Have some money left, anything I can do to this game machine?

nikovdh

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May 13, 2008
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This is my computer for Age of Conan.

MOTHERBOARD:
ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard (SLI SUPPORTED)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131232

POWER:
SIGMA Power Engine SP-535 535W ATX12V V2.01 Power Supply (SLI SUPPORTED)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817226003

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052

MEMORY:
Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220227

VIDEO:
ECS N9600GT-512MX EDM GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP (SLI SUPPORTED)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134038

HARD DRIVE:
(1) Western Digital Raptor WD360ADFD 36GB 10000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s Hard Drive (For OS)
(2) Western Digital 120GB SATA 1.5Gb/s 7200RPM (For file storage/Games)

OS:
Microsoft XP Home 32-Bit
(Have optimized many properties of windows & system settings to make everything faster)

Ok now I'm not a bottleneck expert.. so I don't know what will bottleneck what..

I'm thinking that I should do one or more of these things:

- Get another 9600 GT for SLI mode
- Get Windows XP Pro 64-bit
- Overclock dual-core CPU a little

However, I'm not sure how much of a difference any of these things will give me. Has anyone done any of these 3 things and noticed good improvements? Lemme know.

Any suggestions to avoid bottlenecking things?
 

shadowduck

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Jan 24, 2006
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-1 for the motherboard choice.

nVidia's chipsets for Intel are frankly just not very good. I would look at P35/x38 Intel chipsets instead. Look at Asus and Gigabyte. P35s will be around the same price as the one you chose, x38's will add $100 but add support for PCI-E 2.0, FSB1600, and full support for 45nm CPUs.

+1 for aevm and the PSU :)

 

runswindows95

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I also second aevm's suggestions. I mean, ONLY 156GB of total HDD space when you can get 750GB for less than $120? Also, if you're going to do dual hard drives, get one for OS, games, and programs then use a second one for data.
 

jevon

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I agree about nVidia's chipsets... but if your heart is stuck on SLI you don't have much choice. My personal opinion is Intel Motherboard + Intel CPU + ATI Graphics Card (or nVidia if NOT planning on using more than 1 card) > nVidia Motherboard + Intel CPU + nVidia Graphics Card.

I've never used the OCZ PSU's personally, but I if I was to SLI two 8800's I'd want to get at least either a Corsair 620W or PC Power and Cooling 610W for the strong 12v rail (CPU and GFX Cards), otherwise I'd go more towards the 700W area for headroom/efficiency/longer life.

I also totally agree about getting Vista 64 bit over XP 64. With 4gb of memory, I'd get Vista 64 over XP 32. Vista does use up a lot of system resources I find...but when I play a game or fire up photoshop or indesign, Vista releases much of the memory and resources its using to the program that needs it and I've never noticed any performance problems I could blame on Vista. It does require you to google and search around for what tweaks you can apply to Vista's settings, but once that's done you're good to go.

Definately overclock a little, it's not that difficult to do mild overclocks with today's processors. Check out some guides around the net and give'r a try!

Good luck!
 

KyleSTL

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Aug 17, 2007
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-1 750i MB
-1 PSU choice

+1 Vista 64
+1 8800GT
+1 larger capacity non-10K HDDs (6400AAKS is the best 7200RPM drive currently and has the lowest $/GB ever on Newegg)

You'd probably be better served to buy an EVGA 8800GT or 9600GT and invest in a 9900-series card when they come out (GTX 260/280) with their Step-Up program. SLI is not extremely efficient, and you'd be better served with the most powerful single GPU you can afford.

BTW, at what resolution will you be playing?
 

orangegator

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Mar 30, 2007
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Here's what I'd do in order of priority.

1. Get a better quality PSU. Very importtant. The one you have is low quality.
2. Get an aftermarket heatsink and overclock your cpu. You should be able to get 3.5 - 4.0 Ghz from it.
3. Get a second 9600GT for SLI (I am pretty sure 2x9600GT SLI will outperform 1 8800GT)
4. Get a bigger hard drive for storage.
 

KyleSTL

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Yes it will, however, unless he's gaming at 1920+, theres no point in doing SLI. Besides nVidia's next high-end GPU (speculation) will blow any most any setup currently on the market (GT200/9900/GTX280/GTS260).