably isn't going to run Crysis as well as you'd like it to (or expect it to). So you may want to try going with an 8800GT or an ATI HD3870. Which brings up another question... what are you using as your current PSU?

As for price drops... Hmm... Intel's Q9770 is set to drop in Q1 of '08. That may drop some of the lower end CPU's down a little in price. You could also try waiting for after Christmas sales, etc. and see if you can snag something cheap.

The question is how much do you have for this upgrade?

Hmmmm I thought Intel boards were 184 pins :S


I have 2GB Corsair 3500LL and a 450W Enermax PSU.


I am not really thinking about dishing out too much on the upgrade so I may just wait until January...


Do you think it's worth upgrading my 3800x2 to a higher 00? Or maybe get an Opteron and OC it?

 

[akhilles]

With your current mobo, the 3800x2 is a waste. It can be o/c'ed to a decent speed on a good mobo like M2N32 SLI. But I wouldn't get any more AM2 board now that AM2+ boards are out.

You can also wait for Phenom to mature in 3-6 months then get an AM2+ board. Right now the 9500 can barely run stable at stock. Geez!

Or you can get a 5000+ black & TF560 A+ (supports Phenom; yes, bios is out) & o/c it to 3ghz. That'll give it a decent boost for a decent price. A while back, TigerDirect had 5000+ & a game for $99.99.