Another computer thread by Marty

Hey, what do you guys think of this:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=171152&CatId=4297

This is far from top of the line, but I can reuse all the other parts of my existing computer to save a few bucks and have a good gamer for another year or so.

I don't have any cards in there except my video card, so lack of expansion isn't an issue.


What I'm replacing:
- AMD 5000+ BE dual core @2.8GHz
- Biostar TF570SLI

What I'm keeping:
- power supply (600ish watts i think)
- XFX nVidia 260/216
- 2x 2GB DDR2 dual channel OCZ Platinum 4-4-4-15 I think
- a few SATA and SATA2 HDD's
- processor heat sink
- IDE optical drives

What I'm hoping to gain:
- a processor with more cache
- a PCI-e slot that is twice the speed as my old one, and will give me better performance.


I dont have to stick to this mobo/cpu combo, but I wold prefer to stick with AMD processor that at stock speeds will keep my ram at 800MHz.

ncix.com or tigerdirect is where I'll most likely order from. Should take me about a month to save up the ~$200 to do so, provided I stay away from smokes and beer. I should be able to sell the old for about $100.

Worth my time and money, or should I just find $2000 and go all out? (think realastically, i'm kinda broke).

If you think this upgrade will stop me from owning you, you're wrong.

If you plan on buying Brink, you may want to wait until you know the hardware requirments for it.

How long are your trying to make the system last? If you upgrade the MB and CPU, what will be the bottleneck (memory/HD/Video) in the system? Will you also want to upgrade that next? Is this the MB and CPU you want to build your next system on?

yeah those are the questions i'm asking myself. it's either change those two things, which wouldn't be a bottle neck, but any further upgrade would be a whole new system.

It's actually from the shitty performance i got form black ops yesterday.

Brink Reqs:

Minimum Specs

* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or equivalent
* Memory: 2GB RAM
* Graphics: NVIDIA 8800GS / ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro or equivalent
* OS: Windows XP (SP3)/Vista/Windows 7
* Hard Drive: 8GB of free space

Recommended Specs

* Processor: Intel Quad Core i5
* Memory: 3GB RAM
* Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 / ATI Radeon™ HD 5850
* OS: Windows XP (SP3)/Vista/Windows 7
* Hard Drive: 8GB of free space

Do yourself a favor and skip the patchwork up grade ie: going to an am2+ socket so you can save your ram. It's just another stop gap for maybe a year.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128469
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145278
My wife has Athlon II x4 and it does quite well.
Yes the cpu isn't a Phenom with more cache but everything is more current socket and ram wise. Unless you are some serious apps, you probably dont need the Phenom. If you are doing it to save money, there are better ways then recycling DDR2 ram. Drop down to a 2 core cpu until you can afford x4 Phenom.
Maximize your possiblities for upgrading after the one you currently thinking of, though micro boards can be limiting as well. But in the end it's your money.

woah woah woah, I thought that motherboard was AM3? Or is the socket on these things defined by the memory(bridge?)?

I know AM2, AM2+ and AM3 are physically the same, and backwards compatible. this is why i hate computer hardware now. Way too many "gotcha!'s" now

Am2 am2+ and am3 are compatible with each other . An Am3 socket only uses DDR3, the others use DDR 2.
Look at this M/B it uses DDR2 with AM2 and AM2+ or DDR3 with an AM3 cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157226
The combo you showed is AM2+ m/b and cpu. Though the CPU looks like it was released in 2009 and is may not be in production anymore.
Take all my info with a grain of salt, it's just an opinion to maybe help deciding. In all honesty, I would go the DDR3 route. Everything else can be upgraded as needed. I personally will be going the AM3 route (when I get some money) since I have an AM3 M/B from an RMA and had to buy a new one before RMA.

So something along the lines of this:
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=55820
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=54791
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=56116

Pretty much a half decent mobo, a lower than mid cpu and crappy ram. the ram and CPU I can upgrade as I go, as like you pointed out, i'm pretty much at a plateau with what I have right now as far as upgradeabality is concerned.

I should be able to sell my existing stuff for close to $100.

wait.. i dont need to switch processors yet..

All that stuff looks pretty good, though to help maximize your gains, do dual channel memory. For a few dollars more
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33653&vpn=TW3X4G1333C9&manufacture=Corsair
or
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=55546&vpn=996768&manufacture=Mushkin%20Enhanced
Also if you flash the bios on an MSI m/b, don't use the in OS live update thing. It ruined the one my wife's and is the one I had to RMA'd

yeah, I did some reading on that chipset. It's not the best, but its not bad either.
now here is what i'm thinking an still be under a $200 budget:

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=55820
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=51810 (2x)

The only reason I went with 1600 RAM is because i'm not sure how the speed of that stuff is now controlled. Some sources say it's independant, some just say grab the fastest the mobo will support, blah blah blah. I dont know what processor i'll get either, so the extra buffer may be good. And its only ~$5 the difference.

Looks good to me. Then when you can afford another vid card it looks like it has 2 pci express slots, you might be able to put old card in and use it for PhysX acceleration. ie offload physx to old card. Isn't technology confusing

Thanks for the help.
Gonna start pinching pennies now.

Cloister_the_Stupid wrote:

........you might be able to put old card in and use it for PhysX acceleration. ie offload physx to old card. Isn't technology confusing

Not all Nvidia cards can paired for this Graphics/PhysX acceleration. Research first before buy.

yyyyy[Maverick]yyyyy wrote:

Cloister_the_Stupid wrote:

........you might be able to put old card in and use it for PhysX acceleration. ie offload physx to old card. Isn't technology confusing

Not all Nvidia cards can paired for this Graphics/PhysX acceleration. Research first before buy.

This one can. no reason why a new nVidia one wouldn't be able to.

yyyyy[Maverick]yyyyy wrote:

Cloister_the_Stupid wrote:

........you might be able to put old card in and use it for PhysX acceleration. ie offload physx to old card. Isn't technology confusing

Not all Nvidia cards can paired for this Graphics/PhysX acceleration. Research first before buy.

See the word "might" ? It means possible, I didn't scroll back up to check 100%. But seeing as he has a GTX 260 it is. So please check to if his is before posting that. Thank you.

"Only Geforce 8 and above class cards can be used for PhysX. If you are just using a second card for PhysX your motherboard does not have to be approved for SLI."
That's quite a bit of cards there, as long as it has 32 cores and min 256 ram.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_gpus.html
I may have stupid in my name, but I ain't that stupid. It was thrown out as a suggestion to be fun nothing more.

Rather than 2 sets of 4 gigs, I'm thinking of 1 set of 8 gig, that way i can buy a matching set in a few months for 16 gigs. something like this:
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=54963&vpn=996776&manufacture=Mushkin%20Enhanced

any ideas?

You mean 2 sets of dual channel? If so, should work. Though what is your plan for all that memory? Video editing, graphic/photo editing? Or just gaming or just because? You see any benefits playing games. Though you could create a ram disk and put your swap file on it. Or maybe even try a game installed on it, though you'd loose everything once you restart/shut off computer. I'll have to find the link on ram drives later, I'm outside with dogs now. :-/

I don't have a plan for 16 gigs, but it's a nice-to-be-able to if I wanted. 2 sets of 4 gigs is the same price as 1 set of 8 gigs.

Think of all the porn I can render with 16 gigs!

May want to look through this.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778.html

ok good link to tom's.

Another question for ya. SLI is nVidia, Crossfire is AMD. Can you run 'SLI' with a nvidia card on a crossfire motherboard and have dual monitor support? does physX work?

What I've read so far about sli on an amd chipset is that you have to use a hacked driver or something like that. http://xdevs.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.30
Not sure about Physx.
or http://www.tomshardware.com/news/SLI-990FX-990X-970-chipset-9-series,12664.html

Jesus fuck.

Remember when AMD chips working with nvidia cards was all the rage, and actually worked better than the bloated ATI and intel ones?

So I might as well scratch any plan with AMD + my existing card + another card for now.

Ya, you may want to stick with an nvidia chipset if you to do sli later.
Nvidia will work on amd chipsets (for the most part) unless you sli.

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=53567&vpn=M4N75TD&manufacture=ASUS
That seems to be one of the cheapest SLI's on ncix. I'll see what tigerdirect says when I get home, but i hate dealing with them.