years ago, upon installing Everest i realize my ram is severely bottlenecking my current rig, but was still satisfied with performance, so it went ignored until recent... turns out there's not much RAM upgrading to be done when my current mobo supports only DDR2, and is currently far more expensive than much faster DDR3 because of obsoletism. i'd have to upgrade my mobo to upgrade my RAM. within that, i can't find worthwhile mobo that supports my AM2+ socket CPU, so i add this to my list. my PSU has sub-par wattage for any newer components, and GPU is the last remaining core component, so it gets upgraded, too. the rest are parts i'm fine continuing using(including recently purchased SSD, so no bottleneck there), especially considering i've got a ~$400 budget to work with.
Approximate Purchase Date: very soon, within next week
Budget Range: $450 maximum, shipped
System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: GPU, CPU, PSU, RAM, mobo (my OCZ Vertex 3 SSD should continue to be solid for gaming as it has been, and have plenty of older SATA HDD auxiliary space)
Do you need to buy OS: No
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Parts Preferences: none
Overclocking: very likely once cooling is upgraded later
SLI or Crossfire: not likely
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
Additional Comments: the only thing that matters to me for this build is price/power tradeoff. looking for the biggest bang for my limited bucks.
will play anything... racing, (MMO)RPGs, FPS, etc.. currently playing NFS Shift 2, Blur, NFS MW, Darksiders 2, DmC
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: it's time. currently using:
Phenom X4 9550@stock 2.2ghz
ASUS M3N-HD/HDMI
4gb worth of random, mismatched sticks of 333-400mhz =\
nV GTS 250
mobo, PSU, CPU
RAM, GPU
the Bluetooth dongle is a necessity as well
after doing much research and price deliberation, i've cut the original ~$500 price tag down to $419. was especially easy after heavily considering what parts could bottleneck, and what parts would be overkill for the rest of the rig. however on other builds i've been seeing, the parts are all sub-$100 except for the GPU which is $160+. is this proportionate to how contemporary builds are? i've been custom building PCs for over a decade now but have been out of the loop in the newest generation of hardware, which leads me to my closing:
i need to know if there will be any foreseeable bottlenecking within the parts i've selected, or if any suggestions can be made to lessen the overall cost/swap for better parts within said budget.
thanks in advance
Approximate Purchase Date: very soon, within next week
Budget Range: $450 maximum, shipped
System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming
Are you buying a monitor: No
Parts to Upgrade: GPU, CPU, PSU, RAM, mobo (my OCZ Vertex 3 SSD should continue to be solid for gaming as it has been, and have plenty of older SATA HDD auxiliary space)
Do you need to buy OS: No
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Parts Preferences: none
Overclocking: very likely once cooling is upgraded later
SLI or Crossfire: not likely
Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
Additional Comments: the only thing that matters to me for this build is price/power tradeoff. looking for the biggest bang for my limited bucks.
will play anything... racing, (MMO)RPGs, FPS, etc.. currently playing NFS Shift 2, Blur, NFS MW, Darksiders 2, DmC
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: it's time. currently using:
Phenom X4 9550@stock 2.2ghz
ASUS M3N-HD/HDMI
4gb worth of random, mismatched sticks of 333-400mhz =\
nV GTS 250
mobo, PSU, CPU
RAM, GPU
the Bluetooth dongle is a necessity as well
after doing much research and price deliberation, i've cut the original ~$500 price tag down to $419. was especially easy after heavily considering what parts could bottleneck, and what parts would be overkill for the rest of the rig. however on other builds i've been seeing, the parts are all sub-$100 except for the GPU which is $160+. is this proportionate to how contemporary builds are? i've been custom building PCs for over a decade now but have been out of the loop in the newest generation of hardware, which leads me to my closing:
i need to know if there will be any foreseeable bottlenecking within the parts i've selected, or if any suggestions can be made to lessen the overall cost/swap for better parts within said budget.
thanks in advance