Upgrade Advice

[casualsax]

Hey guys! Back in early 2009, I built my gaming pc with the following specs:

- GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80570E8500

- G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 900(PC2 7200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-7200CL4D-4GBPI-B

- SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

- 1 TB 7200 Western Digital Caviar Black Sata HD


I'm looking to upgrade and spend about $200. My thinking is upgrading the graphics card is the way to go - the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 is on sale right at my budget, and it seems that it would still be powerful enough in a new build in the future.

I'm also toying with the idea of an SSD, now that most of my games are run off my hard drive. What do you guys think?

 

[Chainzsaw]

Hello,

Definitely upgrade your GPU. An SSD will only merely make your computer boot faster/load games faster. It won't do anything for better frames in games.

Although your whole system needs an update if you want to do some modern gaming.

I would go with that 6950 - and transplant that later to a newer system if you are so inclined.

 

[Proximon]

Where is this $200 6950 2GB? Are you talking about this deal?
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689919

That seems like a good upgrade. You also need to overclock that processor if you haven't yet.

 

[Chainzsaw]

What is your powersupply? You might want to make sure it's powerful enough for the 6950.

 

[casualsax]

Where is this $200 6950 2GB? Are you talking about this deal?
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1689919

That seems like a good upgrade. You also need to overclock that processor if you haven't yet.

Yes, that's the update. And good point on the overclocking - now that I'm out of warranty on everything there isn't much risk.

 

[casualsax]

What is your powersupply? You might want to make sure it's powerful enough for the 6950.

OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

Sorry, forgot that part.

 

[Chainzsaw]

OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

Sorry, forgot that part.

Well looks like your ready to rumble! Decent powersupply.

If you do build a new machien in the future - you could reuse that PSU and GPU (if you get it).

 

[Proximon]

You can easily bump the FSB up to 400Mhz there, and probably leave everything on auto. Just watch the CPU temps.

CPU coolers
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
Probably best bet for forward compatibility