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Is My PC REALLY That 'Upgradeable'?

  • 17-02-2010 7:53pm
    #1
    ytareh
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,107 ✭✭✭


    Current PC Spec :

    E8500@4-4.2GHz , Asus Maximus 2 Formula (P45) ,GTX295 , 4GB Kingston Hyper X DDR2 8500 , Windows 7 Home Premium ,Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer ,Hiper 1kW PSU

    Having spent the last decade being a slave to the PC hardware upgrade Im amazed to find that after almost 18 months my pc is pretty much 'un - upgradeable '....or am I wrong?OK so I could get a 5970 graphics card if I wanted to drop 600 euro but I dont and the GTX295 is still a killer anyway ,sure didnt they make them so good they made a loss on every one sold !?
    Initially i7 cpus were reported as being no major upgrade for gaming and the i5 and now i3 seem to be just the same but cheaper ...so am i right or is i5 the way to go ?Save my pennies for the 5970 upgrade?I get 20k on 3dMark2006...


Comments

  • #2
    Kinetic^
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,249 ✭✭✭✭Kinetic^


    It's upgradeable alright, the question you should be asking yourself, is it worth upgrading it or should you be moving towards an i3/i5/i7 build to allow for upgrading of that in years to come.


  • #3
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,381 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    Oh dear! How do I say it... :o

    Its not that upgradeable, mostly because LGA775 has shuffled off its mortal coil and the E8500 was a pretty hardcore CPU for it. Which means that finding a better CPU will force you to bin the mobo and RAM as well :(

    Good news is that you shouldn't need to upgrade it for another five minutes. And at least you can recycle the GTX295 and PSU ;)


  • #4
    PogMoThoin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    All you need is a nice q9550 e0, the i5 and i7 offer no benefits to gamers and You'd have to upgrade to ddr3 ram. There's life in that old baby yet


  • #5
    Spacedog
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,775 ✭✭✭Spacedog


    throw in a cheap low capacity SSD as your system/common prog/game disk. disk access time is the main bottleneck in PC architecture since RAM became cheap. it's sweet runing a system where loading bars and splash screens flash by before you realise what they were saying.


  • #6
    farna_boy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,766 ✭✭✭farna_boy


    The only thing you could possibly upgrade would be the CPU to a q9550 or q9650. If you overclocked either of these you would get close to the performance of an i5 or i7, assuming you are only interested in gaming (the i5/i7 will totally outperform any LGA775 in encoding).
    If you are only interested in gaming and you get a q9550 or q9650 for a reasonable price then there would be little point in upgrading to an i5/i7 at the moment since in most gaming benchmarks that I have seen there has been only 10 -15 fps difference between these cpus and the i5/i7. By overclocking the q9xxx's you could probably close this gap even further.


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  • #7
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Get an SSD if you want a performance boost immediately. My advice is to keep running that E8500 at 4.2(higher if possible) and will keep you going in games for this year at least. When cpu becomes the bottleneck then its decision time. if by then you can pick up a Q9550 for ~100 second hand or new then get that and overclock the balls off it this will get you another 2 years in games as they move to support quad cores. If a Q9550 is going to cost 150+ then upgrade to core i5/i7. But for now i dont think you have to make any decisions just yet. (BTW, that E8500 will do 4.5 if your cooling is half decent.)


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