Most Effective Upgrade

[Solek]

Hi,

Currently Have:
2gb ram
e6600 at stock
7900 gt
2 x 250gb hds
1 x 350 gb hd
1 x 750 gb hd
gigabyte 965p-dq6 motherboard
corsair 650w psu
windows xp

i would like a very effective upgrade in respects to cost and performance that will extend the life of this system as far as gaming goes. Basically, what is the most effective GPU i could put in this thing so i could play fall out 3 and some of the newer games at a decent detail level? Also maybe faster sticks of RAM. Not sure what the timings are on mine something 5-5-5-12 or something...

your help is appreciated.

 

[treefrog07]

Win7 and HD5XXX give you DX11.

 

[Solek]

But wouldn't it be a bit problematic to change OS? I also use the computer for audio recording stuff and I am worried about the stability of 7? Is this an issue? Also, would i have to reinstall and move all my *** if i upgraded to 7?

 

[capt_taco]

Most cost-effective upgrade would be overclocking the CPU and putting in a 5770. I agree, a new OS would help. Yeah, it's a pain to re-install and move all your shiz, but kind of necessary every 2-3 years if you want to keep things running fast. Otherwise the OS just gets junked up with traces of old programs and bad registry entries and such.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Heh I was about to say to overclock and add a new graphics card.

You may want to buy a CPU cooler as well, IIRC the cooler master hyper 212 is the one MadAdmiral keeps pointing people to.

Since with XP you have to do a clean install anyway here's what I would do. Firstly buy the win7 product key on ebay for like $30 (if you can get a disc to install with, or if one of those has a download for one which they do sometimes.) then download and install the windows easy transfer wizard. Make room and shrink your partition so that there's plenty of space for win7 to install on. Run the wizard, and simply install to the now empty space and it will set the dual boot for you. This way if your audio stuff does not work in 7 it does not matter, just use XP for that. Same for anything else.

 

[Solek]

thanks for the suggestions! I bought a 5770 and plan to overclock. I already have a after market cooler. One thing that worries me a little though is that the 5770 is a PCI Express x16 2.0 card. My board only supports 1.0. I know it is backwards compatible but I'm slightly worried this might limit performance. Although pretty sure 1.0 probably already has enough bandwith. Thoughts?

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

It'll be fine.

 

[liquidsnake718]

Get a Sapphire 5850 or the new 5830 since it is slated to be better than a 5770 and on par with a gtx275, then after I would get Windows 7 as it is a very stable, and efficient OS. If you dont want to waste your XP or system by removing XP from your motherboard and still think XP is useful then I would get a quad core Q83 which is a decent quad core and you can OC it quite a bit to at least 3.2ghz. Your motherboard can be used with Extreme quads so you wont have a problem. If I were you. I would actually want to get the DX11 5850 card AND this quad. I have this exact card in my system.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

You clearly did not read the 5830 review that eventually says that it is indeed better than a 5770, but not enough to be worth that money.