Help tweaking my system

robfosters

Prominent Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2007
Messages
2,176
Reaction score
223
Points
663
Age
43
Fellas,

I nearly bought a new PC, had all the specs and everything. But then I was thinking whether or not it might be wiser for me to upgrade my current system.

My main specs are Q6600, 2GB RAM and 8800GTS 512. I like playing games like Total War and FSX. This system runs them OK, but I could do with an extra few FPS. Well, quite a lot extra tbh.

Anyways, I was thinking of the following:

Overcoming my fear of OC'ing and clocking the Q6600 to 3.2ghz and getting a high end cooler.

Upgrading to 4GBG Ram, although i'm only using 32bit vista, so dont know if that would be much of a benefit.

Switching the graphics card to a Radeon 5770 or GTX460. Is the 460 a lot better?

Adding a SSD.

What do you reckon? That should cost about £240 in all. Worth it or should I just bung the money towards a new i7 system?

Also, if my info is correct, my corsair HX620, the new cooler and the SSD will all fit nicely into a new i7 setup down the line. I believe 775 and 1366 sockets have the same fixings.
 
Last edited:
The 8800GTS is essentially the same card as the GTS 250 so the 5770 at least should have plenty of direct comparisons in reviews.

Intel are brining out a new architecture with a new socket in January (sandy bridge and LGA 1155) so I wouldn't count on cooler compatibility.
 
What screen resolution are you running at and what is the CPU utilisation when gaming (i.e. task manager in the background)?

If you're running at Full HD and CPU utilisation (on any one core) isn't at 100% then it would make sense to upgrade your graphics card to a 460 or HD 6870 which you could then carry over to your next system.

If CPU is persistently at 100% when framerates are low, you are CPU not GPU bound. You may get a mild overclock on your current CPU cooler if your temperatures are OK under load (I use prime 95 to stress and speedfan to monitor temperatures). If it's running hot at 100% load (>65C) then try increasing front to back airflow through your case. A 12cm fan front and back need not break then bank and can be carried over to any new system.
 
Right, the 460 it is then. Seems a very good card for the price. The 5770 would not seem like a great leap forward. Also, although I am running at 1650 x 1050 now, I will soon be wanting to run at 1920 x 1080 on a new sammy LCD.

I may skip i7 altogether TBH. If I get the 460, I may even get another one and sli them in a sandybridge rig. Although I probably would need another psu to run that.

Would 2 x 460s beat 1 580?
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom