Upgrade choice help

[Laxxium]

Hello,

I currently have an AsRock P45TS-R motherboard with the following
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86gHZ
Memory: 2x1G DDR2 (can't remember speed)
VC: nvidia 9800gt

I'm thinking of upgrading my cpu and mem to
CPU: Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz 3MB L2
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) or
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

All this for 250-300$ approx depending on ram choice. I mostly surf and play games and starting to notice how bad games are running. I was just wondering if these were good choices considering my options? I'm curious if my ram choice might be too much that I could get something cheaper and have the same ncreases.

Are there better choices?

Greg

 

[popatim]

I would recommend getting a bit more life out of your system by skipping the E7500 and going for the Q8400 quad core or better. More programs are going to become multi threaded to take advantage of the extra cores.
Your supported CPU list: http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=P45TS-R

You can save some cash if your running a 32 bit version of windows by not getting 8gb of ram. 32bit windows can only address 4gb of memory max and this includes memory on other devices like your graphics card so you typically end up with between 3 and 3.5gb of ram available depending on how much is on your GPU.

 

[moody89]

Agree with the above - a leap to quad-core would be a much wiser solution in the long run and you would see a much better performance jump than upgrading to a faster dual-core. I'd say 8GB of RAM is overkill really for most games/applications. The money would be better spent on a better CPU.

 

[Emperus]

Which games do you play and/or wish to play.? Also mention your preferred resolution (monitor resolution) to game at..

 

[Laxxium]

Which games do you play and/or wish to play.? Also mention your preferred resolution (monitor resolution) to game at..

I semi recent games, most recent would be CIV 5 which has prompted me to think of an upgrade.
I play at 1680x1050.

 

[Laxxium]

Agree with the above - a leap to quad-core would be a much wiser solution in the long run and you would see a much better performance jump than upgrading to a faster dual-core. I'd say 8GB of RAM is overkill really for most games/applications. The money would be better spent on a better CPU.

fig the 8gig would be an overkill but are quad cores really that much better in performance? I though most application these days still haven't taken advantage of multiple cores.

 

[popatim]

Open your task manager and look at how may processes (from all users) are running now I have 37 on 1 system and 43 on another and neither one is running anything. this is only going to get worse.

It is true that a triple core will run just about everything out there you dont have that option. A dual core will run quite a bit but what about the games coming out for christmas. As more and more apps get written for multiple threads/cores my personal beleif is that dual cores will soon be delegated to basic internet pc's. Dont foget new versions of IE and FF will bring new power hungry features as well.

I cannot tell you what to do, only what I would do. Heck I bought the 6 core LoL.
Here are the recommended spcs for Civ V to help you decide.

Recommended System Requirements

Operating System: Windows® Vista SP2/ Windows® 7
Processor: 1.8 GHz Quad Core CPU
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 8 GB Free
DVD-ROM Drive: Required for disc-based installation
Video: 512 MB ATI 4800 series or better, 512 MB nVidia 9800 series or better
Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compatible sound card
DirectX®: DirectX® version 11

 

[Emperus]

I semi recent games, most recent would be CIV 5 which has prompted me to think of an upgrade.
I play at 1680x1050.

Alright.. Assuming a 300$ budget, it'd be good to with a platform upgrade.. An AMD Athlon II X4 630 + MSI 870A-G54 Motherboard + G-Skill Ripjaws 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 7 RAM will bring about a major upgrade.. All this keeping in mind that your 9800GT is pretty decent as of now and that you can wait till the end of this year to assemble some cash and go in for an upgrade (if you want to)..

 

[Stupido]

I also think that quad is much better choice for upgrade.
I have 8 G RAM on my machine and it looks like I float around 4GB - 2 users logged at the same time with lots of browsers open and 1 game active