Intel core 2 duo 4400, 4gb ram, radeon hd4650 need upgrade for gaming budget USD270

[Yanuar Lie]

My spec :
Motherboard = Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P rev 1.0
Processor = Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0GHz
Memory = 4GB DDR2 5300
GPU = Digital Alliance Radeon HD4650
OS = Windows 7 Ultimate x86
Resolution Monitor = 1366x768

Need help, i need an upgrade for good gaming experience at 1366x768 with at least medium-high quality with decent frame rate. My budget around $270.
A little note, My mobo doesnt support ddr3.

What graphic & processor that i should use best ?

Edit 1: Raising my budget to $300-$325

 

[jk_ventolero]

With an LGA775 socket, there's not much more you can do about your processor unless you're willing to change change your motherboard. I'm not sure how much overclocking (or not) you can do with that board, but what I can suggest is to overclock it to higher clock speeds and slap in aftermarket cooling.

Now with regards to your GPU, for that resolution, an HD 7770 would suffice for most games at high settings. But you can, of course, get something more robust than that.

 

[Yanuar Lie]

With an LGA775 socket, there's not much more you can do about your processor unless you're willing to change change your motherboard. I'm not sure how much overclocking (or not) you can do with that board, but what I can suggest is to overclock it to higher clock speeds and slap in aftermarket cooling.

Now with regards to your GPU, for that resolution, an HD 7770 would suffice for most games at high settings. But you can, of course, get something more robust than that.

Does my current processor bottleneck HD7770 or should i upgrade my processor as well ?

 

[jk_ventolero]

With an LGA775 socket, there's not much more you can do about your processor unless you're willing to change change your motherboard. I'm not sure how much overclocking (or not) you can do with that board, but what I can suggest is to overclock it to higher clock speeds and slap in aftermarket cooling.

Now with regards to your GPU, for that resolution, an HD 7770 would suffice for most games at high settings. But you can, of course, get something more robust than that.

Does my current processor bottleneck HD7770 or should i upgrade my processor as well ?

With a good overclock, I think it would overcome any bottleneck problems. I just don't suggest buying an LGA775 socket processor as that socket is already dead. If you really want to get a new processor, maybe get a Q6600 (I have the Xeon equivalent of this one, OC's very well) and that would suffice for most games. But I'm not quite sure how much one is worth or if it'll fit your budget along with an HD 7770.

 

[InvalidError]

No need to worry about your current board not supporting DDR3 since there is no CPU worth buying to put on it. If you want to stick with Intel, you may need to stretch your CPU+MoBo+RAM+GPU budget to $350-375.
- i3-3220, $125
- h77-based board, $80
- 8GB DDR3, $50
- HD7750, $110

You can shave $50 by going with one of the low-end Pentiums but at this point, you would be so far down the performance curve that it may not feel a whole lot faster than your current system for general use.

If you can't stretch your budget that far, you might want to consider only upgrading your GPU for now to something like a HD77750 and upgrade the rest later when you can afford to.

Another option to stretch things out would be to try your luck at overclocking your E4400 and see what you can get from that. If you are lucky, you might be able to get ~2.5GHz by simply changing the FSB:RAM ratio and increasing the FSB clock from 200MHz to 266MHz (800MT/s to 1066MT/s) if the motherboard supports that.

 

[Guest]

damn bro, thats a really limiting budget. and im sorry to have to break it to you, but your gonna have to get a new motherboard if you want a new CPU. so youl have to save up a bit more. but for something budget friendly but will play games well, i recommend.:

MOTHERBOARD- Asrock z77 extreme4 LGA 1155 (compatable with sandy bridge and ivy bridge CPU's) - 119.99 $

CPU - Intel core i3-3220 ivy bridge CPU (not overclockable but will turbo up to 3.3 ghz) - 120.57$

GRAPHICS CARD - EVGA GTX 650 TI 2GB (this will play crysis 3 on high at that resolution, i actually owned one of these cards myself. note this is NOT the more expensive 650 ti-boost model, their easily confused) - 144.99$

TOTAL = 385.55$

there you go man thats about the cheapest you could go, while playing most games on high, hope this helps. trust me ive built 3 gaming pc's.

 

[jk_ventolero]

damn bro, thats a really limiting budget. and im sorry to have to break it to you, but your gonna have to get a new motherboard if you want a new CPU. so youl have to save up a bit more. but for something budget friendly but will play games well, i recommend.:

MOTHERBOARD- Asrock z77 extreme4 LGA 1155 (compatable with sandy bridge and ivy bridge CPU's) - 119.99 $

CPU - Intel core i3-3220 ivy bridge CPU (not overclockable but will turbo up to 3.3 ghz) - 120.57$

GRAPHICS CARD - EVGA GTX 650 TI 2GB (this will play crysis 3 on high at that resolution, i actually owned one of these cards myself. note this is NOT the more expensive 650 ti-boost model, their easily confused) - 144.99$

TOTAL = 385.55$

there you go man thats about the cheapest you could go, while playing most games on high, hope this helps. trust me ive built 3 gaming pc's.

Hmmm, that'd be a nice build but maybe cut down on the motherboard a bit (considering his budget, hehe)?

 

[Guest]

damn bro, thats a really limiting budget. and im sorry to have to break it to you, but your gonna have to get a new motherboard if you want a new CPU. so youl have to save up a bit more. but for something budget friendly but will play games well, i recommend.:

MOTHERBOARD- Asrock z77 extreme4 LGA 1155 (compatable with sandy bridge and ivy bridge CPU's) - 119.99 $

CPU - Intel core i3-3220 ivy bridge CPU (not overclockable but will turbo up to 3.3 ghz) - 120.57$

GRAPHICS CARD - EVGA GTX 650 TI 2GB (this will play crysis 3 on high at that resolution, i actually owned one of these cards myself. note this is NOT the more expensive 650 ti-boost model, their easily confused) - 144.99$

TOTAL = 385.55$

there you go man thats about the cheapest you could go, while playing most games on high, hope this helps. trust me ive built 3 gaming pc's.

Hmmm, that'd be a nice build but maybe cut down on the motherboard a bit (considering his budget, hehe)?

Yah its pretty hard with that budget, im just trying to suggest something that will hold up for awhile and would support overclocking if he buys a CPU a few years down the road thats unlocked. but yah, if he cant stretch it or save up more, an h77 board might be in order. but the CPU is the best deal around for a budget gaming pc, and i can attest to how well the 650ti 2gb card plays games, especially for that price, it wouldnt let him down.

 

[smeezekitty]

Upgrade your GPU then overclock your CPU.

Maybe you can pick up a used Core 2 Quad and OC that.

 

[Yanuar Lie]

Okay, I'm rising my budget to final $300-$325. Can't raise more since it's bad influence for my pocket. :lol:

With so many choice to offer i'm a bit confused.
So let's split to 2 scenario, which is the best between those two and what spec should i buy:
1. upgrade everything but not my motherboard.
2. upgrade everything including motherboard.

What do you think ?

 

[jk_ventolero]

Okay, I'm rising my budget to final $300-$325. Can't raise more since it's bad influence for my pocket. :lol:

With so many choice to offer i'm a bit confused.
So let's split to 2 scenario, which is the best between those two and what spec should i buy:
1. upgrade everything but not my motherboard.
2. upgrade everything including motherboard.

What do you think ?

Maybe get an H77-based motherboard and a Pentium G2020 processor. That's the cheapest platform upgrade that would allow you to play games a good settings. Next, get a good graphics card (like I've said before, at that resolution, anything above an HD 7770 would do the trick, but @King Kii's suggestion of a GTX 650 Ti would be much more solid) and a 4 GB DDR3 RAM stick.

Doing this, you can later on upgrade to any Ivy Bridge i3 to i7 processor. Much sooner, though, you can grab another 4 GB of RAM. That should fit your budget well.

 

[InvalidError]

With so many choice to offer i'm a bit confused.
So let's split to 2 scenario, which is the best between those two and what spec should i buy:
1. upgrade everything but not my motherboard.
2. upgrade everything including motherboard.

What do you think ?

I think you can cross out option #1 since there is no CPU/RAM worth buying to use with your motherboard.

You can also cross out option #2 if you cannot pony up enough cash to do it "properly" since you may end up stuck with something that is only marginally better than what you already have.

So that leaves option #3: upgrade the GPU only, see what sort of overclock you can get out of your current motherboard/CPU/RAM and roll with that until you can afford upgrading the rest.

 

[Yanuar Lie]

Thanks everyone, after so many comments, i'm deciding this spec for complete upgrade.

One last thing, I'm thinking about this :

mobo = Asrock H77M (+ cheap - 2slotddr3 only)
proc = i3 3220 (good performance according to my research)
ram = slot 1 ->Apogee 4gb slot 2 -> empty
gpu = Sapphire HD7770 1gb ddr5 128bit (thx for jk_ventolero, i had done research on this and it seems quite formidable gpu)

What do you think ? is it capable high on 1366x768 ?

 

[Guest]

Thanks everyone, after so many comments, i'm deciding this spec for complete upgrade.

One last thing, I'm thinking about this :

mobo = Asrock H77M (+ cheap - 2slotddr3 only)
proc = i3 3220 (good performance according to my research)
ram = slot 1 ->Apogee 4gb slot 2 -> empty
gpu = Sapphire HD7770 1gb ddr5 128bit (thx for jk_ventolero, i had done research on this and it seems quite formidable gpu)

What do you think ? is it capable high on 1366x768 ?

sounds like a good plan for your budget bro, and im sure an hd7770 1gb would be fine. but id suggest going with a 650ti 2 gb if you wanna play some of the newer games on high that will be coming out such as battlefield 4, titanfall ect, because they'll be quite a bit more graphically demanding then whats out now. With crysis 3, im not sure you could even squeeze high settings accross the board with a 7770. if you like amd more, maybe a saphire 7850? but i digress, good luck bro.

 

[Heyman]

Thanks everyone, after so many comments, i'm deciding this spec for complete upgrade.

One last thing, I'm thinking about this :

mobo = Asrock H77M (+ cheap - 2slotddr3 only)
proc = i3 3220 (good performance according to my research)
ram = slot 1 ->Apogee 4gb slot 2 -> empty
gpu = Sapphire HD7770 1gb ddr5 128bit (thx for jk_ventolero, i had done research on this and it seems quite formidable gpu)

What do you think ? is it capable high on 1366x768 ?

i would suggest you to get this instead gigabyte h61-s2pv
then spend the extra $40 to get a 650 ti boost 2gb

 

[jk_ventolero]

Thanks everyone, after so many comments, i'm deciding this spec for complete upgrade.

One last thing, I'm thinking about this :

mobo = Asrock H77M (+ cheap - 2slotddr3 only)
proc = i3 3220 (good performance according to my research)
ram = slot 1 ->Apogee 4gb slot 2 -> empty
gpu = Sapphire HD7770 1gb ddr5 128bit (thx for jk_ventolero, i had done research on this and it seems quite formidable gpu)

What do you think ? is it capable high on 1366x768 ?

It would be quite capable since you're playing at a low resolution. My rig is only a step lower than that one (I have a GTX 650) and I'm quite fine with how well it performs. But then again, people have different tastes. :lol:

Just one final question, though. What sort of games do you play? Because if you're gonna play like the next gen games (BF4 and such) then you might wanna squeeze out a little more from your pockets. :lol:

 

[igorBOSS]

I think since your budget is so limited, you can look on craigslist or Ebay for a Core 2 Quad. They still perform well with modern games if overclocked. You can get a q6600 for about 60 bucks on Ebay and if your motherboard supports it, and you have a good cooler, you can overclock and you will see huge improvement without even upgrading the mobo. Also, adding 4 more GB's of ram will give you a total of 8GB's which is good even with today's standards and there are not games which will need more. As king kii has said, the GTX 650 ti 2gb is a wonderful graphics card especially at your resolution you will have very high fps. I know this myself because i have owned the 650 ti 2gb so i am saying this from personal experience. I will include some ebay links of the parts I have mentioned. Those are just my two scents.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q6600-2-40GHz-8M-1066-SLACR-CPU-Desktop-Processor-/271237079450?pt=CPUs&hash=item3f26fd619a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-OCZ-Obsidian-4GB-2x2GB-DDR3-1600MHz-PC3-12800-OCZ3OB1600LV4GK-/280956073190?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item416a4974e6

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-SSC-02G-P4-3653-KR-GeForce-GTX-650-Ti-2GB-128-bit-GDDR5-PCI-Express-3-/111109134543?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item19de9ed8cf

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-650-Ti-SSC-2048MB-GDDR5-01G-P4-3653-KR-/130944793881?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item1e7ceafd19

 

[Yanuar Lie]

Thanks everyone, after so many comments, i'm deciding this spec for complete upgrade.

One last thing, I'm thinking about this :

mobo = Asrock H77M (+ cheap - 2slotddr3 only)
proc = i3 3220 (good performance according to my research)
ram = slot 1 ->Apogee 4gb slot 2 -> empty
gpu = Sapphire HD7770 1gb ddr5 128bit (thx for jk_ventolero, i had done research on this and it seems quite formidable gpu)

What do you think ? is it capable high on 1366x768 ?

It would be quite capable since you're playing at a low resolution. My rig is only a step lower than that one (I have a GTX 650) and I'm quite fine with how well it performs. But then again, people have different tastes. :lol:

Just one final question, though. What sort of games do you play? Because if you're gonna play like the next gen games (BF4 and such) then you might wanna squeeze out a little more from your pockets. :lol:

I'm no really into heavy fps like crysis or bf. Right now with my spec i'm playing:
- Resident Evil 6 (1154x864 27fps medium quality)
- Mortal Kombat 9 (same as above)
I'm more to an rpg, casual shooting, or fighting game which by gamer standard not really a AAA game.

 

[InvalidError]

One last thing, I'm thinking about this :

ram = slot 1 ->Apogee 4gb slot 2 -> empty
gpu = Sapphire HD7770 1gb ddr5 128bit (thx for jk_ventolero, i had done research on this and it seems quite formidable gpu)

What do you think ? is it capable high on 1366x768 ?

With only one DIMM, you are giving the CPU only half the memory bandwidth it can use, which may significantly hinder performance in programs that use large data sets. If you cannot afford 2x4GB, get 2x2GB unless you plan to get another 4GB DIMM at the earliest convenience. Otherwise, your model may be discontinued by the time you decide to upgrade which may force you to get a fresh pair for best results.