I'm refurbishing my 7 yo kick-ass-back-then gaming rig as a gift to my young sister and as a family computer. Planning to make the most of it without investing much, maximize its specs, squeeze its last breath, give it a proper cleaning and let them bury it in a few years.
It will be used for browsing / Office / entry level gaming (titles from 3-4 years ago, lower res, medium settings).
The current spec
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3Ghz (I will overclock it to 3.6Ghz)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 8800
RAM: 2 x 2GB Corsair Twin2X (I will add 4GB more, same brand)
Storage: 60GB OCZ Vertex II (I will add another cheap 60GB SSD and do a SATA II Raid 0)
Power: 500W Zalman
Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900A
I was looking at current entry level gaming GPUs, and the Radeon R7 260X seems to smoke out the old 8800 heater... I realize that in the current setup, the CPU is a major bottleneck, so I was wondering, is it worth getting the Radeon, or is the CPU so slow that it won't really matter that much? Do you think the old CPU coupled with a new GPU can handle decently newer titles in lower res and not so much details?
Any thoughts about that or any other are welcomed,
Thanks in advance!
It will be used for browsing / Office / entry level gaming (titles from 3-4 years ago, lower res, medium settings).
The current spec
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3Ghz (I will overclock it to 3.6Ghz)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 8800
RAM: 2 x 2GB Corsair Twin2X (I will add 4GB more, same brand)
Storage: 60GB OCZ Vertex II (I will add another cheap 60GB SSD and do a SATA II Raid 0)
Power: 500W Zalman
Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900A
I was looking at current entry level gaming GPUs, and the Radeon R7 260X seems to smoke out the old 8800 heater... I realize that in the current setup, the CPU is a major bottleneck, so I was wondering, is it worth getting the Radeon, or is the CPU so slow that it won't really matter that much? Do you think the old CPU coupled with a new GPU can handle decently newer titles in lower res and not so much details?
Any thoughts about that or any other are welcomed,
Thanks in advance!