Hello, I'm looking to get some new parts for myself this holiday season to upgrade my desktop. If you could help me decide on some issues and give me advice that would be great.
Right now I have these parts in a really old case (not sure of the brand)
ASUS M5A88-V EVO mobo
AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 ghz cpu cooled with a nice Zalman cooler
2 x 4gb of G.SKILL Ripjaws 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 RAM
Seagate Barracuda Green ST1500DL003 1.5TB 5900 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hd
DIAMOND 6950PE51G Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit PCI Express 2.1 x16
Asus Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound card (Excellent sound card for hifi headphones)
All powered by a CORSAIR HX850 850W PSU
I've decided that the video card definitely needs replacing. I'm looking at something with more than 1gb of video memory that should have no problem running Skyrim/Bf3/Cs Go/Far Cry 3 etc at max in 1920x1080. The card I have now is suitable for most games I play but I cannot run Bf3 at max with playable fps and Skyrim suffers some slowdown in large areas especially with heaps of texture/visual mods installed.
From what I understand PCI exp. 3 is backwards compatible in 2.0/2.1 slots so I've considered getting one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418
I desperately need a new case as well since my current one is terrible in air flow design and lets quite a bit of sound leak (which is bad for music/games with my open back headphones.) I will be picking up a Corsair 550D which should keep the noise down and also provide much better airflow. (I'll be picking up a few extra case fans to fill all the spots on the case as well.) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139012
My current mobo is okay but I'm wondering if my sometimes frequent hard shutdowns are the cause of it. I've read reports of my current mobo having trouble regulating voltage. I can easily overclock my cpu with it and be relatively stable but these shutdowns still occur so I have not overclocked it recently. It could also be the bios? But for now I'm contemplating replacing the mobo with this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131876
It should give some more room for my new video card and sound card and potentially enough room for another GPU in xfire down the line.
As far as my CPU goes I'm not sure if I should upgrade that. With the new mobo and case, overclocking should be even easier and more stable and I've been content with my cpu speed. I looked at some more recent AMD cpus and considered some of the FX line but according to reviews they are terrible at power management and their performance in games is quite sad. Is there a more recent, well rated AMD cpu that would give me a noticeable performance increase in games and computing?
Speaking of power management, I'm unsure if my PSU needs replacing. An 850 watt modular PSU should have no problem running all of these parts along with a sound card and more case fans right? If I do end up running 2 Gpus in xfire would 850 watts still be enough?
And lastly regarding RAM would an increase to 16 gb of RAM be worthwhile? The exact RAM I have in my pc now is very cheap currently so it would be an easy upgrade. I've heard that the differences in RAM speed in games and most applications is marginal, is this true or would it be worth getting RAM faster than 1333 MHz?
Right now I have these parts in a really old case (not sure of the brand)
ASUS M5A88-V EVO mobo
AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 ghz cpu cooled with a nice Zalman cooler
2 x 4gb of G.SKILL Ripjaws 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 RAM
Seagate Barracuda Green ST1500DL003 1.5TB 5900 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hd
DIAMOND 6950PE51G Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit PCI Express 2.1 x16
Asus Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound card (Excellent sound card for hifi headphones)
All powered by a CORSAIR HX850 850W PSU
I've decided that the video card definitely needs replacing. I'm looking at something with more than 1gb of video memory that should have no problem running Skyrim/Bf3/Cs Go/Far Cry 3 etc at max in 1920x1080. The card I have now is suitable for most games I play but I cannot run Bf3 at max with playable fps and Skyrim suffers some slowdown in large areas especially with heaps of texture/visual mods installed.
From what I understand PCI exp. 3 is backwards compatible in 2.0/2.1 slots so I've considered getting one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125418
I desperately need a new case as well since my current one is terrible in air flow design and lets quite a bit of sound leak (which is bad for music/games with my open back headphones.) I will be picking up a Corsair 550D which should keep the noise down and also provide much better airflow. (I'll be picking up a few extra case fans to fill all the spots on the case as well.) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139012
My current mobo is okay but I'm wondering if my sometimes frequent hard shutdowns are the cause of it. I've read reports of my current mobo having trouble regulating voltage. I can easily overclock my cpu with it and be relatively stable but these shutdowns still occur so I have not overclocked it recently. It could also be the bios? But for now I'm contemplating replacing the mobo with this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131876
It should give some more room for my new video card and sound card and potentially enough room for another GPU in xfire down the line.
As far as my CPU goes I'm not sure if I should upgrade that. With the new mobo and case, overclocking should be even easier and more stable and I've been content with my cpu speed. I looked at some more recent AMD cpus and considered some of the FX line but according to reviews they are terrible at power management and their performance in games is quite sad. Is there a more recent, well rated AMD cpu that would give me a noticeable performance increase in games and computing?
Speaking of power management, I'm unsure if my PSU needs replacing. An 850 watt modular PSU should have no problem running all of these parts along with a sound card and more case fans right? If I do end up running 2 Gpus in xfire would 850 watts still be enough?
And lastly regarding RAM would an increase to 16 gb of RAM be worthwhile? The exact RAM I have in my pc now is very cheap currently so it would be an easy upgrade. I've heard that the differences in RAM speed in games and most applications is marginal, is this true or would it be worth getting RAM faster than 1333 MHz?
