upgrade advice needed

[alfroogy]

ok so it's upgrade time and i need some advice

i have already upgraded all the inconsequential things such as sound cards and harddrives and the like, but now that it comes to the mobo cpu and graphics card i have struck a bit of a dilema.

i was thinking of getting a p35 board and a q6600 and a evga 8800gt sc

but i have heard that the x38 boards and the new penryn line of cpus are about to be released as well as a g92 based 8800gts.

so i was wondering if anybody can advise whether its better to wait it out for the cpus and upgrade to x38 board with ddr3 or just bite the bullet and upgrade now.

[George Hallam]

Hey alfroogy welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

i was thinking of getting a p35 board and a q6600 and a evga 8800gt sc

that would be a great system (mid gaming grade)

but as you say about the X38 and G92 8800GTS are going to be great :D

but if you get the X38 MOBO now you may regret it due to the X48 being released in the next month or so. Also Nvidia will released their 700i series aswell supporting SLI and PCI-E 2.0

also penryn are just round the corner so if you can just wait for a while longer you wont regret it and the same goes for theG92 8800GTS :D

what is your budget ?

are you using it for gaming?

[alfroogy]

my budget just for the mobo cpu and gpu is around $900 i know its not too much but i reckon i could probably stretch that to 1200, maybe 1400 in a pinch

and yes this will be solely a gaming rig as i have my notebook for all my other stuff

and thanks for the advice so far

[George Hallam]

around $900 i know its not too much but i reckon i could probably stretch that to 1200, maybe 1400 in a pinch

o ye definitely wait till January/february you will get a nice bit of kit with that :D

so what games you looking at playing matey?

[alfroogy]

crysis is looking amazing right now...not too mention starcraft 2 is coming up soon hopefully *gazes off into space*( i happen to be a starcraft fan just btw still playing brodwar to this day) i also want to try unreal tournament 3 and bio shock... not mention being able to maintain a full on 8 player games of supreme commander... which currently shuts my pc down when it gets to the bigger battles.

[George Hallam]

not mention being able to maintain a full on 8 player games of supreme commander... which currently shuts my pc down when it gets to the bigger battles.
Reply With Quote

spoils the fun :(

what system do you have at the moment?

Crysis = *****
COD 4 = *****
Gears of war = ****
UT 3 = ****
Bioshock = ***

[alfroogy]

i'm sitting on a core 2 duo 2.40ghz
nvidia 7600
2gb ddr2 667 ram
creative x-fi sound card

[saphalline]

If you have the budget, you could do a killer core upgrade in February or so. But honestly, your current hardware is more than adequate for the latest games, with one exception: the vid card!

You're looking at games like Crysis and Supreme Commander with a puny little 7600!? :eek: This is holding your system back in gaming like you wouldn't believe! A GeForce 8800 GT or Radeon HD 3870 makes a 7600 look like an abacus!

You can go ahead and do a mobo/CPU upgrade if you really want to spend the money (and it would still be well-spent) but the prime determinant of gaming performance is the vid card. And that's currently where your system is ill-equipped. At least for the games you listed. I'd suggest starting with a vid card upgrade and see how things go from there...

[alfroogy]

ok well got some extra cash and i just got 2 g92 8800gts a xfx 790i sli board and upgraded my ram to 4gb ddr2 800 with 4-4-412 timings, gonna wait till yorkfiels is released to finish it all off.

[George Hallam]

ok well got some extra cash and i just got 2 g92 8800gts a xfx 790i sli board and upgraded my ram to 4gb ddr2 800 with 4-4-412 timings, gonna wait till yorkfiels is released to finish it all off.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/eek.gif wow nice rig mate do some serious gaming on that beast

can i have it for X-mas http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[rond36]

xfx 790i sli board
That chipset has not been released. The only chipsets in the 700i series is the 750i and 780i and all they are is 650i and 680i with an extra chip added to support PCI-E 2.0 and add an extra PCI-E x16 slot.

[George Hallam]

That chipset has not been released. The only chipsets in the 700i series is the 750i and 780i and all they are is 650i and 680i with an extra chip added to support PCI-E 2.0 and add an extra PCI-E x16 slot.

cheers for clarifying that http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/wink.gif after writing that i did think hmmm

alfroogy is it on pre,pre-order? or you just telling porkies? http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

and rond36 doesn't the XFX 780i board look NICE!!

http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/item1075/big_xfx_780i_2.jpg

and now this is a dream setup http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/biggrin.gifhttp://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/biggrin.gifhttp://forums.overclockers.co.uk/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/item1075/big_xfx_780i_3.jpg

[Ajmukon]

... but there is no room for anything else...

[alfroogy]

sorry that was a typo it's the 780i

[rond36]

I wouldn't buy a nVidia board for a Yorkfield processor just yet!
Keep your core 2 duo 2.40ghz (E6600??) handy you may need to use it.

Intel and nVidia are having a fight over SLI for the Intel X48 chipset. Intel asked nVidia for a license to support SLI on the X38 and X48 chipsets, nVidia refused to grant the license. Intel released the X38 chipset without SLI, that is what caused the big delay of the X38 chipset. In retaliation, Intel changed some of the micro code on on the retail Yorkfield processors and Intel is refusing to share the changes with nVidia so that a BIOS can be written that fully supports the new processors. There is even rumors that Intel may change the socket and not license the new socket to nVidia, like they did to AMD when they moved from socket 380 to socket 423, 478, and 775. Now that AMD has a license for socket 775, that they acquired when they purchased ATI there is even more of a reason to change from socket 775, and not license the new socket to AMD or nVidia or any other chipset manufacturer. They did it with socket 771 for the Intel Xeon DP processors for workstations and servers, the only chipsets available are Intel chipsets.

There are laptops with Intel chipsets that support SLI, why not desktops.
Alienware Area-51 m9750 (http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m9750/area-51m_specs.aspx#pdp-nav)

Processors, Chipset & Memory
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processors (4MB Cache, 667MHz FSB)
Intel 945PM + ICH7M-DH Chipset
Up to 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
2 dedicated SO-DIMM slots for Dual Channel DDR2 Memory

Graphics & Video

DirectX 9 Enabled Graphics
Dual Graphics Cards
512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX GDDR3
NVIDIA nForce 100 with NVIDIA® SLI™ technology

DirectX 10 Enabled Graphics
Single Graphics Card
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT GDDR3
Dual Graphics Cards
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT GDDR3
NVIDIA nForce 100 with NVIDIA® SLI™ technology

Maybe this post should have been in the PC World Forum.

[alfroogy]

Really? damn it! I already bought everything it arrived today, I was assured the 7 series would be compatible with yorkfield when its released. I know the 680i isn't though. Yes i still have my E6600 it's what I'm running till yorkfield is released and apparently after it's released as well.