Looking to get some more from my Home Built

[Aldaris687]

I've been adding to this build for a while now and am looking for some advice on what I can work on to get some more performance out of my system. What I really want to get is some better game performance out of this system.

Power Supply:
OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC
MotherBoard:
DFI LanParty UT RDX200 CF-DR 939 ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire ATX
Processor:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo 2.4GHz Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor
Ram:
4x Crucial 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400
Graphics Card:
HIS Hightech H260PRQT512DDN-R Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16
Hard Drives:
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L250R0 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA133
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250620A 250GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100
Monitors:
2X Hanns·G JW-199DPB Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD
DVD Drives:
LITE-ON Black 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM ATAPI/E-IDE
SONY NEC Optiarc Black 18X DVD-RAM
ASUS 16X DVD±R DVD Burner with 12X DVD-RAM Write and LightScribe Black E-IDE/ATAPI
Addon Cards:
PROMISE ULTRA133 TX2 PCI IDE 66M PCI Controller Card
AFT Xm-4U 11-in-1 USB 2.0 Black & Silver Internal card reader

 

[badge]

I have a system using the AMD 4800 X2 939 processor. Took off XP Pro and installed Vista. Much better, looks new.

 

[groo]

get a 4850, maybe even a 4870. your CPU wont be hopelessly choking it. and if you redo the rest of the sytem in a year or so, you can carry over the new vid card.

 

[IH8U]

I second the new Vid card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121253
$183 (all the cheaper ones sold out) ATI 4850
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150316
$150 (9800 GT) (be sure to uninstall all previous Video drivers before installing)

 

[Aldaris687]

Thanks for the recommends. The graphics card was kinda an impulse purchase I saw low cost and 512MB and kinda jumped in wihout researching any further O well lesson learned.

I'm also thinking about Upgrading from the multiple Hard Drives that I have now to a single Sata Drive, i was thinking about something around 750 GB. I'm planning on ghosting my main drives ( I have a few partitions) onto it. I figured that since Sata is not only a crap load faster and I'd be basically condensing 3 drives onto 1 that it'd be a good investment. Any opinions on what brand to go with?

 

[groo]

you wont gain anything by switching over beside a lot less cabling.

Sata may be quicker at data transfer, but the mechanical limitations of HDDs are still slower than IDE.

 

[Aldaris687]

Alright that makes sense. Besides updating my graphics card is there anything that you could suggest to squeeze out some higher performance? I have not overclocked anything as I have never done that before. I know I could replace my motherboard and processor but I'd rather not drop that kind of money just yet.

 

[groo]

you might want Vista 64 if you don't already. lots of people swear by sound cards, but I havn't had one myself since my 486DX33.

your processor is fine (better than my AM2). I don't think your at its limits yet.

 

[Aldaris687]

Do I have to change any hardware or settings for Vista 64 to run on my build? I've never done an OS upgrade before. Ive always started with a clean install but that is the last thing I want to do with this build.

I'm going to look at upgrading my Video card first before I do anything. I've been kind of gun shy about upgrading to Vista. I've heard people say its great and others say its terrible. So I'm kinda on the fence about Vista Would it really make a difference??

 

[Aldaris687]

Before I go and buy another graphics card. Can a PCI Express x16 2.0 graphics card run on a regular PCI Express x16 Slot?

 

[badge]

Before I go and buy another graphics card. Can a PCI Express x16 2.0 graphics card run on a regular PCI Express x16 Slot?

Yes, works fine.

I've heard people say its great and others say its terrible. So I'm kinda on the fence about Vista Would it really make a difference??

The best thing I did for my aging 4800X2 DC 939 system is install Vista 32. You might check the product page for your DFI 939 MB for any Vista 64 drivers available. You probably won't have any major problem, but I don't know that for sure. Old hardware or hardware that had shakey driver support on Windows XP may not run on Vista 64. Printers, wireless network cards, old outdated soundcards, or PCI card installations with software that requires the latest version for Vista support and any other old stuff may not be supported. It's kind of like the pain of giving up the nipple :lol:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=506

http://www.dailytech.com/People+Finally+Embrace+64bit+Windows/article12568.htm

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302495,00.asp

 

[groo]

Graphics card is more important, but you are stuck at DX9 w/o Vista.

you cant upgrade from XP32 to Vista64.
I guess you could upgrade to Vista32, but 64 will let you use all of your 4 gigs, and I honestly think 64 will be the new standard.
you may want to add that new HDD afterall with Vista if you can't "clear out" one of your existing HDDs.
you can also do a dual boot if your afraid of something screwing up. there is also lots of software still out there that wont run on any form of Vista, but very little that I know of that runs on V32 and not V64.

 

[Aldaris687]

I downloaded the Vista Upgrade Advisor to see how much og my system I'd need to change to be Vista ready. From what the scan tells me only one piece of software is not compatible and only 2 devices would need newer drivers from their manufactures. What I'm planning on doing is buying the SATA drive and using that as a fresh Vista install. Then once that is up and running transferring my files from my other hard drives onto the SATA.

I know I'd have to reinstall all of my software but since I'll have a back up of my settings and what not I'm not too worried about reconfiguring everything.