Planning to upgrade my rig..

[GameOnTurtle]

So I'll start with what I'm currently using..

Gigabyte P35-DS3L Motherboard
Q6700 running at 3.0ghz
XFX ATI HD 5850 1gb
4gb DDR2-800 Memory
Corsair TX650W PSU

And a bunch of hdd's and such. (no SSD)

I'm trying to get the most out of games right now, That being FF14/SC2/WOW (yes, wow.. lol).

I wanted some opinions on what would be the best, most cost effective upgrade.

I was extremely tempted to upgrade to an i5 760 (the bundle that was on NCIX) last week, but I ended up not doing it as I wasn't sure if I would see a great performance boost in games. (Although, maybe I would have lol)

Let's say my budget is $500 after taxes, what will improve my FPS the most in games right now?

[_dangtx_]

stay still,don't touch nada for the moment.

also, what resolution do you game at? and from what i see wow doesn't need much. 5850 may be overkill? :) sc2 may need it.

depending on your current monitor, maybe switch to a nice 24 incher?

[GameOnTurtle]

I game at 1920x1080, using a 24" BenQ e2420hd and a portrait mode Dell 23" IPS panel (some 8ms one that was on sale) for browsing and junk.

Not too worried about WOW performance, I understand that game is filled with terrible programming in many areas and performance fluctuates way too much. (But still never ~40 with my 5850)

Now with SC2, I can do max settings, at 1920x1080. BUT, when it's 3v3/4v4 or some campaign missions, it says I'm slowing down the game. (Seems to be running at like 20ish FPS.)

With FF14, on like medium settings, I average about 30fps, dipping to like 18 in town. Now I understand FF14 is also pretty bad in regards to programming, but I would like to improve on it.


Last week, I ordered a GTX 460 1gb for some weird reason (canceled already), thinking that these specific games are way better on an Nvidia GPU. (My main reason for this, is my friend is using a GTX 275, i7-920 no OC, 6gb DDR3 ram, X25-M SSD, and getting double FPS in just about every game)

Now I know that my 5850 1gb should destroy the GTX 275 (stock) in terms of performance, but I can't seem to even come close to equal with my friends rig.

Is it his SSD? His i7? His overall newer platform? Maybe these games are Nvidia-optimized?
Would popping in 4 more gigs (2 more sticks) of memory improve my FPS at all?


(sorry for the long posts, but I'm at work and bored lol)

[Reyzac]

Originally Posted by _dangtx_

also, what resolution do you game at? and from what i see wow doesn't need much. 5850 may be overkill? :) sc2 may need it.

I doubt SC2 will need it, my friend runs it on a 30 inch monitor on High with a BFG 9600 GT.

[GameOnTurtle]

I should add, I'm running a non-reference XFX 5850 (ZAFC). I don't think that could be the reason for my rig not performing as I think it should though.

I always feel that my Q6700 is the biggest bottleneck, due to recent games requiring a lot more cpu intensive tasks.

I cannot seem to be stable at above 3ghz, due to possibly my ram or motherboard, the latter of which has a large vdroop. (or maybe just the cpu)

[Closed Note]

FF14 will need it. Playing it on 2560x1600, Resolution Render, no AA, Low to No Shadows at all, rest is set on max. Still have to check on my fps actually, and it looks ok .. but still. Do you know that feeling, if you move your mouse, and something in your mind tells you, there's something wrong? xD

[_dangtx_]

ok. hmm..check the clocks on the 5850, but to get more gpu wise youd have to go gtx 470/480 which is really not worth it..or oc the heck out of the 5850.

newer cpus are better, but i dont think worth the upgrade for what you do

new stuff around the corner, wouldnt buy now :)


@ ray : interesting. get mroe info from the dude. i wouldnt expect it to do that good at that resolution.lol

[fishingfanatic]

I think the newer system makes a big difference. Triple channel, hyper threading,... I agree with dang that waiting a bit might be best. A good sound card improves the gaming experience. It may not really add much if any in fps. It takes care of sound instead of the onboard. The sound system with a 5.1 setup would be awesome.

[Zero82z]

Your CPU will definitely bottleneck you in certain situations. However, if you try overclocking it to 3.4-3.6GHz, that will probably help performance considerably. You can also monitor any difference in performance to figure out how much it's limiting you (if you see a big difference then you are CPU-limited, and if it's a small difference or none at all then you are GPU-limited). As far as actual hardware upgrades, going to an LGA1366 setup would be my choice if I was in your position, though I would wait a bit until you have some more money saved up. $500 isn't enough to upgrade to new parts, and you'd have to do some scrounging around to even find a set of decent used parts that will still fit within your budget.

[GameOnTurtle]

well the $500 is just a random budget that I don't really want to go over.

I've "decided" that I'll wait for the new intel sockets to come out and make a decision at that point and hold off on getting an i7 for the time being. But day by day, that decision gets increasingly hard lol.

I've tried clocking my cpu to over 3.0ghz, but I run unstable. Not 100% sure what part it is, but it happens.

Would selling my CPU/MOBO/RAM and upgrading to an i5 system yield large improvements? (say 30-40% increase?) How about one of the 1156 i7's? I understand I won't be getting the triple channel, but I'd like to know what is the best way to spend some money so I can hold myself off. Otherwise I might just cave in and buy a whole new system around the release of FF14 lol


I have a Noctua NH-U12P SE2 cooler at the moment, which fits the 1156 platform fine. So I'd likely overclock that guy as well.