Upgrade suggestions required !

fieldgunner · 18-08-2009, 11:19 PM

Current config... about one and a half years old-

E6850 Core 2 Duo 3 GHz
XFX 680i LT SLI Board
Sparkle GeForce 8800GT 512 MB graphics card.
2 Gigs Transcend 800mhz DDR3
320 GB WD SATA HDD
500w Zebronics Platinum power

Suggestions required-
>any better processors in the market compatible with my board?what will it cost?
>graphics cards that i can sli. I cant find another Sparkle 8800 gt to pair with my existing card for love or money... specifically, is it a good idea to get 2x 9600 gt?what will it cost?
>RAM...what good 1066/1333 ddr3s available? at what cost?
>My current cabinet is also shabby... any suggestions under 5k?

my total budget is about 25k at once with another 10k in a month or two...

desiibond · 19-08-2009, 08:24 AM

^^you have a good PC. Don't upgrade now. Wait for the launch of Intel Core i5, DirectX 11 cards from ATI and then upgrade.

The new dx11 cards will be based on 40nm fab and that means that they will be less power hungry and run cooler and faster than existing cards.

fieldgunner · 19-08-2009, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desiibond

^^you have a good PC. Don't upgrade now. Wait for the launch of Intel Core i5, DirectX 11 cards from ATI and then upgrade.

The new dx11 cards will be based on 40nm fab and that means that they will be less power hungry and run cooler and faster than existing cards.

Thanks. I would like your suggestions on this...

As is obvious, I use my PC mostly for gaming. I have had no issues with most of the recent games I have played on my 17" CRT. But I plan to go 19" tft soon and also try to connect it to my 32" HDTV soon and i suspect I'll need some more juice there. SLI should cure that.

I dont understand your suggestion to wait for ATI cards. I may be able to use one on my board but definitely not two...xfire and sli are fundamentally different. maybe one of the new gtx 2xx? which one is best for approx 8-10k? if i'm not wrong these are pcie 2.0...will they work with my x16 slots?

I do NOT plan to change my motherboard. I've read that the i5 needs a new type of socket and I doubt it'll snap into my 775.

What about RAM? I can use 4 gigs with my 32-bit vista even though my board supports upto 8. Suppose I get 7 in the future?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

hell_storm2006 · 19-08-2009, 10:19 AM

Whatever it is you get.... Get 64 bit OS. You 4GB of RAM is useless with a 32 bit Vista. i5 would require you to buy a new board. That's why save some some money from now on and buy a procyy+mobo combo when you upgrade. Nobody's telling you patch in a ATI with nVidia, he's advising on getting a single DX11 card in the future. 19 inch is gone. Get 22 inch monitors. Plus change your PSU.

desiibond · 19-08-2009, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fieldgunner

Thanks. I would like your suggestions on this...

As is obvious, I use my PC mostly for gaming. I have had no issues with most of the recent games I have played on my 17" CRT. But I plan to go 19" tft soon and also try to connect it to my 32" HDTV soon and i suspect I'll need some more juice there. SLI should cure that.

You won't get a huge change in improvement after upgrading from E6850.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fieldgunner

I dont understand your suggestion to wait for ATI cards. I may be able to use one on my board but definitely not two...xfire and sli are fundamentally different. maybe one of the new gtx 2xx? which one is best for approx 8-10k? if i'm not wrong these are pcie 2.0...will they work with my x16 slots?

if you are thinking of SLIing 8800GT with new GTX2xx, it's a waste as GTX2xx will downpower itself to 8800GTs speed. you better get another 8800GT if you want to have SLI.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fieldgunner

I do NOT plan to change my motherboard. I've read that the i5 needs a new type of socket and I doubt it'll snap into my 775.

it won't. you need to change ram mobo and CPU and there will be huge increase in performance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fieldgunner

What about RAM? I can use 4 gigs with my 32-bit vista even though my board supports upto 8. Suppose I get 7 in the future?

as long as you use 32-bit, there is no need to upgrade to anything higher than 3.5GB of RAM.

if you still thinking of new processor and GPU,

get E8200/E8400 CPU and another 8800GT GPU or GTX275 and sell off your existing processor and GPU.

fieldgunner · 19-08-2009, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desiibond

You won't get a huge change in improvement after upgrading from E6850.

Point taken...the processor stays...

Quote:

if you are thinking of SLIing 8800GT with new GTX2xx, it's a waste as GTX2xx will downpower itself to 8800GTs speed. you better get another 8800GT if you want to have SLI.

Of course I'm not!

I am planning to buy two new cards...my request was to have a suggestion for the best card for about 10k so that i can buy two of them while getting rid of my 8800...

Quote:

as long as you use 32-bit, there is no need to upgrade to anything higher than 3.5GB of RAM.

I know...but how do I buy 3.5 gigs of RAM? 2+1+512? No more dual channel then I suppose? what is better out of these options... 4x 1 gig sticks in dual channel out of which the OS uses only 3.5? or 2+1+512 in three slots? or 1+1+1? or does it make no difference whatsoever?

fieldgunner · 19-08-2009, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hell_storm2006

Whatever it is you get.... Get 64 bit OS. You 4GB of RAM is useless with a 32 bit Vista. i5 would require you to buy a new board. That's why save some some money from now on and buy a procyy+mobo combo when you upgrade. Nobody's telling you patch in a ATI with nVidia, he's advising on getting a single DX11 card in the future. 19 inch is gone. Get 22 inch monitors. Plus change your PSU.

Thanks for your suggestions.
I'm hoping to upgrade everything but the proc+mobo now.

btw nothing wrong with running a single ATI card on an Nvidia board. Given that dx 10 and 11 are hardware intercompatible unlike 9 and 10 would it be worth waiting for dx 11 gpus? i'm sure they will be expensive as s*** initially.

I'll stick to 19" unless I can get a really super sweet deal on a 22" that is good enough for gaming. Do you have any specific suggestions?

Good psu for sli? costing?

desiibond · 19-08-2009, 01:53 PM

1) SLI: buy two GTX260s, each one for 10.5k. Model: Palit GTX260 Dual Sonic. Since you want to go for SLI setup , it is very important that each card stays coola nd Palit sonic editions with dual fans are perfect and this is one is the best card you can get for that price. Also you can check GTS250 for 7k

2) Crossfire: ATI HD4770, each one for 7.5k. This one is 40nm fabrication based card and runs damn cool and two of these can outperform GTX275.

3) Go for 64-bit windows 7 once it gets released in October and you can have 100Gb of RAM too

4) first, dx11 is gonna take some time to get into developers minds. The big advantage with dx11 based cards is not that they support dx11 but in the architecture

They are based on 40nm process that makes them lot better for overclocking and hence lot more stable.
They are much more power efficient and require less power when compared to existing set of cards
They are going to easily outperform current gen cards be it price or performance or temperature

fieldgunner · 19-08-2009, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desiibond

1) SLI: buy two GTX260s, each one for 10.5k. Model: Palit GTX260 Dual Sonic. Since you want to go for SLI setup , it is very important that each card stays coola nd Palit sonic editions with dual fans are perfect and this is one is the best card you can get for that price. Also you can check GTS250 for 7k

2) Crossfire: ATI HD4770, each one for 7.5k. This one is 40nm fabrication based card and runs damn cool and two of these can outperform GTX275.

3) Go for 64-bit windows 7 once it gets released in October and you can have 100Gb of RAM too

4) first, dx11 is gonna take some time to get into developers minds. The big advantage with dx11 based cards is not that they support dx11 but in the architecture

They are based on 40nm process that makes them lot better for overclocking and hence lot more stable.
They are much more power efficient and require less power when compared to existing set of cards
They are going to easily outperform current gen cards be it price or performance or temperature

Thanks...will post what I bought in a few days.
as for ATI's in xfire i cannot use on my board...

Off topic- How much RAM is enough? I mean If I have 100 gb, will my computer qualify as AI? will it be able to read my mind?