Some advice needed.

A

acelenny

Member
I am currently looking to upgrade my desktop computer to allow it to handle the latest games and those which will come out in the next year or longer. At the moment I have:

Motherboard: IP35 PRO(P35+ICH9R)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06ghz
RAM: 4 gb of DDR2
GPU: AMD Radeon 5830 (I think)
HDD: ATA 500gb

Now, this can play most current games on max settings (excluding anti-aliasing) but recently it has started to struggle. I know for a fact that the motherboard needs upgrading before I can do anything to the processor which I was thinking of upgrading to an i5. The GPU is fine for now but upgrade suggestions would be appreciated as I will get rounf to that eventually.

Money is not really an issue however I will not be spending ridiculous amount of money on this (so sadly not 500 pound i7s for me).

ANy thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I would probably recommend building a new PC from scratch.
But if you can find another HD 5830, you could buy RAM, PSU, CPU and mobo and crossfire them. Would yield decent performance.
The main bottleneck is your dual core and DDR2 RAM I would say.

Depending on your budget, I see a few routes.
AMD Athlon 760K + FM2/FM2+ mobo + 8GB 1600MHz RAM
AMD FX-6300 + Gigabyte 970A-UD3 + same RAM
Intel i5-4430 + H87 mobo + same RAM

these are all quad cores (FX-6300 is six core) and represent good value usually.
 
Probably should have put this in before, my budget would probably be around 200 pounds for a processor, maybe more.
 
What is your overall budget?

If it is £200 for CPU only, i5-4670K is the way to go.
 
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I'm intending for this to be an ongoing thing. I am good to spend about 200 or maybe a little more on a CPU, but I will also need a new motherboard for that but that can be separate. I don't really have an overall budget though so go mad with suggestions, I am just not going to spend over 300 pounds on one item.
 
If you are going to change CPU, you will need new CPU, mobo, RAM, HDD and possibly new OS. So it would be ~£400

What PSU have you got?
If you want to upgrade your PC, I suggest first get a SATAIII HDD. Get a new GPU or get another 5830 if your PSU can support. These would cost you £120 - 250.

Then save another £350 to get new CPU, mobo, RAM & OS
 
daisymtc said:
If you are going to change CPU, you will need new CPU, mobo, RAM, HDD and possibly new OS. So it would be ~£400

What PSU have you got?
If you want to upgrade your PC, I suggest first get a SATAIII HDD. Get a new GPU or get another 5830 if your PSU can support. These would cost you £120 - 250.

Then save another £350 to get new CPU, mobo, RAM & OS
Click to expand...

This is why I sought advice before doing anything, I don't know a great deal about computer hardware and didn't build my computer, I bought it off a mate. I have no idea what PSU I have but I'll try to find out. Out of interest, why would you recommend replacing the GPU first? I have found that it is still very adequate.

So, on that basis, amusing money is not a great issue (around 200 pounds for a CPU, more for other things if necessary), what would be recommended in terms of GPU, CPU, Motherboard, etc upgrades (RAM is not an issue).
 
When it comes to hard drives, there is very little difference between SATA II and SATA III. Most hard drives can barely make use of the SATA II interface, let alone the SATA III interface. If your hard drive is fine, you can leave it.

Which Core 2 Duo have you got? You say it's 3.06GHz but that's not enough information. Look in System Properties and see what it says. It should say 'Intel Core 2 Duo Exxxx' (the xxxx being numbers). The reason I ask is that the Core 2 Duo range was quite large and if you have a weaker Core 2 Duo I'd probably recommend replacing that before your GPU, but the stronger Core 2 Duos may be OK with the newer GPUs.

However, I think you'd be best buying a new CPU/board/RAM first before replacing the 5830 - especially if you feel the 5830 is still adequate. I'm using a 5870 and for the most part it's fine. I know the 70 was faster than the 30, but still.

My fear is that if you replace your GPU, your CPU may be bottlenecking it a bit. Whereas a 5830 wouldn't be bottlenecking an i5 too badly, if at all really.

If it is possible, I would suggest buying everything at once though rather than 'bit by bit', just so you are guaranteed to get the latest stuff and you are not bottlenecking anything with older components.

What would your budget be for a new CPU, board, RAM, GPU and possibly power supply?
 
The cpu is: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00GHZ.

Budget is difficult as much of it will come in the form of gifts, altogether at the moment I could probably get at most 400 pounds for a CPU and the other stuff you mentioned. At a push I might be able to get 500 if I saw a better alternative to something on a deal or for just a bit more.

Out of interest, would I need a new OS if I replaced the motherboard or just if I replaced the HDD?
 
You would need a new OS if you replaced the motherboard, yes.

£400-500 for the lot might be alright. Now I know your budget, I would maybe look at spending a bit less than £400 on your CPU/board/RAM and then put the saved money towards a new graphics card and use your 5830 with the new CPU/board/RAM.

I think you should definitely look at upgrading the CPU/board/RAM first though. Your E6850 would be holding back a new GPU I think, whereas I don't think your 5830 would be holding back say an i5 quite as much as an E5850 would be holding back a relatively high-end card.
 
spirit said:
When it comes to hard drives, there is very little difference between SATA II and SATA III. Most hard drives can barely make use of the SATA II interface, let alone the SATA III interface. If your hard drive is fine, you can leave it.
Click to expand...


He got ATA HDD! i.e. IDE Not SATA!
 
BTW, I would suggest you build a new PC instead of 'upgrade' if you got the cash.
I would guess the only thing you can re-use is the case (but new case support usb 3.0)
 
daisymtc said:
He got ATA HDD! i.e. IDE Not SATA!
Click to expand...

He just says 'ATA'. It could be Parallel ATA (ie, IDE), or Serial ATA, which is SATA.

If you've got an IDE HDD, you'll need to replace it, but if it's SATA then you may as well re-use it if it's OK.
 
I don't really know what type of HDD it is, all I know is that it is listed on my computer as being a western digital ATA. I don't have the money to build a new computer from scratch which is why I want to do the CPU, etc first and the GPU later on so that I don't have to scrimp on it. However, if anyone know of a good deal and/or a bundle for a new computer which would beat mine and be a bit future proof i would definitely check it out.

http://www.cclonline.com/product/11...te-Athene-III-Motherboard-Bundle/MBB-EL-ATH3/
 
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Those bundles can be alright, but just make sure you are buying quality parts.

As for your HDD, open up the case and see how it connects.

An IDE cable looks like this:

ide_133_cable.jpg


A SATA cable looks like this:

sata-cables.jpg
 
In that case then you may as well keep it if it's running OK and is fast enough and big enough for you.
 
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