Most affordable solution for this bottleneck.

[b1wdza46]

Here's everything I got

Q-pack Lan Party Case
550 Watt Generic Gold Plated PSU
Athlon 64 3200+ Venice @ 2.4Ghz (3800+) speeds
ATI Sapphire 4870 512MB PCI-E
2048 MB 1X 1GB Dual Channel DDR-400 OCZ Ram
80GB Seagate 7200RPM HD
WIN XP HOMO edition SP3
16X DVD-RW


it was someones HTPC i bought off them for $300 including a 19" LCD and keyboard mouse combo. I popped in another 1GB of ram and a 4870 to make it my new lanparty/HTPC/Gaming PC

It's a MATX mobo. Socket 939 pretty old.

Winfast Nforce 6150


Anyway I have Crysis, GRID and UT3 and COD4

Everything runs good on high settings even Crysis on Very High (surprised me). (my 4870 most likely helping quite a bit there) But i'm feeling i'm definatly missing out on some gaming expierence with select titles that are more cpu intensive. I got Grid running at 1024x768 with 8xAA and 16xAF and its stuck around 22-30 fps. i turn off the AA and lower the resolution and i get the same 23-30 fps... cpu is no doubt holding me back big time.

as i'm pretty happy with what i got. I dont' want to spend alot of money. I would like to get a new mobo and cpu (new ram i guess also) I want to futureproof my computer for as long as possible. I'm looking at the new DDR3 MATX mobo from DFI and a Intel Core 2 e8400 maybe a Nahalm. I just wondering about the new Neahalm CPU since it's a new archetechure i'm wondering if present mobo's will support it? will it have the same pin count etc? i'd hate to buy a new mobo only to find it wont support the latest gen of intel cpu's..

should i wait cause i'm able to play all my games now? I'll invest in a new mobo if i knew it would spport the next gen cpu's (nehalm) <- spelt wrong most likely. Those new matx DFI mobo's look pretty cool and i'll be in Calfornia this coming year for Quakecon!

Let me know what you guys think, suggestions for upgrades. (i'm gona still be using my Qpack case. I love it


I looking to spend no more than $400 for upgrades. (Canadian dollars)

 

[Noya]

Your cheapest option is:

$80-90 - P35 motherboard
$100-120 - Intel e7200 (overlock it to 3.16ghz+)
$25+ - 2gb DDR2-800

OR

buy a used 939 X2 or Opteron if your motherboard supports it and will overclock it decently.

 

[shadowthor]

DDR3 is not worth it atm. So the budget is $400 for cpu, ram and mobo? You should up the budget a bit to get a better power supply, as the one you listed might is what most people in this forum would consider as a time bomb waiting to explode. If the generic psu dies, it usually takes down the mobo and ram.

www.infonec.com (Canadian Retailer, cheaper prices than Canada Computers most of the time)
E8400
P5Q-E
4GB of DDR2 RAM
ATI 4850

 

[eklipz330]

i think noya got the right idea, you can also try a p43 mobo, seeing how theyre a bit newer with a pcie 2.0 port, but i wouldn;t know if you'll ever upgrade to something that'll bottleneck a pcie 1.0..

 

[b1wdza46]

i predict a huge jump in Video card performance in the next 2 years. pci 2.0 would be advantagous to persue i think.. Though again i'm a cheap bastard as always and i like the used ATHONG X2 64 idea. It'd hold me until I can do a proper upgrade.. The PSU isn't bad, i dont know if it's generic, it's all solid gold with no sticker.. beats out my old 430watt Aspire that came with the case. (able to run my 4870 without it rebooting and causing brain anorisms in my brain) I've blown up a PSU b4 but it didn't harm the other parts of the PC and for only $20 (which i got the PSU for i can't complain) the gold looks cool.... gona check around and see if i can nab a 4200+ athong 64 x2 or something. wow i've been away from the computer hardware scene for quite a while. I used to post often at Tweak3d.net until they shut it down a few years ago. It's a pleasure to talk with people that share this passion. thx for your replies guys.

 

[stonebattle]

You will likely want to get an AMD X2 up to about 2.7G to keep the bottleneck down as much as possible.
A good CPU heatsink will be a go idea if you go that way.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Going to dual core will provide your best bump for you buck

 

[mactronix]

Just tested Grid on my system E4600(stock 2.4) 2GB patriot 6400-800 ram on a ASRock 1600 Twins MoBo. Using the same visual settings as your self I get between 55 and 63 FPS and I have a HD3850. So i guess yes you are being held back quite a bit.

Mactronix