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Cheap upgrade

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Hi guys,

After one year since i upgraded my Main computer, i now want to seek advice/help/suggestion how to upgrade my computer cheaply.

My intention/goal/aim last time was to play Shogun 2/and waiting for the intel combi 2400/2500 CPU to get cheaper. But still its still too pricy for my budget. Thats why at that time i aimed for a non crossfire option with very few upgrade options on motherboards etc. and got and cheap build that i easy could replace in 2-3 years when intel or anything else gets cheaper:

So i ended up Buying:

Club 3D Radeon PCI-E HD6850 OC
Phenom II X4 840/AM3 3.20GHz 2MB
PSU/High Current Gamer HCG-620
WD Caviar GreenPower 2TB HDD (data disk)
Asrock K10N78D nF720D/ATX
LITEON 22X DVDRW SAW SATA

Combining with old stuff i had:

Raptor 10k RPM 300 GB version Main OS
Windows vista home Premium
some old DDR2 4x1GB running at 400 mhz

What are my featue needs?

I want to play Diablo 3 stable. I want my rig to play it very smoothly on max out settings.

I got little worried of reading this:
http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/feature-diablo-iii-beta-...

my rig its semilar compared to that mid-range test machine used in that beta test. ofc the game code/engine could be better when the game hits goal. But i just want to try see if i could spend a few bucks to optimice my current rig.
Am very pleased with my current rig, have being stable for one year, never seing an BSOD or anything error or stuff during my pass rigs.

I do not want to Overclock.

I have reading alot articles and compared charts, calculated stuff etc. But could still not decide what i could optimice.



My own suggestion:

New motherboard: thats offer 3-way crossfire? or 2?
new Ram

Result= much better brandtwith speed = more better use of my 6850 card. and data would flow much better compared to the old motherboard am currently using? + option later on to add 6850 when its get even cheaper?

I was hoping to get an increase of performance of like 10-20 % with an better motherboards and ram. with option on crossfire with an ekstra 6850 later.

Forgot to mention: my gaming resolution is 1920x1080




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Homebuilt system Expert

your system a quite a bit faster than the one in the review. Try to get a hand on the beta and see how it runs on your rig first, then see if any upgrades are needed.

How about buying an new motherboard:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=970%20Extre...

offers crossfire option. + ddr3 ram cheap ones: any suggestion which ddr3 ram brand?

Its really hard to find Club 3D Radeon PCI-E HD6850 OC version left in denmark.

theres only the normal version from club 3d left... but theres a cheap
MSI R6850-PM2D1GD5/OC 4.4ghz memory instead the standard 4ghz...

i know i can buy diffrent radeon cards but its still using the slowest card for speed?

CaedenV said:
your system a quite a bit faster than the one in the review. Try to get a hand on the beta and see how it runs on your rig first, then see if any upgrades are needed.



yes you right, i will wait for the game to come. But still i am sure that if i buy and cheap crossfire motherboard + cheap dd3 ram and one more cheap 6850. i would get an huge and cheap performance increase?
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Homebuilt system Expert

A new board with the same old chip and ram would not provide any improvment. Your system is pretty fast. As long as you got 64bit windows I would recomend trying to get your hands on 4x2gb of ddr2 800 and saving the rest of your pennies for the future update.

bucknutty said:
A new board with the same old chip and ram would not provide any improvment. Your system is pretty fast. As long as you got 64bit windows I would recomend trying to get your hands on 4x2gb of ddr2 800 and saving the rest of your pennies for the future update.



yes am using 64 bit.

But does it pay off to invest 330 bucks on motherboard, ram, gpu to get crossfire?

330bucks in denmark we pay 25 % tax on producs. and salary its higher.
Homebuilt system Expert

heuritisk said:
Fast question:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=970 Extreme3&cat=Specifications

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=990FX%20Ext...

price different in my area is 35 dollars.

if i buy the 990fx i get 3-way crossfire and sli option. and 990fx better the 970 chip?

why i should not: i probably only use 2 way crossfire my powersuply would not support 3way? too exspensive 3 way... since i need to buy an faster CPU.


The 990fx chipset is the top of the line. However it isn't going to make your system any faster...

Crossfire/SLI is not going to help you. Your system is actually quite well balanced as it is. Your bottleneck would be in the graphics if you have a bottleneck at all.

Adding a second 6850 would not give a noticeable improvement to your gameplay. Issues with microstuttering would be apparent at this level with a xfire setup.

The biggest improvement you could make would be to sell the 6850 and get a Radeon 7850 or a GTX 560 Ti. Diablo 3 like all Blizzard Games runs best on a single GPU with an Nvidia chip.

pacioli said:


The biggest improvement you could make would be to sell the 6850 and get a Radeon 7850 or a GTX 560 Ti. Diablo 3 like all Blizzard Games runs best on a single GPU with an Nvidia chip.



the 7850 sounds like an good option. its 3 tier higher then my 6850. So its meets the recommend upgrade on the charts.

question is: i know that many games donst need more CPU power then the level of my CPU +. But will my CPU use the power of 7850?

My the recommended speccs its seems that diablo its very well balanced.

Maybe am just too worry and its totally overkill to buy 7850. But still am using 1920x1080 resolution.

and "only" spending money on one upgrade item like 7850 seems cheap. and simpel until later on when i get and strong upgrade like i5-2500 power later on.

The reason why i was interested in an motherboard+new ram combination was that i notice an really good increase in FPS shogun benchmark.

I cannot remember the mumbers but it was like 10-15++ fps more if i did:

run my ram at 533 mhz 1066 DDr2 instead 400 mhz. am just afraid that i migt burn the old ram. it should be able to run 533 but dont want to push my luck.

from that experience am pretty sure if i buy and cheap ashrock with 2 way crossfire and a cheap pair like 8gb ram or maybe even 16gb? (if i ever use so much). Then i conclude that i would get an very noticeable increase in performance and better usage of my GPU.

Am not interested in overblock btw... i just want and stable rig. not saying oc cant be stable. i just want my hardware to live long.

my question is:

if i buy an ASRock 970 Extreme3 or ASRock 990FX Extreme3 with some decent DDR3 ram.... how much/fast Ram MHZ settings would be recommended?
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