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Suggest an upgrade for older gaming build

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Suggest an upgrade for older gaming build

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Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've been following PC hardware, and this seems like a great place to get some advice. My PC has been struggling more and more with games lately, and I'm wondering what people would suggest upgrading to get the most improvement for the dollar. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I'd like to be able to play new games at lower settings for a couple more years. I'm looking for a $200 and a $300 option.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Case and power supply:
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Case
ABS Tagan BZ Series BZ700 700W ATX12V / EPS12V
Motherboard, CPU, memory:
* ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6600
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) PDC22G5300LLK
Graphics card:
MSI RX1900XTX-VT2D512E Radeon X1900XTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3
ARCTIC COOLING Accelero X2 Fluid Dynamic VGA Cooling Fan with Heatsink
Devices:
LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With LightScribe and 5X DVD-RAM Write Black ATAPI/E-IDE Model SHM-165H6S
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive
Storage:
Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600YD 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive
Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive

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My opinions:

option a:
keep CPU, overclock it if not already .
for $200-300 and already having a 700W power supply I would say get some 4850s in Crossfire. (I was too lazy to check if your mobo supports this)

option b:
keep CPU; overclock it if not already.
get one nice graphics card.. GTX 275ish or 4890.
buy Windows 7 64-bit when it is released

option c:
keep CPU; overclock it if not already.
get one nice graphics card.. GTX 260ish or 4870.
get a Velociraptor hard drive and put your OS and games on it.

Reply to Katsushiro

I like option B.
Crank that CPU up to 2.8-3.0ghz, it should do that pretty easy, and get a new GPU.
The old X1900XTX was a screamer in it's day, but it's day has passed.

Reply to jitpublisher

What is your monitor resolution? If it is 1280x1024 (or 1440x900), a single 4670 will be notably better than your current X1900XTX, for $80 or so; for new games on low settings. Why play on low settings though? A single 4870 would probably be enough to play on high settings on most games.

Reply to jtt283

My monitor resolution is 1440x900. Based on your advice, I'm thinking of going with:

1. Overclock the CPU
2. Replace graphics with HIS H467QSS1GP Radeon HD 4670 1GB GDDR3 PCI ($69.99)
3. Replace hard drive with SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB SATA 7200 RPM 32MB Buffer Hard Drive ($59.99)
4. Since the other two are cheap, I think I'll also bump my ram up to 4 Gb (effectively 3 until Windows 7) with OCZ OCZ2RPR800C44GK 4GB PC2-6400 ($34.99) and then eventually get Windows 7

Let me know how that sounds. Seems pretty painless, thanks a lot for your help all!

Reply to letiferanimo

That is a reasonable budget choice, sure. If you feel at all inclined to spend another $30-$40, you might still consider a 4850, to play on higher settings. Either way, I think you'll be pleased.

Reply to jtt283

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Suggest an upgrade for older gaming build

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Suggest an upgrade for older gaming build