Things to upgrade on my gaming pc?

[jordan009]

CPU- Amd athlon2 X2 245

Video card-Xfx radeon hd 5770

Ram-4gigs DDR3 Ocz gold edition

HD-320gig WD cavier blue

PSU-500watt antec earthwatts

case-antec sonata 3

optical drive-LG Dvd drive

windows Xp professinal (3.20 gigs of ram avalibe)

motherboard gigabyte GAMA785G UD2H

 

[Lmeow]

What's your budget? If possible, Windows 7 64-bit, a bigger/faster HDD and an AMD Phenom II X4 955 or Athlon II X4 630.

 

[lowriderflow]

Windows 7 64bit should be your first upgrade!

 

[jordan009]

ugg budget is whenever i can get money i get 20 bucks a week (im 15) so uhh depends how much i save up or if i do extra work

 

[mrmez]

An extra 5770 would get you the most, but @ $20 a week, you could be waiting awhile.

(assuming you can run CF)

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Definitely grab windows 7. After that, maybe an Athlon II x4 635 or maybe an x3 440. Depending how much cash you have. Also the Phenom 2 would be great too.

 

[jordan009]

indeed well somtimes i get 40

 

[jordan009]

yea and mrmez i said i cant do corossfire

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Just saw the update, def. get win 7 first, that chip should power you a little while then you can go from there.

 

[jordan009]

yea than i should get a phenom 955?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Depends what you want. If you are willing to wait a while, do that. But honestly, I was even running an Athlon x2(older socket am2 dual core) with vista, 2 gb of memory, and a 9600gt, and it's actually still decent at games. Or if you wanted, you could look at a higher clocked Athlon II quad core as well.

 

[jordan009]

eh well is it still okay for starcraft 2?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Well, SC2 is coming out shortly. I'd say go ahead and grab windows 7, then grab your copy of SC2, give it a try and see how well it runs, then make a decision from there.

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26242

There are the system requirements for the beta. But I'd say upgrade windows now, then give it a spin and see what you think. You might be suprised how well it runs. Like I picked up Napoleon total war and empire total war, and even with only 2 gb of memory, I was suprised how good they run. Keep in mind I'm still using vista, which is not as optimized as windows 7.

 

[jordan009]

well i only got like 60 bucks so ill get SC2 than get windows 7

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Ah I see. That works too.

 

[jordan009]

since my current system easily passes the reccomended specs am i correct?

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

It appears so, except that you are running XP for now. The nice thing for you, is since XP only direct x 9, when you go to windows 7, you will actually be able to use your card for dx10 and dx11, which there does seem to be a bit of difference.

 

[megamanx00]

1st upgrade - CPU cooler and a good overclock. When you upgrade your CPU later you can continue to use this CPU cooler so make it a good one, that fits in your case of course

2nd Upgrade - Good case fans, assuming you haven't installed case fans in all the available positions, for better air flow. May allow you to raise your OC a little and OC your 5770

3rd Upgrade -1tb (or more) 7200RPM Hard Drive. While it won't improve Game performance directly it will cut down on load times and boot times. By then you may be finding your 320 is running out of space if you install alot of games .

4th Win 7, or 8 if it takes you that long . Time to be gaming in DX10/11 rather than 9.

5th well by the time you get around to this new stuff will be out so if you need to upgrade your CPU or GPU will depend on the games you play and what's out.

 

[megamanx00]

^ Just what I would probably do in your position.

 

[jordan009]

uhh well i got the antec sonata III soo.. there isnt really much room for fans

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Could do what I did. Grab a PCI slot cooler fan and mount that under the video card, that should help the gpu stay cool too.