I want to make sure i buy the best components.. help?

[joeandem7400]

Hi everyone,

Heres my current build.

Mother board: ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor Model HDZ940XCGIBOX - Retail

Ram (4 gb): CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 675 (PC2 5400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-5400c4 - Retail

Video Card: BFG Tech BFGR88640GTSOC2E GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3160023AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive

PSU: Rosewill Xtreme Series RX850-D-B 850W Continuous @40°C ,80 PLUS Certified, ATX12V v2.2 & EPS12V v2.91, SLI Ready CrossFire ... - Retail

My computer runs a bit slow and doesnt play games like Left 4 Dead 1 or Prototype smoothly. It lags up when a lot is happening on screen. I want to play games like left 4 dead 2 and borderlands without a problem. I would love to read your suggestions. Maybe a great video card? Updated ram? Faster HD?

Thanks.

 

[wiinippongamer]

your system is good, all i would change is a bigger hard drive, and 2 more gbs of ram.

btw that 8800 gts should run those games perfectly at most resolutions, if you have a big monitor then just upgrading to a 5850 or 5870 will do the job, but as i said, unless you're playing at 1920x1200 or higher then that card should have no lag with those games.

also you should get another 2gb ram and install a 64bit os, if you have 32bit and just 2gb ram, plus that 640mb vid card, then the os can only use less than 1.4gb for the applications.

you must know that everything that has it's own memory on your computer, either if the video, sound or network card substracts from your main ram, only when in 32bit, that's not the case with 64bit.

 

[joeandem7400]

i think ill upgrade my vga since i like having resolution at 1900+. I/m used to using nvidia, which card is the 5870? Ati?

I guess i can buy two 2gb sticks of ram and replace my 1gb sticks. Should i upgrade to windows 7?

thanks!

 

[hunter315]

Wiinippongamer, you need to relearn how the OS uses memory. The GPU has onboard memory so it doesnt affect the system memory availability unless you are near the 4GB barrier for a 32 bit OS. Therefore if you have a 640MB of ram on your GPU and 2GB of system ram applications can use all of the 2GB of the system ram, not just 1.4GB.

If you already have 4GB of ram you wont get a boost from an extra two, however an upgrade to your graphics card will help a lot. The 5870 is ATI, if its out of your price range also consider the ATI 5850, 4890, or the nVidia GTX275, the 5850 performs significantly better than the 4890 or GTX275 but also costs significantly more.

 

[joeandem7400]

thanks to both of you. i will guy the card. seems like its sold out though.

 

[hunter315]

it hasnt been out long so its in high demand with low supplies unfortunately. Just keep an eye out. Right now all of the 5870s except the sapphire vapor-x one are identical so it doesnt really matter which brand you choose.

 

[dndhatcher]

Also make sure your HDD isnt too full, as it fills up it will become less efficient. Also defragmenting might help.