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Upgrade Recommendation - please



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 31st 10, 01:29 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Steve
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 62
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

In article , says...

Hi,

My son is running Windows 7 64 bit. That is the correct Motherboard,
except is a 2008 edition (our box doesn't say Turbo on it). But I think
it's the same. So we could upgrade the DDR2 up to 16GB if we wanted to.

His power supply is a NZXT 800 watts P.S. SLI which I don't know if it's
good or not, but it is 800W.

I think may I want to invest in the Video Card.


Take your pick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...?Submit=ENE&N=
100007709%20600007323%20600062521&IsNodeId=1&name= GeForce%20GTX%
20460%20%28Fermi%29

http://preview.tinyurl.com/28vtsp7

My choice:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814261076

Palit NE5X460HF1102 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Sonic Platinum
Overclocking Edition 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
SLI Support Video Card

Because it's shorter than the others.



s
  #2  
Old July 31st 10, 01:52 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
mac[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

My son has a gaming pc. I am considering an upgrade for his Birthday.
He has :
MB Asus PQ5 Pro Board
4 G DDR2 PC6400 (4 X 1 sticks)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHZ
Sparkle GEFORCE 9800GT 1 GB 16X PCI-E

What should I upgrade for a better gaming experience?
Double the RAM (to 8 GB)? , get a better Video Card?, or Processor?

I would like to spend around $300. What should I upgrade?

Thanks!
mac
  #3  
Old July 31st 10, 06:06 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Grinder
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Posts: 1,321
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

On 7/31/2010 7:52 AM, mac wrote:
My son has a gaming pc. I am considering an upgrade for his Birthday.
He has :
MB Asus PQ5 Pro Board
4 G DDR2 PC6400 (4 X 1 sticks)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHZ
Sparkle GEFORCE 9800GT 1 GB 16X PCI-E

What should I upgrade for a better gaming experience? Double the RAM (to
8 GB)? , get a better Video Card?, or Processor?

I would like to spend around $300. What should I upgrade?


Is this the motherboard that you have:
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=c19zNYHCAXhCqBPq

If your operating system is 32-bit, expanding your memory beyond 4GB
will do nothing. Current 32-bit versions of windows cannot address more
than 4GB without hacking the kernel, which is not recommended.

If you're running a 64-bit operating system, but your game is still
32-bit, it likely will not benefit from additional memory either.
(Conceivably there could be a benefit in that you could run multiple
32-bit applications and they would have a larger pool of memory to use
from, without exceeding that 4GB limit individually.)

The processor is pretty good, so I wouldn't sweat that. With this
motherboard you could really only go for more cores and that would
likely not be exploited by your games.

If I have the right motherboard, though, I see that it has two PCIe x16
slots. (One is only x8 electrically.) You could pop in a pair of
crossfire-enabled video cards--which pretty much means some sort of
Radeon HD cards. You might also need a new power supply to handle
increased demand that two video cards will put on the system.

You can really spend as much as you want on a pair of high-end video
cards. I'm afraid I don't have much of a recommendation as two where
the price to performance cusps are. I've got a Radeon HD 4650 because I
just needed something intermediate, and several reviews said this was a
good performing card for the money. I spent $50.

You can easily spend half you budget on a high-quality power supply.
Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371009

....could probably serve whatever expansions you make to your system.

- - - - - -

Something you may not have thought of, or might not be applicable, is
the addition of a tv tuner to your son's PC. For about $125 you can get
a good quality dual tuner, with a remote control. If you're operating
system is Windows XP MCE, Vista or Windows 7, you'll already have the
software you need to turn that PC into a Tivo.

Setting it up make take some effort, especially if you have set-top
boxes in your house, but it's a slick feature to have in a computer now
that our culture has forgotten how to read.


  #4  
Old July 31st 10, 07:00 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
mac[_5_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

Hi,

My son is running Windows 7 64 bit. That is the correct Motherboard,
except is a 2008 edition (our box doesn't say Turbo on it). But I think
it's the same. So we could upgrade the DDR2 up to 16GB if we wanted to.

His power supply is a NZXT 800 watts P.S. SLI which I don't know if it's
good or not, but it is 800W.

I think may I want to invest in the Video Card.

  #5  
Old July 31st 10, 07:09 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Grinder
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,321
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

On 7/31/2010 1:00 PM, mac wrote:
Hi,

My son is running Windows 7 64 bit. That is the correct Motherboard,
except is a 2008 edition (our box doesn't say Turbo on it). But I think
it's the same. So we could upgrade the DDR2 up to 16GB if we wanted to.

His power supply is a NZXT 800 watts P.S. SLI which I don't know if it's
good or not, but it is 800W.

I think may I want to invest in the Video Card.

I would check tomshardware.com for reviews that would be on point. Your
motherboard supports crossfire. So, assuming your power supply does,
you need only be careful to get crossfire video cards.

  #6  
Old July 31st 10, 09:58 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
John Doe
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Posts: 4,274
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

"mac" macaaa macaaa. wrote:

My son has a gaming pc. I am considering an upgrade for his Birthday.
He has :
MB Asus PQ5 Pro Board
4 G DDR2 PC6400 (4 X 1 sticks)


About the same here.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHZ


Quad core Q9550 here. Use Performance Monitor to tell whether the dual-core CPU is being taxed.

Sparkle GEFORCE 9800GT 1 GB 16X PCI-E


GeForce 9800GT/512MB "ECO" here.

What should I upgrade for a better gaming experience? Double
the RAM (to 8 GB)? , get a better Video Card?, or Processor?


Consider an SSD drive. Use the SSD drive as the primary drive and
the conventional HDD as the secondary drive. Keep Windows and
applications on the primary SSD. Keep multimedia and anything that
is not installed by Windows or programs on the secondary drive.
You can also keep a mirror copy of the SSD on the secondary drive,
for a bulletproof system (using the free version of Macrium
Reflect). A screaming 64 GB SSD should be plenty. But you can get
128 GB for less than $300. It is not a whizbang upgrade, but it
hugely improves overall system performance. It is a tricky
upgrade, technical skill might be required.

If the current HDD is SATA, you can take both to the next system.

FWIW. For some strange reason, OCZ and maybe others rate their 64
and 128 GB drives as less than those sizes on Newegg, so you have
to look in a slightly smaller size category to find them.
--























I would like to spend around $300. What should I upgrade?

Thanks!
mac


  #7  
Old August 1st 10, 12:53 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
John Doe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,274
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

mac aaa aaan.com wrote:

His power supply is a NZXT 800 watts P.S. SLI which I don't know
if it's good or not, but it is 800W.


Actually, you do not know if it is 800W either. One part of a
"good" power supply is how much power it actually outputs. The
wattage rating means nothing by itself, not even wattage.

According to a moment of research, it looks fine.
  #8  
Old August 1st 10, 03:47 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13,364
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

Steve wrote:
In article , says...
Hi,

My son is running Windows 7 64 bit. That is the correct Motherboard,
except is a 2008 edition (our box doesn't say Turbo on it). But I think
it's the same. So we could upgrade the DDR2 up to 16GB if we wanted to.

His power supply is a NZXT 800 watts P.S. SLI which I don't know if it's
good or not, but it is 800W.

I think may I want to invest in the Video Card.


Take your pick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...?Submit=ENE&N=
100007709%20600007323%20600062521&IsNodeId=1&name= GeForce%20GTX%
20460%20%28Fermi%29

http://preview.tinyurl.com/28vtsp7

My choice:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814261076

Palit NE5X460HF1102 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Sonic Platinum
Overclocking Edition 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
SLI Support Video Card

Because it's shorter than the others.

s


There are two kinds of GTX 460. Ones with 1GB 256-bit interface, and
ones with 768MB 192-bit interface. The difference is, the memory bandwidth
on the latter of those two, is going to be lower, and perhaps Nvidia could
have used a separate part number for that configuration. There is
a price difference between those two types as well (because one would
have more memory chips soldered to the card, than the other one).

The person running this web site, made separate entries for the cards.
And that is not something they always bother with.

http://www.gpureview.com/videocards.php

So that means, I should check out a head to head comparison of the cards.
This shows the memory choice, also affected how many "raster operators"
are enabled on the GPU. So you wouldn't just casually pick "the cheapest"
card. You'd pick the cheapest one, that still has a 256-bit memory interface.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=632&card2=633

When buying video cards, you check the power supply first, to see if
has enough PCI Express connectors, and connectors of the right type.
PCI Express come in six pin (2x3), eight pin (2x4), and 6/8 pin (where
two pins unhook from the rest, to convert from 8 pins to 6 pins). You
want to make sure there are the right connectors, for a seamless
install (no cursing and swearing because connectors are wrong). The
Newegg web site has pictures, were (as long as they don't mix up
the pictures) you can verify the connector scheme used.

The GTX 460 uses 141 watts of power when gaming.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...0_6.html#sect0

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...w460_power.png

Xbitlabs usually include a table of current draw numbers as well, which
you can compare to the rail ratings of the supply. (Power supplies
with so-called independent rails - you want to know which rail goes
to which connector, to work out the total loading on each.)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...460_plines.png

(Numbers collected while playing Crysis Warhead)

Slot 12V rail - 2.3 amps (flows over the main power connector)
PCI Express 6 pin - 6.0 amps (there are two aux connectors on the card...)
PCI Express 6/8 pin - 3.4 amps

I think you could run one of those off the NXZT supply.

For more info on 6 pin and 8 pin PCI Express power connectors, see

http://www.pcisig.com/developers/mai...c6 65ac770768

When you click that link, a document entitled "Electromechanical_Updates.pdf"
should download. Page 7, shows how a video card with an eight pin auxiliary
power connector, can sense whether a six pin is plugged in, or an eight pin
power supply connector is plugged in. The video card gets to decide whether
it really needs an eight pin, or can run with either an eight pin or a six pin.
If the video card uses nothing but six pin connectors, the choices are more limited.
So the least confusing situation, is a card with six pin connectors. The current
draw in the above Xbitlabs table, suggests the card design would be quite happy with
two six pin connectors.

*******

For comparison, if we look at a GTX 480 (more expensive card), the
current draw is higher.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...480_plines.png

(Numbers collected while playing Crysis Warhead)

Slot 12V rail - 3.4 amps (flows over the main power connector)
PCI Express 6 pin - 6.2 amps (there are two aux connectors on the card...)
PCI Express 6/8 pin - 12.8 amps

(Total power including the 3.3V tiny alot load, is 261.7 watts)

In that case, the eight pin has twice the current draw of the six pin.
Only an eight pin connector is going to satisfy that one. You'd expect
to see a six pin and an eight pin on the card, and only an eight pin
from the power supply should be used with the eight pin on the card.
And if the two power supply connectors were coming from the same
rail, you'd be getting close to the current limiter on that rail
(for supplies with so-called separate rails).

This is a GTX 480, and there is a six and an eight on the end. The card
is also quite long (from memory, 10.6" maybe???), and such cards
can bump into the hard drive connectors or hard drive cage. That's
why Steve was pointing out the length of the card he picked, as a long card
can be a pain to deal with.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-130-551-Z05?$S640W$

When measuring the space needed to insert a video card, you need a bit
of wiggle room, to be able to seat the card vertically. So you can't be
satisfied with a "flush fit" (jamming 10.6" long card in 10.6" long hole).
You'd want a fraction of an inch more space, to be able to rock it from
end to end, when seating or unseating the card.

HTH,
Paul
  #9  
Old August 1st 10, 04:34 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
mac[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default Upgrade Recommendation - please

Thank you VERY MUCH for all your input! You all are great!

mac
 




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