Upgrade Advice

[Luca-d]

Hey Guys & Girls,

I'm looking for a little bit of advice, I'm currently looking at upgrading my gaming rig and looking for a little input. I've a budget of £450.00 ($740)

Current Rig is,

Xeon X3330 @ 3.6ghz - Zalman 9800 Cooler
XFX 780i 3 way SLI
Point of View Nvidia 460 768mb
Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR2
x2 Seagate 7200 250GB in Raid 0
Ocz Stealthxstream 2 700w PSU

Not sure if i should buy another 460 for SLI (and maybe a SSD),However i'm worried about bottlenecks i've read alot of conflicting views about this recently if the Core 2 Quad Xeon can handle it? Resolution i use is 1920x1080 (if gaming allows) or should i go sandybridge K series and forget about another 460?

I doubt i will be able to go Sandybridge and get another 460 for SLI within my budget. - is it worth considering the AM3 route with lack of SLI support but possible Bulldozer support in the future?

I look forward to your replies! Thanks in advance!

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Wow, the improvement that I have seen from upgrading to an SSD is shocking so I would give a lot of thought into upgrading to an SSD like the Intel® SSD 320 80GB or 120GB would be great drives for you and you would see greatly improved boot times based off from up grading to an SSD. Now I don’t know that besides access time improvement that you would see any gaming improvement from upgrading to an SSD. I guess it really comes down how much money you have to spend. At around $200 go for the SSD, for $320+ goes for an Intel® Core™ I5 2500K and a P67 based motherboard.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[Luca-d]

So you think i5 2500K combo + SSD rather than i5K combo + another 460?

 

[geekapproved]

At 3.6ghz, your C2Q has a lot left in her. I would get a faster GPU, that cpu can handle a GTX570 no problem and would be a big upgrade. I wouldn't get a second GTX460 cause you got the crappy 768mb version.

I see no point in upgrading that cpu/mobo/ram for another year or two.

 

[DXRick]

Why do you want to upgrade? More FPS in games? What games and what resolution? An SSD won't help with FPS.

 

[Luca-d]

Thanks for your replies!

The main use of my system is for gaming, i've played a few games recently where i've had to knock down the quality settings and that i don't like!!!! (Such as Mafia 2 and Metro 2033)

So yea i'm really looking for more gaming power if i'm honest! I understand a SSD will not help in games however i assume it would help with overall system performance compared to my Raid Array.

GeekApproved, i've thought about just upgrading the graphics card. I've seen a few reviews even for the 460 768MB versions and they seems to perform quite well in SLI (Granted on a I7 system) I could also strech to a GTX580 however that would pretty much cost me everything i have for the upgrade, i don't know if it's worth doing CPU+MOBO+MEM or buying a kick ass card and hoping the Core 2 Quad can keep up!

 

[swifty_morgan]

You're having those problems because that video card doesn't have enough vram to run properly at that res. Upgrade your video card to a gtx570/580 or a 6950 2gig card. Forget about the SSD. It'll help load things quicker but won't do anything to speed up games.

gotta edit: go for the 6950 2gig. It runs metro maxed out for me at 1920x1200 flawlessly. A gtx560 couldn't play it for crap without cutting back on settings...... insulting. A friend of mine has a 580. Runs awesome.

 

[Luca-d]

Thanks for your advice! I think i would go the Nvidia route, Due to my motherboard being Nvidia based. I could also use the 460 as a physx card i suppose? If i can squeeze a bit more outa my CPU i might be in a better position i've had it to 3.8 however was 70c under full load even with the Zalman and the crazy amount of fans on my case.

Does everyone think the GPU is the way to go? is there anything else i could do along with the GTX580? Or does anyone think Cpu & Mobo might be a better route?

Sorry to keep asking questions, i'm actually completely stuck as to which route to take. i honestly thought my CPU would bottleneck a more powerful GPU and i'm having to have a serious re-think!

 

[geekapproved]

Of course cpu/mobo/ram is the better route, but that would be $425 minimum and you still need a gpu if you want better performance than what you have now. A faster cpu is not going to make your GTX460 faster.

Don't push 3.8ghz, not worth it. Like I said, GTX570 would be ok with that cpu, 580 would be pushing it imo.