Advice on PC upgrade

Hank Scorpio

Im thinking of getting a new pc or upgrade as iv got a bit of spare cash lying around.

At the moment have a targa machine i bought in lild 15 months ago for 400euros.

Q8200 Quad @ 2.33GHZ
4 GB DDR2 Ram
Geforce 9500 GS

Was a great deal at the time

Would you guys recommend a brand new build or just upgrade the graphics card? Iv got 2 1080p monitors also.

What i use the pc for is gaming and poker. Alot of the brand new games do run okish on mid to low settings, but no where near the quality i`d like to play them.

My budget is around 900 euro, the very max being 1000 euro.

I was looking at that hardwareversand site but im not sure what cpu/gpu I should be picking. Should i keep my old quad?

Thanks guys

game4it70

You have the making of a decent system that will last a little bit longer.

I'd suggest buy 3 things,
A gfx card.I have a Ati 5850 and cant fault it using on 24" hd with max settings on Bad company 2.What power supply do you have as it may not be suitable for newer gfx cards?
An smallish SSD for your OS and your most used programs/games.
A decent cooler so you can overclock your quad a little (depending on if you have some generic mobo or not)

massy086

i would sell your current pc on adverts you should get about 300 for it and then do a fresh i5 build

massy086

i would sell your current pc on adverts you should get about 300 for it and then do a fresh i5 build the only good-ish thing is your cpu if you were to keeop the cpu and ram you would need a new mobo psu and gpu and probably a case not really worth it imo

Solitaire

What massy said! If you had been tight for cash and/or had a mobo that could OC reliably at very high FSB (the multiplier on the Q8200 is an insultingly low x7 yet it runs on FSB1333! :eek::() you could have just OCd and upgraded the video, but if you take the poor case and PSU and the low CPU speed into the equation I'd also suggest flogging it for some spare change then build an upper-mid-range i5-750 build

pajero2.8

hi if you want ill sell you my dell xps 630i intel quad core chip
heres the specs

Model : WDC WD6400AAKS-75A7B
Manufacturer : Western Digital
URL : http://www.wdc.com/en/
Height : 3.5"
Interface : SATA
Rotational Speed : 7200rpm


Model : Dell Inc XPS 630i


Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
Speed : 2.4GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core
Integrated Data Cache : 4x 32kB, Synchronous, Write-Thru, 8-way, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 2x 4MB, ECC, Synchronous, ATC, 16-way, 64 byte line size, 2 threads sharing
Computer
Mainboard : Dell Inc 0PP150
BIOS : Dell 1.0.13 05/05/2009
Bus(es) : ISA X-Bus PCI PCIe IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
Multi-Processor Advanced PIC (APIC) : Yes
Total Memory : 3GB DIMM DDR2
Chipset
Model : Dell C55 Host Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 267MHz (1GHz)
Total Memory : 4GB DIMM DDR2
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 400MHz (800MHz)
Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : Hynix (Hyundai) HYMP112U64CP8-S6 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-6-6-18 3-24-6-3)
Memory Module : Hynix (Hyundai) HYMP112U64CP8-S6 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-6-6-18 3-24-6-3)
Memory Module : Hynix (Hyundai) HYMP112U64CP8-S6 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-6-6-18 3-24-6-3)
Memory Module : Hynix (Hyundai) HYMP112U64CP8-S6 1GB DIMM DDR2 PC2-6400U DDR2-800 (5-6-6-18 3-24-6-3)
Video System
Video Adapter : 2x NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (112 SP 1.4GHz, 512MB DDR3 2x900MHz, PCIe 1.00 x16)
Graphics Processor
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (112SP 14C 1.5GHz, 511.7MB 2x900MHz)
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (112SP 14C 1.5GHz, 511.7MB 2x900MHz)
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (112SP 14C 1.5GHz, 511.7MB 2x900MHz)
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (112SP 14C 1.5GHz, 511.7MB 2x900MHz)
Storage Devices
WDC WD6400AAKS-75A7B0 (640.1GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 16MB Cache) : 596GB (C:)
Seagate ST3160023AS (160GB, SATA150, 3.5", 8MB Cache) : 149GB (E:)
PLDS DVD+/-RW DH-16A6S (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : N/A (D:)

Optical Drive (D:) : N/A @ PLDS DVD+/-RW DH-16A6S (SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)
3.5" 1.44MB (A:) : N/A
Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : Dell MCP51 LPC Bridge
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : ITE IT8718F
Audio Device : Dell MCP51 High Definition Audio
Audio Codec : Realtek Semiconductor 888 High Definition Audio
Disk Controller : Dell MCP51 Parallel ATA Controller
Disk Controller : Dell MCP51 Serial ATA Controller
Disk Controller : Dell MCP51 Serial ATA Controller
USB Controller 1 : Dell MCP51 USB Controller
USB Controller 2 : Dell MCP51 USB Controller
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : Dell FW322/323 IEEE1394 OHCI FireWire Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 1
SMBus/i2c Controller 2 : nVidia MCP5+ SMBus 2

Network Services
Network Adapter : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 3)
Platform Compliance : x86


what do you think? very overclockable.

Chuck Finlay

While the Q8200, a solid CPU nonetheless, may not be the fastest at stock speed, a bit short on L2 Cache, and not being the very best to OC, you still should be able to get it to almost 3GHz.
The true bottleneck of your current setup clearly is the 9500GS, a new Card will do wonders here. For new games and full-hd, I propose nothing less than a GTX460/1024 or a HD5850. Add a good CPU cooler and you are good to go.
After that, if you really think that performance-wise this still isn't enough, you can still go for an i5-build which the others already proposed. You would have needed a new graphics card and a decent cooler for that, anyway.

But, before that, what mainboard and PSU do you have?

Hank Scorpio

Here is the data sheet of my pc, ( I added 2 GB of ram to i have 4 in total atm)

I dont think it would be possible to OC my cpu with that mobo?

Thanks for all the replies so far.

http://www.targa.co.uk/index.jsp?SID=0&NAV=236&DOC=&PAGE=2492&PCAT=2&PROD=452&PTUBE=10&PARAMS=undefined&PARAMS2=undefined&SPCAREA=undefined

Chuck Finlay

Late reply, didn't see thread :x
Well there you go, additionally you'd need a new PSU already, so, what the others said: At this point, the change you will get can be very well invested into a new machine.
i5 for poker and HD gaming, you say?