Upgade help

[xJedix]

Hey, I've been wanting to upgrade my computer a little bit since it's getting a bit old. Right now, I only have a little bit of money to spend but I want to figure out what to upgrade to start saving... and well, christmas is coming.

Here's my current specs, built in august 2006 right when the core 2 duo's came out.

Processor: Intel Core 2 duo E6600 (2.4GHz)
Motherboard: Asus p5b
Ram: G.SKILL 2x1GB DDR2 800(PC2 6400) Dual Channel
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB
external HDD: Seagate 160GB
GPU: EVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB
PSU: HIPER 580W
Monitor: Hanns·G 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor
Case: Rosewill Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Mouse: Logitech MX 600
Keyboard: Logitech MX 3000
OS: Windows XP Pro

I use my computer a lot and it's usually running 24/7. I game occasionally, do video editting and encoding. Other than that, I use it for doing hw and watching movies. I'm trying to figure out what would be most worth while to upgrade. I've been thinking of upgrading ram, gpu, and possibly getting another hdd but I want to get other people's opinions for what is most worth while to upgrade and what upgrades to get.

Thanks, Andy

 

[Proximon]

It's hard to say without knowing exactly how you use your computer.

You might benefit more from a quad core.

Here are a few suggestions:
Q9400 (Your BIOS may need a flash to use this CPU)
Mushkin 800Mhz 4GB
EVGA 9600GT
4850

 

[lunyone]

Well your system is pretty good already. If you want more CPU powe than upgrading that might be on the list (BIOS flash might be needed depending on the CPU used).
If you want a bit more gaming, than upgrade the GPU to 9600gt/4670/4850 GPU's.
You can always OC the CPU to get more power, but not sure if your wanting to do that or not. If your doing more CPU tasks than a Quad core might be considered.
If you upgrade your HD you might see slight speed increases over your current one.

 

[ahslan]

well, for gaming, the most obvious upgrade I see is the video card...a new 4850 will certainly do wonder for you...you could also OC your cpu to squeeze some more performance if you want...since you are running xp pro, 4gb of ram isnt really necessary but would help in certain memory hogging programs...

 

[megamanx00]

Yeah, you definitely need a new video card, especially since the newer cards have all sorts of features to accelerate HD movie decoding. I would say that upgrading to a Radeon 4850 would do you well in the movie and video game department. XP pro is normally fine with 2GB, but it depends on how much memory your using with background services and what not as well as the programs you use which will determine how much of a benefit another 2GB will give you. An obvious improvement would be to over clock your CPU and would only cost you the price of a good after market cooler, assuming you currently have the stock cooler on there.

As for the Hard Drive having a bigger Hard Drive just means having more crap. Of course that doesn't stop me from downloading crap . Anyway getting a better Hard Drive may give you some improvement, but it will only be a big improvement if you're close to filling up the one you have since you aren't burning off stuff as much to DVDs, which is kinda my situation right now ^_^. Check the CPU support section on the ASUS website to see what CPUs your mother board will accept, especially if you don't want to over clock. From there you can decide if it's worth upgrading your CPU or not.

 

[xJedix]

So i decided I want to up my ram. I currently have G.SKILL 2x1GB DDR2 800(PC2 6400) Dual Channel @ 5-5-5-15.
My question is should I take those out and put in 2x2GB 4-4-4-12? or get 2x2GB 5-5-5-15 and have 6GB? or try overclocking the 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12 and get another 2x2GB for 6GB?

basically, i'm trying to figure out what my best option is and how much better would it be to get 4-4-4-12 timings rather than 5-5-5-15. and also, let me know if anything I mentioned above wouldn't work.

btw, i'm currently running windows 7 64-bit so I'd be able to utilize all the ram.

Thanks, xJedix

 

[xJedix]

does anyone know which would be better?

 

[ahslan]

well I personally dont know the real world difference between 4-4-4-12 ram and 5-5-5-15 ram (it probably just comes down to benchmark numbers...but then again I could be wrong)...I personally got 2x2gb of 5-5-5-15 and it works perfectly, even though Im using XP 32-bit...Because you already have 2x1gb sticks, I guess I would try to get the same sticks and fill up the slots...Dont think you are gonna be using more than 4gb of ram...