Upgrading...

[pikeh]

Hey guys

Built my current PC about 4 or so years ago. Its still running proper smooth for its age (I reckon anyway!) but I don't think it would be too long until I'm going to need to upgrade.
The thing is, have I left it too long to upgrade seperate parts, meaning I'll have to shell out for a new system entirely? If not, what would you guys replace/add first?

Asus P4QE Mobo
Intel 3.0ghz Core 2 Duo E8400
4 Gig Ram (DDR2)
Radeon 4850
Samsung HD502IJ ATA (~500 gig - Showing as lowest subscore on that windows score thingy)

Don't really want to shell out for an entire system, would rather replace the worst parts (I'm thinking GFX/Hard Disk) and upgrade the rest in stages.

Cheers mates!

 

[caLLous]

I wouldn't lose any sleep over the hard drive score; it's not possible to get higher than 5.9 without an SSD.

 

[pikeh]

The Mobo is a P5Q-E btw

Cheers Callous, I guess thats kind of a 'money-no-object' upgrade for most?

In that case, my processor and ram are due an upgrade, if that score means much? Got a cool Arctic cooling thing on my processor btw!

 

[Kryten]

You can start with a base upgrade (motherboard/proc/ram) upgrade easily enough - for instance an i5 2500k and mobo and 8gb of DDR3 (which is pennies these days) will be around £250. Existing hdd and gpu etc will work finem, then you can upgrade those as and when you need.

 

[pikeh]

You can start with a base upgrade (motherboard/proc/ram) upgrade easily enough - for instance an i5 2500k and mobo and 8gb of DDR3 (which is pennies these days) will be around £250. Existing hdd and gpu etc will work finem, then you can upgrade those as and when you need.

Cheers Kryten, Think thats just around the amount I really wanted to spend as well.

So If I got more ram, would I be able to chuck my current 4gig on as well or would the combo of DDR2/3 be 'sploding?

Would I also be able to re-use the processor cooling system as well? it was cheap as chips but I really like it.

 

[Kryten]

No, DDR2 and 3 are very different beasts and won't fit in eachothers holes

Besides which if you have a decent amount of DDR2 you can sell it for a decent amount as prices for that have risen. You'll still get a decent whack for the core2 and mobo too. Still running a Core2Quad 6600, 8gb DDR2 on a P5K here and that's doing very well; I'm just trying to scrounge enough funds to go up to an Core i series system.

 

[Killswitch]

Cheers Callous, I guess thats kind of a 'money-no-object' upgrade for most?

I think it's actually been shown by several people (including the mighty Jeff Atwood) that an SSD is the most cost-effective and game-changing upgrade you can make to any system. I'd add a caveat that it depends someone on workload so if you're a hardcore gamer or doing rendering or OpenCL work, you might be better off pimping your GPU. For most things though like general use, work, picture/video editing, music, software development, web development and so on, an SSD will give performance increases with bang-per-buck well ahead of CPU/RAM/GPU upgrades.

They're actually getting down past "hobbyist affordable" down to "consumer affordable" but still not in the realms of "student affordable" just yet.

 

[MYstIC G]

No, DDR2 and 3 are very different beasts and won't fit in eachothers holes

Besides which if you have a decent amount of DDR2 you can sell it for a decent amount as prices for that have risen. You'll still get a decent whack for the core2 and mobo too. Still running a Core2Quad 6600, 8gb DDR2 on a P5K here and that's doing very well; I'm just trying to scrounge enough funds to go up to an Core i series system.

Ditto. I see no point moving atm as my box, even with its nvidia 8800, still handles everything thrown at it with ease. I'll be sitting pretty till we get some decent 8 core processors (6 seems a pointless step to me) and I can get 16 or 32gb or ram running. Then I'm moving to Linux as well but that's something else.

 

[throdgrain]

I changed recently from a Dual Core 6600 clocked at 3.0 gig to an i7/mobo/ram and the difference is massive.

For a start, I can actually play Black Ops

 

[MYstIC G]

Don't get me wrong I know the performance gains are there, I just can't justify it to myself at the moment as it's not a big enough leap for me. My current box is circa 5 years old and I remember having old boxes that would melt if you tried to run excel, let alone anything 3D on them

It also might be that I can't exactly buy another Mesh computer, lol.