Upgrade neccesary? / what to do

[flesk]

Hi there.

present system:
p4 quad 9550
msi p45 diamond
6 GB 1333 ddr3
sapphire 2 GB radeon 4870

Corsair Professional Series HX750W
60GB ssd


The system keeps crashing in games after upgrading to win7
I have tried everything (drivers, bios, crashtests), but the problem seems to be the cpu core timings/responstimes.
So now I decided to give up and make an upgrade...


Thinking about:
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3, Socket-1155
Intel® Core i5-2500K Processor
RAM? My present are 6GB 1333, should I go all the way and buy 2133? or settle at 1600/1833, and how many?
I have read positive things about the Kingston Hyper X.


Are there anything you would do different; other chipset/processor
Shall I use the old RAM in the new system?
Shall i buy a new gfx, or 2?


The system is primary for gaming, but im not so freeky about the settings, just no lags!!
The current system performs very well (except for the crashing though!!)
I play games such as company of heroes, battlefield 2/ (and battlefield 3 I hope, if the system can handle win7)

I have a NAS, so the 60gb is only for system/games.
Will I get any extra performance for the ($500) money i spend on ny specs?

 

[Raiddinn]

Games don't benefit from fast RAM unless your processor is a Llano which it isn't going to be. You might as well get a good set of 1333 like CT2KIT51264BA1339 and be done with it.

Kingston and Crucial make the most fail proof RAM, I would choose one of those if I were you.

You might be able to use the old RAM, you could try it at least. That being said, 3 sticks isn't optimal for these days, 2 or 4 is better, so I would encourage you to get the 4th stick of that kind if you can.

The video card should be OK unless you need DX11 in games which isn't supported on 4000 series cards. It could be that whatever games you are playing have to be switched down to a buggy dx9 code base in order to work on the 4870. If so, that could be a source of crashes.

If the card does work after you make the change you are suggesting, but it doesn't perform as well as you want, I could always sell you my extra 4870 for cheap and you could crossfire it.

I can't make any guarantees that you will see a huge performance leap after you change out the processors, though. Stock vs stock, the 2500k is about 25% better for gaming than the 9550 is, but it can be easily and significantly OCd too if you get a $30 Hyper 212 for it.

That wouldn't matter, though, unless you were bottlenecking your processor, which isn't something that has been proven so far.

The processor upgrade would probably give you more FPS in some games, but I wouldn't expect it to prevent crashes unless there was something physically wrong with your 9550. If that were true, I would expect non-game things to crash too which you didn't mention as happening.

Since you only mentioned games crashing, it would seem to be either graphics related or heat related.

You didn't mention your case or your PSU, so I can't really comment on those things. However, it is quite likely the problem is in one of these areas instead. It could be the biggest bang for your buck is upgrading the case, PSU, and fans, which would come at a cost of maybe 150ish.

I can't advise about the likelihood of that helping without knowing your current setup, though.

Anyway, if you try to tell me some more about your system, maybe I can advise some more than this.

Case, PSU, what drivers you are using, what games you are playing, and stuff like that would give me more insight into your situation.

 

[maxinexus]

I don't see a point in getting 2133 memories way too expensive...you can use your current 1333 and perhaps use that money to upgrade your GPU.

In a mean time get i5 and new board, use your old memories and GPU. When kepler is out get a newer GPU.

 

[flesk]

Since you only mentioned games crashing, it would seem to be either graphics related or heat related.

It can also crash during windows, etc youtube, I can even provoke it to do it, (that cost me a ned HDD)

You didn't mention your case or your PSU, so I can't really comment on those things. However, it is quite likely the problem is in one of these areas instead...

Well, i have the chieftex Dragon full tower with 4 80mm fans, mounted with PSU; Corsair Professional Series HX750W

The 4870 runs at ~100C when fully loaded, but i have it fixed at 100% fanspeed all the time. I do not have the deskside mounted. The airflow is good.


Well I DO need dx 11, so i properly have to get a new gfx...

How many RAM do i need??

but I wouldn't expect it to prevent crashes unless there was something physically wrong with your 9550. If that were true, I would expect non-game things to crash too which you didn't mention as happening.

All the crash logs etc. can be shown at my thread in windows 7 forums
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/201519-bsod-after-installing-win7home32-different-errors-2.html

Last time i build new pc i tested all the parts across the systems.
My old system also performed hickups in company of heroes, so I bought the 4870 > then build entirely new system
But that only resulted in different crashes. But I have none of the old hardware in my new pc.

You have the error STOP 0x101: CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT

Thank you both for the help so far.

By the way, in crossfire, do the cards have to be identical (same specs/factory clock speed...)?

 

[aRodr1guez]

By the way, in crossfire, do the cards have to be identical (same specs/factory clock speed...)?

Yes.

 

[Raiddinn]

If you are crashing doing anything at all, then you should boot into safe mode and try to crash it.

If you can't, then it is probably because of a bad driver.

If you can crash it in safe mode, you should download MemTest86+ and Prime 95 and try to use them. If your computer crashes while you use them, it is probably a bad RAM (MemTest86+) or some other kind of hardware (Prime 95).

 

[flesk]

If you are crashing doing anything at all, then you should boot into safe mode and try to crash it.

If you can't, then it is probably because of a bad driver.

If you can crash it in safe mode, you should download MemTest86+ and Prime 95 and try to use them. If your computer crashes while you use them, it is probably a bad RAM (MemTest86+) or some other kind of hardware (Prime 95).

Now I have tested using prime 95 (20 hours) and MemTest86+ (30 hours).
No crash, no failure.

That *** is wacked, cause I have tried every single driver out there, the oldest>the newest, and every driver combined between motherboard/gfx/otherrs...

 

[Raiddinn]

Did you try to crash it in safe mode?

 

[flesk]

Well, sorry for the late response. I have now bought a new GFX;
ASUS ENGTX560 TI DC2 TOP/2DI/2GD5

Now in Battlefield 3 the game still freezes, but it doesn´t make the system shut down. I can go the task manager and shut down the game, no system faillure !
Any other suggestions...