3 questions

Hello Everyone.
I have been doing so much research that I just spent 20min wiping brain matter off my screen.
Full cortex overload, I wish I had been born with a surge protector.


I am an MMORPG player. Few gams ago, age of conan irked me and I went from a 4780 card to the 6850 for Rift.
I did not get any uber loving feeling from the video card change. I have a G13 pad that showed my CPU running at 87% both cores most of the time. Not sure if the G13 speeks the truth. But I have told myself keep the faith.

I also have Pinicale 14.0 for video editing my son's hockey games and family vactions.


Also I have 2 exact machines. Built one for my son and one for me in dec of 2008. I did not expect to have these this long or I would have gotten the next level Quad core.

(For folks out there, also something i have read here and there, sometimes buy the $60 dollor higher chip, you never know if your plans on building a new pc every 2 years sticks, expecially with this lousy economy. I should have rebuilt in dec 2010. But here I sit stuck 4 years later.)


Currently using Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6600, Asus p5w dh deluxe. 3gigs ram. 750Watts and Asus 6850.
I sadly am a die hard Asus person. Used to be a die hard AMD. sigh.



Question(s) #1 gaming related
Currently using Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6600 no OC.

I was told last summer my problems were windows XP and 3 gigs of ram?

Would buying something like a hyper 212 cooler, windows 7 and the 4 1gig ram really make a difference with FPS?

I could tweak one of these machines and try to hold out til summer and the Ivy Bridge.
I just want to try Star wars the old republic, but fear i would vomit none stop if my frame rates were down in the 20's with low graphic settings. I deserve some eye candy! Atleast I read the EAH 6850 would increase my eye candy. I really have not bought the game just because, i don't want to run low graphics. I am tired of that. I was told the 6850 would get me better graphics. it did not. however, i think the question is why not.

Not sure if it is worth it yet, to just get the I5 2500k and build new, if i could get by with what I have longer.
Thanks if you have thoughts.


Question(s) #2 Sandy bridge.
I am confused on this a bit.
I read that Sandy is built with own video card in it. Being a gamer. I like video cards, and reading on this about some Sandy's having an HD 4000 which is should not be near the 6850 i have.

I am confused as i read through mother board specs. Still not hooked on what to get there but have read about Asus z68 pro / gen 3. With something about the sandy video being enable/disable upon how much useage.

I ask - does the computer realize your just surfing the web and triggers the more economical Sandy processor. Then the computer realizes I logged into a game and want all the graphics to be top notch thus switching to my 6850 card?

I feel like its the motherboard that does this, but not sure.
Is there more cables to run? Think this is the part i am also stuck on, I have like a HD TV with cable hdmi, sony playstation, xbox, wii and some other things with all these damn wires. I believe I have developed wirephobia.

So when answering this. I am assuming the new Ivy bridge will do the same thing only better err.
Thanks if you have thoughts.


Question #3
OMG not anohter i5 vs i7. NO. i refuse.

When i go to make the jump to Ivy. I will be leaving this E6600 2.4 non OC. i will be gaming mostly tad bit of home video editing.

This is a quote about i-7.
"He estimated that enterprise users who are doing video and photo editing should be able to do their work five times faster than with the older generation of Intel chips."

I see "5 times" if it took 1.25 hours to burn a disk with my duo E6600. and this 5x i7 is going to take 20 mins ? Thats so huge! if the quote is not exagerated.
I still don't see gaming using the hyper threading as I read, along with notes about not many using 4 cores yet.


Would I really want to bang my head against the wall for getting an i-5 with a K over the i7 2600k? Just incase I upgrade one machine and wait till next (or even 2014) year to move to ivy bridge.
Thanks if you have thoughts.




On a side note, I have been visiting Tom's hardware probably since it started. I always click the ad's to help out toms for all the help toms has given me.
This is my first post in all these years. I think it is just because I am trying to absorb to much in 3 weeks.
Normally I can read and sort things out. Your all so helpful on so many topics.
Toms is a great place to go..

Thanks for any thoughts you could share.