Advice on my old PC upgrades or is too old?

[Aada]

AMD Phenom 9650 Quad Core 2.30GHZ
M3A32-MVP Deluxe
4GB RAM PC2-6400
Seagate Barracuda 7200 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200RPM 16MB CACHE Perpendicular Recording -Bare Drive
Asus GTX550ti 1GB

Could any of you PC tech heads advise me on if my CPU is too weak for the GFX card it seems i can only have DDR2 RAM if i upgrade that, from the reviews of my HDD it's shit.

Pretty depressed tbh i upgraded the graphics card yesterday and it's not running too great if i'm honest, can i squeeze a couple more years out of this or is it time to buy a new PC?

 

[Bahumat]

I'm not familiar with that cpu and I'm on my phone so can't research it. I would save your money and buy a new mobo, CPU and ram. Spend the extra £10 for a nice heatsink and if you can spare it, a new hard drive for your OS. You could have a ssd if budget permits and the other drive for storage etc.

 

[Aada]

Well i would probably just look into buying a new system tbh rip out this graphics card and put it in a new one i was looking at

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-210-OK

What do you think to that system?

 

[Scouse]

I can't think of a game that won't run well on a quad core AMD at the moment. PC graphics have stagnated for years now

 

[Aada]

I can't think of a game that won't run well on a quad core AMD at the moment. PC graphics have stagnated for years now

Upgrading to 8GB ram on this old PC will set me back £130 ;/

 

[Scouse]

Upgrading to 8GB ram on this old PC will set me back £130 ;/

Can't think of a game that would require more than a couple of gig of ram - 4Gb is plenty for the O/S and the game with loads to spare.

Eg. - I ran ME3 and Diablo3 last night with alt-tab action going on nicely on a triple-core phenom and a 256meg Radeon 4850 with 4Gb RAM - and it ran fine.

You want speed? Get yourself an SSD.

 

[Aada]

Its probably just Diablo then that ain't optimised great looking at forums it varies wildly on mega systems too.

If I crank up shadows it turns into a fucking slide show ;(

 

[Bahumat]

When you mention 8gb, do you mean your current machine? Only I thought it best to ask if it's 64 bit windows as 32 bit will only see 3.x

 

[Keitanz]

I can't think of a game that won't run well on a quad core AMD at the moment. PC graphics have stagnated for years now

Consoles fault a lot though.. but tbh pc graphics have come on a lot over the past 18months.. what with BF3 etc..

You definitely need at least 8gb of ram nowadays if you're gaming on a PC and you want other shit open at the same time like a browser and skype... you can get by with 4gb but I'd recommend getting 8 if you can! wouldn't do it if it cost over £100 tho.

 

[Aada]

When you mention 8gb, do you mean your current machine? Only I thought it best to ask if it's 64 bit windows as 32 bit will only see 3.x

The machine I posted on my topic post yes mate it only has 4gb if I wanted to upgrade to 8gb it looks expensive compared to DDR3.

 

[Poag]

Its one of those things. If you upgrade your current setup with more ram, you'll be getting DDR2 ram. When you come to upgrade to a newer cpu you'll have to throw out the ram you buy now for new stuff.


Its one of those things (specifically CPU mobo and RAM) where its better to do them all at once, buy over what you probably need then leave it for 3-4 years before upgrading them again.

GPUs are (currently) the main limiting factor in most games, and how quickly you can bus data from ram to the gpu. CPUs need to be speedy, but having the latest and greatest isn't as big'er upgrade as a new GPU would be.

Unless, you have a shitty bus/ram speed in which case the gpu will be sitting idle while textures transfer...for example.

Of course tho you have a fairly recent gpu (550ti) but a fairly slow ram speed (6400).
If you can fit DDR3 into your mobo do so, that'll give you a decent performance/cost upgrade.

If not, splash £300 and get a new mobo, cpu and ram in a bundle


Or alternatively, £230
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-085-OE

 

[MYstIC G]

Well i would probably just look into buying a new system tbh rip out this graphics card and put it in a new one i was looking at

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-210-OK

What do you think to that system?

AMD still isn't the chipset to go for mate. Intel have just released the revisions so things like the (i believe its called) i5-2500k should be seeing a price drop at the moment and give more bang for the buck than the AMD equivalents.

 

[Raven]

As above, there isn't a lot you can do left to upgrade thats worth it. As you have the graphics card a barebones machine without a graphics card would be ideal.

I wouldn't bother with the one you have posted though, seems a lot of money for not a lot of machine. I will have a look later on.

 

[Aada]

Cheers, i don't want a top of the line PC just something that will play MMO's as that is all the PC gets used for by the wife it has to be pre-built also please

This is the next thing up on Overclockers

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-213-OE

Extra £20 gets me 8GB RAM.

 

[Poag]

If you want something prebuilt, get a Dell.

people may laugh but the support on the home stuff isn't that bad and they do build some (fairly) good PCs.

I would still advise you to build your own, but if your hearts set....

Or here
http://3xs.scan.co.uk/Category.asp?SystemMasterCategoryID=39

 

[Aada]

If you want something prebuilt, get a Dell.

people may laugh but the support on the home stuff isn't that bad and they do build some (fairly) good PCs.

I would still advise you to build your own, but if your hearts set....

Or here
http://3xs.scan.co.uk/Category.asp?SystemMasterCategoryID=39

You recommend Scan?

 

[MYstIC G]

Cheers, i don't want a top of the line PC just something that will play MMO's as that is all the PC gets used for by the wife it has to be pre-built also please

This is the next thing up on Overclockers

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-213-OE

Extra £20 gets me 8GB RAM.

Out of the two you've posted, that gets my vote.

 

[Aada]

I think i'm gonna go with that will have a look round first but that's stuck in my head now.

 

[Poag]

You recommend Scan?

Not overly, i've never bought a prebuilt PC in my life so have little idea wheres better.

They are relatively inexpensive, appear to have decent components. As for build quality, no idea.....

That's why i only buy "Prime Pog Pc's" made from the finest cuts of PC components and hand assembled by a certified nut case.
Yes building your own PC maybe be more fiddly. But it'll always cost you less and you'll probably be able to upgrade it in the future.

 

[Access Denied]

Building your own PC is something I highly recommend every does. These days it's not so daunting either. Pretty much everything is labelled as to where on the mobo it goes. Plus, as Poag said, it'll be miles cheaper than buying pre-built.

 

[Poag]

Just to res this thread.

OCUK do PCs to order now, not too costly either.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_int.php?prodid=FS-291-OK

 

[MYstIC G]

May have to have a play with that one, see what can be thunk up for an upgrade. Nice one Poag

 

[Moriath]

last pc i got was from here

http://www.cougar-extreme.co.uk/

had a few little niggles but they were very good customer service which shows you more imo ..

 

[cHodAX]

Building your own PC is something I highly recommend every does. These days it's not so daunting either. Pretty much everything is labelled as to where on the mobo it goes. Plus, as Poag said, it'll be miles cheaper than buying pre-built.

It's electronic lego, even a young kid could put a rig together with a little practice.

 

[Wij]

AMD still isn't the chipset to go for mate. Intel have just released the revisions so things like the (i believe its called) i5-2500k should be seeing a price drop at the moment and give more bang for the buck than the AMD equivalents.

Just put a 2500k with new mobo and memory in mine

SSD on order too. Diablo III will get played soon!

 

[MYstIC G]

How much did that set ya back?

 

[caLLous]

I just upgraded mine a few weeks ago, i7 3770k and new RAM and mobo. It's blisssssssssssss.

 

[BloodOmen]

SSD is prob the best purchase i've ever made in terms of speed increase, just can't put into words how fast games load and what not now, only downside is the limited HD size and not being able to defrag them.

 

[Aoami]

I bought a barebones (case, motherboard, ram and cpu) from novatech and was very happy with it. An i7 cpu, 6gb of ram and good motherboard set me back around £350 iirc.

 

[Krazeh]

SSD is prob the best purchase i've ever made in terms of speed increase, just can't put into words how fast games load and what not now, only downside is the limited HD size and not being able to defrag them.

Love my new SSD, 120GB so big enough for windows and a couple of games. Only set me back 87 quid and was well worth the money. Altho why is it a downside that you can't defrag them? It'd be a pointless exercise to even try.