Tom's Hardware > Forum > Homebuilt Systems > General Homebuilt > Is it time to upgrade? Any real reason to upgrade?

Is it time to upgrade? Any real reason to upgrade?

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Is it time to upgrade? Any real reason to upgrade?

Tom's Hardware: Over 1.4 million members in 6 different countries available to answer all your high-tech questions. Sign up now! Its free!

Related content

See all topics related to "time upgrade real reason upgrade"

Ask the community Add a reply

Bottom Search this thread

Hiya,

Built my computer about a year and a half ago with your help. Now, I'm wondering if there are any upgrades I can make. I work abroad and will be back in the States this summer. I have a bit of extra money to do this and the declining US$ helps. As it is, here is my computer system:

E6600 @ 3.2 GHz
eVGA 680i
TT Big Typhoon
2GB Corsair XMS2
700 W OCZ GamerXStream
Raptor 74GB
Barracuda 320GB
eVGA 8800 GTX
SB X-Fi Platinum
TT Matrix VX Aluminum

I am thinking about buying an internal 1 Tb drive to replace my old 300 Mb Maxtor OneTouch II and 500 Gb WD MyBook. Other than that, I'm not sure if there's something I can/should do about the RAM or CPU. Any reason to go quad core? I would like to mention that I think a new mobo would be overkill at this point. I'll probably return to the States again in another year or year and a half and can worry about a new mobo and appropriate CPU then. Also, I'm running XP and am not planning on going to Vista. Perhaps it's a good OS, but I've just heard too much **** about it to go ahead and upgrade. It's sad, I was usually the first around to have the latest MS OS too...

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by i_hate_flying on 03-29-2008 at 06:27:57 PM

Add a reply

You should add 2 more gb of ram, which is dirt cheap those days. Other than that, everything is fine and balanced.

Reply to dagger

2GB is last gen. 4 would be the minimum.

If you dig deeper, you might understand where the Vista migration blues came from. Not mostly MS' faulty. Mostly drivers. The manufacturers delayed and delayed their drivers. At Vista release, mostly beta drivers. In fact, one of the reports pointed to nvidia.

If you set your primary objective, it'll be easy to determine the right upgrade.

Reply to akhilles

Okay, so 2 more Gb of RAM is a definite.

As for my primary upgrade objectives, I suppose I was just wondering how I could "maximally upgrade" my setup without buying a new mobo. See, I live in the highest taxed country in the world and I only buy computer parts when I'm back in the States. I want to spend the money when I'm home this summer, and then build a new rig later when I'm back again, probably at the end of 2009.

I've been out of the loop for the last year when it comes to components, especially the processors. Intel hasn't done a good job with naming and I'm faced with a bewildering array of CPUs. Which CPUs could I potentially upgrade to, given my eVGA 680i mobo?

Reply to i_hate_flying

You've got a slick 680i motherboard--why not spring for a second GTX? Once you have a second GTS, you can look at larger monitors too.

Reply to hesskia

I've got a Dell 20.1" I bought in 2005 that's been great. I managed to stuff the box into a duffel bag and get it back here to Europe from the States.

I've been considering a Dell 24" UltraSharp 2408WFP for this trip, but I'm not sure that will fit into a bag If not, I might as well step it up and get Dell 27" UltraSharp 2707WFP and just check the box as one of my pieces of luggage A side note: both the 24" and 27" models cost 450$ more over here than in the States.

I suppose if I got the monitor, I'd need a second GTX to run at high resolutions. I've already played Crysis at 1680x1050 with one GTX and, contrary to most of what I've heard about the game, everything went fine. I'm content to play at that resolution, but I watch a tonne of films and shows on my computer so hence the desire for a larger monitor. I prefer this over a television. If you own a television here, you have to give the government about 600$US a year for a "TV licence". I prefer to download as downloading is legal here.

On second thought, my little case will definitely not fit another GTX. I've got the Thermaltake Matrix because that was the easiest build to stuff in a duffel bag the last time I was back in the States I guess I could buy a new case, that might be something to get over on this side of the Atlantic since they don't cost much more (unlike the monitors). I suppose I wanted to do things simply this time. RAM, a hard drive, and maybe a new CPU. Wouldn't mind having things a bit faster.

Message edited by i_hate_flying on 03-30-2008 at 05:28:47 PM

Reply to i_hate_flying

I wouldn't upgrade until there is a game you can't play acceptably comes out. Otherwise, what's the point? You might as well wait and upgrade to something better in a year or so.

------------------------------ New Build : Intel Core i5 750 > Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P > 2x2GB GSkill 1600MHz CL7 1.65V > Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB >
Antec 300 Illusion > Asus 4850 512MB w/AM Cooler > Corsair 650HX > CM Hyper 212 Plus > Other: PII 940/Gigabyte 790GX/4850 1G

Reply to EXT64

i_hate_flying wrote :

As it is, here is my computer system:

E6600 @ 3.2 GHz
eVGA 680i
TT Big Typhoon
2GB Corsair XMS2
700 W OCZ GamerXStream
Raptor 74GB
Barracuda 320GB
eVGA 8800 GTX
SB X-Fi Platinum
TT Matrix VX Aluminum

Also, I'm running XP and am not planning on going to Vista. Perhaps it's a good OS, but I've just heard too much **** about it to go ahead and upgrade. It's sad, I was usually the first around to have the latest MS OS too...

Ok, you don't like Vista, and I conceed that Vista is a bit of a headache at the moment. You could install XP64 Pro, which used to be a bit of a headache because driver support was minimal, but now is simple. XP64 would let you actually use all 4 gig of ram, even 8 gig if you wanted that much. I say that as many people have suggested that you pick up some ram while its cheap.

Replacing the Maxtor is a good idea. Whether or not you need a full terabyte hard drive is something only you can judge, but they are pretty cheap here at the moment so if you need the room, they're a good buy.

Your 8800 GTX is long in tooth, but there's not many cards that are noticably faster yet. The new 8800 GT 512 mb will give the old 8800 GTX a run for its money, though, and has a few advantages. Since you are coming over next summer, ATI's new 4800 series cards will be out and one of them would probably make a good replacement. So far, most of the Nvidia 9800 series hasn't shown dramatic improvements over the new 8800s, but by summer there might be new drivers or refinements that help.

As for the cpu, there are planned price drops in April and more may happen, so upgrading the cpu to a Q6700 shouldn't be very expensive. I'd personally avoid the Q9450, getting a Q9550 instead if its in your price range. The Q9550 has a higher multiplier so will either run faster at stock speed, or be easier to overclock if you do overclocking. Whether either of these chips will be makedly better than a Q6700 is debateable at this time. By summer, there should be more information available.

Just a few thoughts

Message edited by Sailer on 03-30-2008 at 11:49:05 PM

------------------------------ Evil lurks in the databanks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.

Over 50. Seen it, done it, can't remember it, but I miss it.
Reply to Sailer

E6600
isn't an outdated cpu. Upgrading to the new 45nm Wolfdale or Yorkfield
core cpus might not be a good investment. 680i support for 45nm is
shaky, and the chipset does not overclock well, meaning you won't get
the new chips running 1333mhz fsb to oc as well as your E6600 running
1066mhz fsb. Having to run the new cpu at lower clock shrinks the
performance increase.

It might make sense to consider holding it off until the new Intel
socket with Nehalem comes out. That system you have now is still good
until then.

Reply to dagger

The upgrade would be another 2 gigs of ram & maybe a larger hard disk replacing your 320gig. You know how long it takes my pc to decompress a 700mb rar? Done in 10 secs. I don't even raid or raptor. Look at the 750gb-1tb reviews. Some of them drivers are crazy fast for storage.

Reply to akhilles

Thank you, Sailer. I'm going to check out those CPUs you recommended keeping what Dagger said in mind. I overclock the E6600 that I have right now to 3.2 Ghz. I had it stable at 3.4 Ghz for a while, but then something happened and it didn't want to go that far any more. I don't know. I'll also have a look at XP64. I only recall that drivers were an issue for a while, and I use a variety of hardware that I'd have to make sure has drivers for XP64 first.

It seems there's a consensus that 2 Gb of RAM is a good purchase so I'll look into that, as well. I've got a separate thread going on the hard drive, so I'll decide about that from the information there. I really will need a 1 Tb drive seeing that I'm replacing 850 Gb of external storage already (which is full). Something that decompresses a 700mb .rar in 10 seconds sounds perfect, akhilles, but I thought that also had to do with processor speed?

As for the monitor, I'll have to find out more about it. I started a thread on that, too, but no one has gotten back to me. I'm really just trying to figure out how much larger a 27" monitor is than a 20.1" I got out the tape measure and tried to visualise it, but I really need to look at some photos of a 27" monitor next to one like mine. Unfortunately, there are no electronics shops nearby where I could have a look at a display either. I'll probably keep the 8800GTX for now. Like you guys, I don't see much reason to upgrade that either right now. I look forward to seeing more of the ATI's in the future, but I'm not getting my hopes up when it comes to who's going to win the next superiority contest.

Thank you everyone for all your help!

Reply to i_hate_flying

One last note on the XP64. I installed it myself on one of my computers last summer and have had no problems what so ever, driver or otherwise. I use a lot of business programs and they all have been faster under XP64 than on 32 bit XP Pro. Its had no problems playing games or music either. That's my personal experience, of course, and experiences differ depending on what programs and hardware are used.

Okay, so I'm going to buy 2 more Gb of ram. The exact memory that I have now is here:

I have two sticks of the TWIN2X2048-6400PRO with Cas latency 5, timing 5-5-5-12, and voltage 1.9.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145589

BUT they're out of stock at newegg. I'm not sure if they'll have my stuff back in stock one day or not, so I'm wondering what my options are now?

I was thinking about this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145038

But I'm not sure if it would be compatible with my current RAM. The model is TWIN2X2048-6400C4PRO, so the different is the Cas latency 4, timing 4-4-4-12, and voltage 2.1. This they do have in stock, though its 25$US more.

Can someone enlighten me?

Reply to i_hate_flying

Ask the community Add a reply

Tom's Hardware > Forum > Homebuilt Systems > General Homebuilt > Is it time to upgrade? Any real reason to upgrade?

Go to:

Help |
Forum rules

There are 726 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Related content

See all topics related to "time upgrade real reason upgrade"

Page generated in 0.500 seconds

Please mind

You are about to answer a thread that has been inactive for more than 6 months.
If you still wish to proceed, please ensure that your posting is original and does not duplicate or overlap any prior responses to this thread.

Add a reply Cancel

Focus On

Is it time to upgrade? Any real reason to upgrade?

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Is it time to upgrade? Any real reason to upgrade?

Please mind