Upgrade Options for a Gigabyte EP35C-DS3R

GreedyGamer24

Reputable
May 25, 2015
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My cousin has a gigabyte EP35c-DS3R board with 6 gigs of ram, an intel pentium E2160 1.8 GHz cpu, an AMD radeon hd 6870 1gb card. He needs an upgrade if he wants to play his games on the highest settings (Rust, Fallout, etc.) He needs another 2 gb stick of RAM and a better processor. I was wondering what would be the a good replacement. Preferably a quad core.
 
Solution
Leave the RAM. It is not the bottleneck here. Change the processor to a Core 2 Extreme QX9650 if possible (They can be bought used for around $100-$120 on Ebay). If on a budget, at least try for a higher end Core 2 Quad like the Q9300, which is around $30 to $50 on Ebay.

Also upgrade the GPU to a GTX 950 preferably, or a GTX 750 Ti if your PSU if your PSU does not have a 6 pin PCI-E connector.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0 Video Card ($135.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $135.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-29 03:00 EST-0500

PCPartPicker part...
Leave the RAM. It is not the bottleneck here. Change the processor to a Core 2 Extreme QX9650 if possible (They can be bought used for around $100-$120 on Ebay). If on a budget, at least try for a higher end Core 2 Quad like the Q9300, which is around $30 to $50 on Ebay.

Also upgrade the GPU to a GTX 950 preferably, or a GTX 750 Ti if your PSU if your PSU does not have a 6 pin PCI-E connector.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0 Video Card ($135.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $135.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-29 03:00 EST-0500

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $119.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-29 03:01 EST-0500

QX9650 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core2-Extreme-QX9650-3-00GHz-Processor-SLAN3-BX80569QX9650-/262157740401?hash=item3d09d1a971:g:8isAAOSwo0JWQp~g

Q9300: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-2-5-GHz-Core-2-Quad-CPU-Processor-G808D-Q9300-SLAWE-Dell-XPS-730-63-/231762723203?hash=item35f6228183:g:184AAOSw7FRWU08j

High settings in fallout 4 is not possible, although he could achieve acceptable FPS on medium settings at 1080p with the QX9650 and GTX 950. If he uses a lower resolution monitor, then he will be able to game on higher settings.
 
Solution
Intel Q9550 Core 2 Quad 2.83GHz Quad Core CPU
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/252173494192?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82

G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424&Tpk=N82E16820231424

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-4GBHK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180

Adding RAM to existing RAM may cause compatibility problems.