re-do of alienware area51

Z

zbo2

New Member
wanting to re-do my son's area51 desktop. he bought it in early 08. i'll give you the specs of that first.
alienware P2 chassis
intel Q9550 cpu, 2.83/1333, 12m 4 core.
nvidea nforce 790i ultra sli motherboard
ati radeon hd4870 x2 2gig gddr5
1000w power supply
4 gigs of ddr3 1033 memory

he's had an ongoing problem with the computer locking up at times while playing some intense games. he changed the video card to a sapphire toxic hd 5870 2gig gddr5 thinking that would solve the probelm but it did not. he, as of late, has been working with some graphics which have been maxing out the 4 gigs of memory. i've read that several people have had problems wiith the motherboard causing lockups when all 4 ram slots are filled. so with the problem with the graphics he needs to put more ram in....and thus with the unit being over 3 years old we figured it was time for a new motherboard and processor. he recently installed windows7 64 bit to help with the graphics stuff.

so what are your suggestions for a motherboard and processor? i'm partial to intel products. also which video card do you think is the better choice to stick with.........he's mostly a gamer. we're thinking that he needs a minium of 8 gigs of ram and he has 4 2gig sticks of ddr3 1600 ram. the chassis is loaded with cooling fans.

i can make my way around a computer but i'm not savy when it comes to picking the best motherboard / processor combo for the best gaming experiance.

thanks for your input!
Joe
 
if your going to change ram on that thing, you will likely need to do a mobo swap...which would require a cpu swap...im thinking your lockups may be due to faulty ram tho...have you ran a memory test on it? also fast ram isnt necessary per say, 1333 is fine...just grab more vs less...i dont see why people will spend 50 bucks on a 4 gig kit of fast ram when they can get 8 gig of 1333 for the same price...but oh well, their money not mine :)
 
well has he ever defragged the thing, normally helps with these things, that system should play games fine though, but if you upgrade mobo then your windows will be useless because it is liscenced to the mobo unless you have a retail copy.
 
yea.......he keeps up with the defraging. he has a retail copy of windows7 and loaded that on and is still having the memory issue with the graphics that he's playing with. it plays the games fine except for the occasional lockup. he's wanting to upgrade the processor and motherboard and kinda 2011 the machine. i was looking at the motherboard and processor below and wondering if this is overkill or futuristic thinking on my part....lol. would that be a waste of money or do you think the games in the next couple of years will be taking advantage of that kind of speed?

A455-3045 ::ASUS Rampage III Black Edition ROG Motherboard - ATX, Socket B (LGA1366), Intel X58 Express, DDR3 2200MHz (O.C.), SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, Killer Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 3.0, SLI/CrossFireX Ready(6.85 lbs)

I69-990X ::Intel Core i7-990X BX80613I7990X Processor Extreme Edition - Six Core, 12MB L3 Cache, 1.5MB L2 Cache, 3.46 GHz (3.73 GHz Max Turbo), Socket B (LGA 1366), 130W, Fan, Retail, Unlocked(1.85 lbs)

or do you have any suggestions?
 
990x is the biggest waste of money possible for a gaming machine, even the i7-2600k which for a third the price is faster than that in gaming and then the i7 is no faster than the i5-2500k which is another 100 cheaper, the best thing to get is an i5-2500k and a gigabyte motherboard with a z68 chiset, look at the ud4 model boards, also grab something like the coolermaster 212 or the antec kuhler or corsair h2o's, then overclock the hell out of the thing. then take some of that left over money if you can afford the 990x and grab something like a gtx570, and you will be maxing everything for at least 2 years probably. but also you could save the money and wait until next year when ivy bridge cpus are out and bulldozer is out next month most likely, so you will have the best of the best for longer than a few months.
 
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