Help Upgrading Vid Card/Power Supply?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Tinsil

Baseband Member
Messages
47
Looking at giving my computer an upgrade. I purchased it about two years ago. Im looking at upgrading my video card, RAM, and my power supply if needed. Could definitely use some help here on making sure what I get will work and work well.

I'm really trying to build a computer that can play some of the newer games well maybe like Crysis, Last Remnant, Fallout 3, etc. I currently run Windows XP. My monitor runs on resolution 1280x1024

I really need help with choosing a video card and then deciding if I need to upgrade my power supply. The power supplies are the area I really don't understand in determining how many watts I need.

I can't SLI. I only have 1 PCI Express x16 slot. I'm looking to buy a really solid single video card without going overboard. I have a total budget of about $300-350. The Radeon 4800 series cards look great overall, might get one of them.

Would appreciate recommendations and just help making sure what I buy is compatible and good for the money. Thanks.

========================================

These are the main parts I have currently.

7900GS 256mb Video Card *****
Link to Video Card

My Power Supply ****
Link to Power Supply

My Motherboard
Link to Motherboard

My Case
Link to my Case

My 2 gigs of RAM
Link to RAM

My Processor
Link to Processor
 
Hmm... Will my current CPU bottleneck my new video card? My current CPU is not OCed currently. Tried it once but couldn't get it stable, a topic for another thread perhaps. I have no problem OCing my CPU if I can get it to work right though. I think I have pretty good cooling and great ventilation.

Glad to see my PSU can support it still. This is like a last upgrade to this computer before wiping everything in a couple years and rebuilding. Is it worth the $80 for that small upgrade, or is that going to be something major?

Thanks for the help.
 
Actually, your ram is pretty good, adding another 2 gigs probably won't give you as much a performance boost as getting these would

Newegg.com - EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

I checked your mobo site to make sure it supports that cpu and it does with the latest bios update

Universal abit > Motherboard, Digital Speakers, iDome, AirPace, Multimedia

make sure you have it.

Getting those two will show a major improvement in your gaming.
 
That psu will be fine for any card at the moment, It's 80 plus so it pretty effcient and Xcilo are not too bad.
Now, without overclocking your CPU a decent amount your will expierence a bottle neck, and it wouldnt be worth spending that much on your system, you would be much better just upgrading your CPU and GPU and keeping your ram as that wont increase performance as much as those would. 2gb would still be enough for gaming just will expierence some longer load times. I would suggest the following;

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - EVGA 896-P3-1260-AR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

those would make your system much better, before everyone jumps on me, you did mention playing crysis so the nvidia card will benefit you there, but if you are interested in best performance over all games get the 4870 1gb by xfx. Now adding a 4gb ram set would be optional, or what you could do is get a cheaper graphics card but i would just keep the ballistix. Those are great sets of ram.

EDIT: pinscher bet me be like 1 minute xd
 
Yeah i was goign to add the old bios update in an EDIT but saw you beat me to it so forgot about it.
 
Okay. I'll look at that Processor. I know my current CPU is supposed to be able to overclock, but I couldn't get it stable.

I'll look at trying that over the next few hours and see if I can get it.

Thanks for the help too. Appreciate it. Good to know I won't have to upgrade my power supply! Was worried about that, and that saves a pretty good amount of money.
 
Ran my E2180 at 2.5ghz on Prime95 for about 4 hours now with nothing wrong. Done a few other things and it appears stable.

So if it will run stable with at least 2.5ghz do I absolutely have to upgrade the processor? Thanks.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom