Upgrade Advice needed

doccy

Hi all

I have a PC I built a couple of years ago as a Media PC and it works fine for XBMC. However with the new Total War game coming out I'm looking at upgrading but money is tight.

I think I'm going to struggle. The current graphics card is nvidia geforce 9500gt, and the CPU pentium dual core e5300 2.6ghz. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-EP41-UD3l.

I wanted to go for a new Processor, maybe a Intel i3 Dual-Core Processor, but then I need a new Motherboard and RAM. If I upgraded to something like this and maybe a new graphics card, would this be a decent upgrade, or should I just look at a new motherboard for the new intel chips?

Jonny7

The minimum specs for Rome Total War 2 look a little dodgy, as in lower than they probably should be
http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Rome_II_Recommended_Specs

According to that you could run the game with just a graphics card upgrade.

Anyway here's the CPU upgrade list from the website
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Gigabyte/GA-EP41-UD3L(rev._1.0).html

You could pick up a quad core from ebay for approx 40 to 60 euros
then spend the rest on a graphics card that would run on your PSU

The Q6600 isn't miles off from the i3
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/53?vs=289

doccy

Jonny7 wrote: »

The minimum specs for Rome Total War 2 look a little dodgy, as in lower than they probably should be
http://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Rome_II_Recommended_Specs

According to that you could run the game with just a graphics card upgrade.

Anyway here's the CPU upgrade list from the website
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Gigabyte/GA-EP41-UD3L(rev._1.0).html

You could pick up a quad core from ebay for approx 40 to 60 euros
then spend the rest on a graphics card that would run on your PSU

The Q6600 isn't miles off from the i3
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/53?vs=289

Awesome, that's really helpful. One other quick question. If I change the processor will I need to format the HD?

Jonny7

Nope.

Obviously a good idea to watch an online tutorial if you've never changed a processor before

Might also be good to check the PSU by opening up the PC and reading the sticker on it - checking for brand and wattage

I would expect to spend about 40 euros on a 2nd hand quad core processor (775 socket)
5 to 10 euros per gb of ram
and well you can pick up a decent graphics card for 50 euros second hand or 70 to 100 euros new.

doccy

will do! I should be able to use the current processor fan right? This is sounding a lot less painful than I feared :pac:

Jonny7

Yup the current cooler should be fine

Here's a quad on ebay
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q8300-2-5-GHz-Quad-Core-AT80580PJ0604MN-Processor-/261261445971?pt=UK_Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item3cd4654b53

That's Ireland only, if you include Europe in the search there are plenty, and Q6600's go from 30 to 50 euros. They pop up on adverts from time to time also.

I'd recommend 4 gigs of ram total and a graphics card about the level of an AMD 7750 minimum.

If you can buy off ebay - it's an absolute treasure trove for cheap components. If not, then adverts.ie has processors and graphics cards popping up all the time.

doccy

Yeah I seen a good few in the UK. I hate bidding so I might try find a buy now ha. I'll have a look for a graphics card and see if I can find something decent. Thanks for your help!

BloodBath

I'm pretty sure Total war 2 only use 2 cpu cores so that quad upgrade won't do much for you. Have you overclocked the e5300 at all?

Amazing that these devs are still using 2 cores when the majority of us have moved onto quads or higher.

Baked.noodle

I guess they are aiming for the most common system components. Here are some statistics collected by Steam. You are of course correct, they should optimise the game to take advantage of as many core as are available. The new game X-rebirth is supposed to optimised for many cores and 8 Gigs of memory. Will have to wait and see if it really does.

doccy

BloodBath wrote: »

I'm pretty sure Total war 2 only use 2 cpu cores so that quad upgrade won't do much for you. Have you overclocked the e5300 at all?

Amazing that these devs are still using 2 cores when the majority of us have moved onto quads or higher.

Haven't overclocked. Really its just an xbmc PC. I've been thinking of upgrading the Graphics Card for a while. I'm limited in processor upgrade by the motherboard. I basically can't afford to to change all the components in one go.

BloodBath

Well a quad would probably still helpt to a certain degree by offloading background os and program cpu work onto the other 2 cores but ideally you would want an overclock in combination with it. A cheap second hand q6600 from ebay or adverts.ie should help.

What budget do you have for a card or in total?

doccy

Yeah, I'll try pick up a second hand processor off ebay. I'm still confused on the card, but I would like to get the it under a hundred if possible. The power supply seems to be 300W too ;/