Updating my PC

[exeon]

Hey all,
So after 2 years of not touching my home PC (my wife and I had a beautiful daughter and 100% of my free time was in to taking care of my 2 ladies!), I'm ready to resume my PC fun!

I believe my PC needs upgrade as it's surely not on par.
Other then the obvious email/browsing/etc, this PC will be a gaming PC. Most of my time on the PC will be for gaming. I'd like to play the latest games on medium/high settings. I rarely play online. It would mostly be single player.
I consider myself comfortable with opening my PC and playing inside but I never built a system (biggest I did was adding a new HDD).

I'd like to know if:
a) Can I upgrade my current system (i.e. is my motherboard to old to get anything on it?)
b) Would it cost less to just buy a new system

Here is my current setup based on dxdiag:

Running Windows 7 32bit
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (2CPUs) 2.0 GHZ
2048MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT SLI (I don't have two of them, just one)

So if I'd like to be able to play BlackOps, SC2, Metro and company, what's the best cost effective option for me?

Thanks!

 

[exeon]

Would like to add that my budget is not limited, but I'd like to pay as little as I can for what I need, whether this is 500$ or 1500$.

I'm also located in Canada if that changes anything (shipping, duty, etc).

 

[Zenthar]

What is your motherboard, it is probably the key element that will determine if it is more worthwhile to upgrade or rebuild, but my guess is that you will probably be better of rebuilding. If you are willing to put around 1000$, you would get something you will really enjoy.

Any parts you want/can reuse? What is your monitor and what is it's resolution (VGA or DVI?)? Want to OC? want a silent PC?

 

[batuchka]

We need to know the resolution games are gonna be played on as well hehe

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

With a 3800+ x2, I'd pretty much assume that it's a 939 socket motherboard. Even if it isn't, it would most likely be AM2 only, so I'm betting a new mobo is in order anyway. Also note the lack of graphics card interface info. I think they made AGP's of that card but I could be wrong. I can say that there were PCI-E and AGP versions of socket 939 mobos, because mine is PCI-E.

 

[exeon]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
My mobo is an A8N32-SLI. It is a socket 939 CPU indeed. It's a dual pci-e x 16.

I have 2x 23' DVI screens I intend to keep.
I'd salvage whatever you guys tell me is salvagable. I don't want to pay more then really needed.

Is this enough info? Sorry for the lack of, I'm really new at this.

Thanks for your precious help!

 

[swifty_morgan]

Sounds like one of my old systems. I ran a 4800x2 on mine.... and a 4400 for a short time. The machine is still going but limit it to playing DVD's and a mild game on the T.V. The 7800gt's, I ran them in sli. Total waste of money. They never gave anything "extra" while gaming from what I could gather. If it weren't for your processor I'd say they were the weakest link in your system. I ran a single 8800GTS/640 after those and it was a noticeable improvement. Not sure the max card you could get for your system to push but somewhere in the gtx460-5770 range I think.... MAX. Even those would be a waste due to your other limitations. Otherwise you're looking at a complete overhaul. You can still game with that machine however...... depending on mostly "older" titles........ i see 2 monitors. might have to go ati ( single cards ) not sure. you'll have to check/.
by the way, i did play crysis on mine but not well and with a gtx260. card was overkill for the rest of the hardware.

 

[exeon]

Thanks swifty_morgan.

I'm not sure if I understand the recommendation. How far will my current system take me? I don't pretend my PC will be able to play Crysis or Far Cry (I don't mind not being able to play heavy taxing games like this) but will it play something like Black Ops, Metro, Starcraft 2, GTA4, etc on medium settings?

From your post, I understand that upgrading my current rig to a SLI 7800GT or a single gtx260 might work but would be extremely limiting because of the rest of my specs.

So what can I salvage? Monitors obviously, I have only 2GB of RAM (2x 1GB), can I salvage these or does it depend on my future mobo?

If I remember correctly, 90% of the cost of a PC would be in the mobo/CPU/GPU/video card. Right?
If so, I presume nothing is really worth salvaging?

 

[swifty_morgan]

black ops is dx9 but is demanding. out of those games i think it would play the best. metro needs a lot of graphics power.... gta and others need a quad core and graphics with lots of memory for good play. salvage monitors.... going from my 939 set up to a core2 + core2 quads were both great up grades. ( dated and too expensive for what you get now ) if you go for a i7 750 quad system or one of the new 2500k's it'll be amazing for you. The new amd940's... 938's? ( am2/3 ) are okay but go with intel unless amd releases their new stuff before you buy. it may be competitive. video card.... at least a gig but would suggest more.
new mobo/ram/proc/graphics............ maybe even a PS..... give $ amount and i and others can make suggestions.

 

[exeon]

Thanks swifty.
I will spend some time reading the other posts in this forum on new build as I now know I need a new build.

But if you find time to help, I would say my budget is around 1000$ but not limited. I originally wanted to buy a gaming laptop and was about to shell a bit more then 1500$ for an Acer ROG so 1000$ would be nice but if I won't get anything at this price, I'm ready to go higher.

Note that I'm not in a hurry. If you think I should wait a bit for all the Sandy Bridge and AMD's stuff to come out, I can wait. I can also wait a bit to hunt for deals if you think that deals will come once new line ups will be out.

Cheers and thanks again for the great help!

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

I think you should wait until the next AMD socket comes out.

Besides that, even $500-700 would get you a good AMD based system. You can also part out your current computer on ebay if you want to. For some reason dual core 939 socket CPU's go for about $100, even though you can get a nice new triple or quad CPU from AMD for the same amount.