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Looking to upgrade and have questions

#1 Woolfman

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Posted 28 October 2011 - 09:33 PM

I am currently thinking about upgrading to try to get better performance out of my current system.

I currently have a Dell XPS 630i its almost 3 years old .

Processor Q9550, 2.83, 12MB Yorkfield, E0
Memory pc2-6400 4gb
HD 750G SGT-GLXY
Power supply 650 watts ( i think)
video card gtx 470 ( it originally came with 2 9800GT SLI but one died)
Sound card Creative Sound Blaster X-fi

What i am looking for is what would give me the best bang for my buck. SO my question is what route should i take for get the best performance gain.

This post has been edited by Woolfman: 28 October 2011 - 09:54 PM

#2 killerx525

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Posted 28 October 2011 - 09:53 PM

The only suggestion i have for the upgrade is to upgrade the graphics card to the GTX570. The processor can't really be upgraded since it's already good for it's generation.

>Michael
System: CPU- AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Oc'ed to 3.8GHz, CPU Cooler- Noctua NH-D14, RAM- G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL 8G Kit(4Gx2) DDR3 1600, HDD- Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATAIII, GPU- Asus EAH6950 1GB Crossfire Oc'ed 900/1310mhz, MB- Gigabyte 990FXA-D3, Case- Coolermaster HAF 932, PSU- Corsair TX-750 V2, Soundcard- Realtek High Definition Audio Sound, OS- Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-Bit

#3 GaryDZ

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Posted 28 October 2011 - 10:55 PM

I think a putting the operating system on a solid state drive would give you the biggest bang for the buck. You can pic up a 120g drive for about $120.

I added one to my system and it was noticeably faster.

#4 killerx525

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Posted 29 October 2011 - 08:06 AM

A solid and reliable 120GB SSD like Intel is roughly about $200 or more. By upgrading to a SSD, it would make your computer boot up faster, open applications faster etc. What do use your computer for?

#5 Woolfman

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Posted 29 October 2011 - 08:14 AM

killerx525, on 29 October 2011 - 08:06 AM, said:

I use it for mostly for gaming lately. I have never messed with an SSD, I assume they are pretty easy to install?

Also would i have to wipe my current HD clean to do this? (would all my installed stuff work when the computer is booting off a different drive?)

#6 DJBPace07

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Posted 29 October 2011 - 06:05 PM

You can use an SSD, they are simple to install, especially if you get a kit that includes data migration software, like Intel's. However, the data migration tool makes an image of your C: and puts it on the SSD, so your current C: capacity must be equal or less than the SSD's capacity to work. An SSD is great for increasing the speed of your computer booting and loading applications from it, but the cost per gigabyte is very high. Keep in mind that once items are loaded into RAM, such as a game level, the hard drive isn't as much of a factor.

#7 killerx525

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Posted 29 October 2011 - 11:21 PM

A SSD for gaming has it's advantage like faster loading times for texture files etc.

#8 DJBPace07

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 12:52 AM

IMO, iven how fast current hard drives are, I don't believe the cost of an SSD to merely load a game level a few seconds faster is really worth it if you are using 7200RPM drives.

#9 killerx525

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 01:00 AM

That depends on the game. One game i know that will load really fast is Team Fortress 2 because the game loading takes time for most people and the loading to the game.

#10 DJBPace07

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 01:07 AM

It also boils down to user tolerance, I don't mind waiting an extra two or three seconds to load a level from a game stored on a 7200RPM drive that can hold almost every game in my library. However, I play mostly single player games and moving over 500GB to an SSD is ludicrously expensive at almost ten times the cost of a standard drive.

#11 killerx525

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 01:46 AM

This not 2 or 3 seconds, this is 1 minute or even more for some computers as the game literally has tons texture files and some other stuff that it needs to load before you can even start playing.

#12 DJBPace07

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 02:55 PM

The game may also not be coded very well, Dragon Age II had load time issues for a while until patching, Mass Effect 2 loads very quickly. A minute or two load time is insane with modern systems and I haven't experienced anything like that for years.

#13 killerx525

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Posted 30 October 2011 - 07:26 PM

They release tons of updates to recertify quite a few problems but generally it does have lots to load up. For an example when there is change in map, it has to load up the new map and some other stuff which i usually finish first because i have to wait for the others to finish there loading which means i basically have the fastest hard drive out out of them. A SSD would significantly cut on the loading time.

This post has been edited by killerx525: 30 October 2011 - 07:27 PM