Hi guys! I was just browsing around the web and I came by this cool website!! I gotta admit this is the coolest website I've seen so far regarding all things techy. You guys are great I've read your discussions and man I can't stop reading. Got to admit it came at the right time when I'm about to upgrade my system. New games are out and I'm all hyphed up but my computer isn't all that giddy about it, and it needs your help.
I bought this computer about a year ago and I'm pretty sure when you buy something a year ago that is a budget computer, I bet its like way older than it is. Newly bought but old tech is what it is.
The rest are generic crap. I'm willing to spend $800 to $1000. I'm not sure if upgrading the system will really be cheaper since I can just make do with what the other stuff I have with the computer or does it really need a major overhaul. I'm interested on the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M sharing L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor but that would mean I have to replace the motherboard too right? If so which motherboard will I get? Which RAM should I use too? Plus I'm planning on tossing my X700 graphics card to my older computer too and getting the X1950XTX 512MB Crossfire. I'm just scared to just buy stuff without even asking the experienced people on pcs. Thanks guys in advance!
best place to start is the last (5 or 6 pages or) month or so in the pc building thread(sticky at the top of the threads list). it depends how you want to go. if you want the best bang for your buck its an amd socket 939 rig you want(this has no future but great value right now), middle of the road are amds socket am2 and intels pentium ds(both of these have upgrades available so make more sense) and if you want the vbest available its the core 2 duo route. you can get some boards that have agp and pcie slots if you want to save a few quid on a gcard but they will have there down sides.
ok ignore marsey he didnt just say that dnt go for amd just dnt y? cause y r u gonna buy old tech when u could buy newer tech for newer games (core 2 duo) the best site to buy this is newegg.com
$6 more but its spent were it counts, it will be faster at stock settings and it will overclock like a mother(3.5ghz on good air/3.8ghz with water). now all you need is a 24inch+ screen to get the most out of it, if its not that high res those cards will spend more time idle than not but good for the future. only thing is by easter you will want vista and a new gcard to play dx10 games on full. but you could get a lower powered gcard now and save the cash till then. you might also want to get a bigger psu now as the next gen gpus are rumoured to need 400w each, so to future proff that you want 6 or 700w now.
tough time to be upgrading in the gpu world, but conroes are by miles the best cpus out today and amd wont have a counter for a year at least.
core 2 duo runs best on 533mhz or 667mhz ram buying better ram would make the pc use more ram instead of more cpu power
come on dude msi vs abit? better like msi vs asus that i would understand y did i choose msi? cause when core 2 duo was being developed one of the mobo they used was that msi so im sure there wont b problems like there has been on some other brands
lol msi were the last company the bring out a conroe compatable board so where you get that idea i dont know(they have made 1 good mobo the tforce)and c2d was devloped to run on intels 965 or higher chipset, some bios updates can make it work on older ones. asus, great mobos if not the best but budget the kinda puts them out of reach
the ram is for added overclocking potential and any ram that brings the cpu/ram multiplier down can only be better, less cycles = better response time when you use it. better ram = uses more ram????? dont know what to say to that. i think your getting confused it would work best with ram running at 1066mhz or are you thinking about it not getting the best out of low latency ram?
ok dude there is the version 975x platinum from msi (v 1.0) that one supports conroe altough it doesnt even say it on their website thats the 1 intel used to test some of its conroe and then msi got out the 975x platinum power up edition that says core 2 duo supported if u look at both mobo pics ure just gonna c a heatsink that got replaced instead of fan eeverything is the same i know what im saying ok? and the 975x p got out on apr
about ram it is sometimes better to use cpu power instead of ram best ex trancoding videos and 4 gaming faster clocks better fps so it is good 4 gaming to have a ram with 1066clock but it hurts while encoding videos but if u have a 533 clocked ram it hurts on gaming so a balance would b having a 667 clocked ram or sometimes 800mhz clocked 1
im not trying to make up a fight but im just saying that i KNOW what im saying
Hey guys! what can i say....man im excited! finally a response, I like the conroe I have been setting my eyes on that ever since i thought about upgrading, and the one that really caught my eye is the e6600, cheap, fast and from what I heard overclockable with almost no problems. I've never tried overclocking, i "KINDA" know the concept, but dont know how to do it. Now sure we got the e6600 for a Processor, what about the mobo......the mobo scares me, I dont really know how getting a new motherboard for my computer is gonna work, do I just take out all the stuff from my old one and what happens? Is it kinda plug and play? I never replaced a motherboard before so kinda enlighten me on whats gonna happen when I got all these stuff already. I like the sound of the ABIT AB9 its cheaper than what I was setting my eyes on in the first place which is the ASUS P5W deluxe WiFi http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131025 but yea then again I thought to myself why bust out 200+ on that mobo when im all im after is something to hold my new GPU CPU and a new ram right? you nailed it on the ABIT AB9. Now elokito sorry man im not saying MSI sucks or anything coz I got no right to say that I dont know squat about pc inside stuff, but why does it have bad rating? About RAM I'll probably stick to the brand I have been using the Corsair XMS2 seems able to do it and its gonna do it i bet! GPU wow I didn't even know this existed http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814170103 Albatron GeForce 7950GX2 1Gig wow...1Gig!!! hmmm nice just for a 100 more...is it worth it? whatever I'll trust you anyway. Any suggestions for a PSU? I wanna make sure all these new stuff im getting is gonna be powered up well...and cooled down. What do you use on your CPU to cool it down? (best to calm down an overclocked system) Thanks again guys! Get at me!
to work out your psu needs try this link, http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp add to the mix that it can overclock to 3.8ghz at 1.6v and it will tell you what you will need with all your componants running. i would guess that with that gpu, which is basicaly 2 cards in 1, and the room to over clock it you will need 700w+ but thats not that high now as they make them upto 1100w. you dont realy want to skimp on this as if it goes pop it can take half your system with it, so id say buy the best you can afford. the only thing i would point out is that psu's tend to be at their most efficent at 80/85% load, any higher and they tend to use alot more electric and make alot more heat.
the ram, xms2 is up there with some of the best. if you want to overclock just make sure you are able to drop it so that when you over clock it you dont push it to far. eg, i overclock my rig, my ram is ddr400 that will run at dd450 but my cpu will run upto 252mhz which would take my ram to ddr504 and it just wont, so i need to drop it to ddr333 so it will run at dd410. does that make sense? not to worry too much overclocking has its own thread here and that the place to go into it fully.
cooling,arctic cooling freezer 7 pro is the fave with most overclockers, great perfomance, low noise and not over priced, if you cant get one of those the akasa evo120 does about the same but costs a bit more. now the only problem with both of these is the thermal paste that they come with is poor, its zinc based and you want to get rid of that and get some silver based stuff. it will knock another 5c off your temps on its own. just dont use too much of it, as less is more with thermal paste you only need a blob about the size of a uncooked gain of rice.
