Help with Upgrade

K

KockM

New Member
My system specs are listed below, but I was wondering what would be the biggest impact on my system for gaming? Getting a faster CPU, more ram, or another 8800 GTX in SLI? If its the CPU which should I get if thats the best improvement? My budget is about $500.

Dell XPS 710
Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz
3gb Ram 667Mhz
Geforce 8800 GTX 768mb
Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Gaming Sound Card
I think a 750 Watt Power Supply
 
Get a new CPU. Your video card and ram are good.

Oh, and reformat and use XP!

I'm just joking, sort of, everyone around here knows I hate Vista.
 
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Yeah lol I have thought about going to XP, but I like Vista's look and feel even though it hinders some performance. Besides that point though, is it worth upgrading the CPU though if you only have $500 to work with. Will going from a E6600 to a Q6600 2.4Ghz do much if not, which should I get if not?
 
I would say the only thing you need to, or should change is the cpu. As far as the e6600 vs the Q6600. Do you run a lot of applications at the same time? If so the quad core might be a better choice.

But... you might go with a E6850. But I think your system is good the way it is. It's not really worth upgrading right now. Wait until the new CPU's come out in a couple of months, then decide if you should upgrade.

You would spend a few hundred for not much of a gain if you upgraded right now.
 
So if spending money on a CPU for little increase is not a good idea would buying a second 8800 GTX do more for FPS in Games? (I only run my music while playing games on this machine when I am multi-tasking.)
 
It's generally the consensus around here that SLI is pretty much worthless. Or at least not worth the money. With that card you have now, you should be able to run anything out right now, and at the highest settings. I don't think you would get much out of buying another card for SLI. It's just not worth it. At least to me.

I would be very happy to have the system you have. And I would be for a year at least.

Id say save your money, or spend it on your GF/wife for Christmas!
 
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Alright thank you. I am just getting worried since the Crysis Single-Player Demo ran so poorly and had to run it on High Settings instead of Very High with no Anti-Aliasing to achieve a decent FPS. My native resolution is 1680x1050 though so that doesn't help. Not like I should be complaining giving how nice of a system this is, but I expected that a system like this would be able to handle it no problem. Thank you for the input.
 
Crysis is one of those games that sets the bar for all future games. The only thing that will run that on the highest settings with full AA and everything else is the 8800ultra.

Very few games will be coming out in the short term future that will need those specs to run at max settings.

If you insist on running it at full max, then you could get another 8800 gtx and run Sli. But you want to spend that kind of money just to run a game? Ok, it's up to you.

And, that was a demo, drivers will probably be coming out to work with that game from all of the manufactures. So FPS will probably climb at that time as well. Plus, since it is a demo, the game will run better at full release, we hope!
 
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chupacabra said:
If i were you i'd probably get a Q6600 and new ram, cuz the one that dells throws in sucks balls
Click to expand...


I looked at the ram, but I could find no documentation if it could be increased to 800mhz ram or even if it would be worth replacing 3 gigs of that 667 ram.

The Q6600 is just not much of a step up from the E6600 except for the Quad core part. And since there is nothing out there that needs quad cores yet, to me it would not be worth the money.
 
The only problem I have had with this computer is the ram and thats because it has to take a certain type of ram according to Dell. So instead of giving them more money I just bought it straight from Kingston and went from 2gb to 3gb. It is assuring though that you say that future games won't be issue except Crysis because I was under the impression all games would be like that. Thats what I was worried about and not just that one game. I overclock my computer with nTune and it makes the ram run at 812Mhz or something odd and the CPU at 2.95Ghz, which is an obvious improvement. The only issue is when I load profiles on nTune, if you know anything about it, is that it blue screens my computer 75% of the time. I did the safe 3 Hour Test to find the safest settings and thats what I get. Is there a way to overclock permenantly? Dell's Bios are a pain in the #@!$.... I had to enable overclocking in it and it only allows programs on the desktop to change it and not through bios.
 
Nope. Dell's suck at overclocking, you probably raise it too fast and not enough voltage... I dunno if the PSU can even hold ocing.
 
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