Need Eval of Gaming Computer

[Byzantine21]

I put together the follow computer over the past year and a half, thanks to advice and insight obtained from this forum.

I'm wondering if I can cheaply, say for $100 - $300, push more performance out of this build or should I simply wait and put together another machine. Here's what I have:

AMD FX 57 CPU
Gigabyte K8N Ultra-9 socket 939 board
2 GB Corsair Value DDR RAM
7900 GS EVGA graphics card
Soundblaster X-Fi Music sound card
550w CoolerMaster power supply
Samsung 930 19" Monitor 7ms 800:1 60 mhz 1054 x 720

120 gb Seagate 7000 rpm hd
80 gb WD Raptor 10000 rpm hd (SATA II)

I'm contemplating eventually adding an upgrade to the graphics card. I mostly use this machine to game and generally play games like Europa Universalis II, Civ 4, HOMM5, Med Total War II, etc. HOMM5 with antialiasing cranked up seemed to tax it some and I'd like to play that game without there being alot of screen lag. Please advise. Thanks.

 

[ollithemagicbum]

you could get 8800 gts 320 mb for better perfomance.

they are less than $300.

 

[Law]

That's a really nice system. Spend some money on a liquid cooling kit and a nice large tower and overclock it Gives you something to do for a project.

 

[Pinscher]

if you went intel, you could push performance way higher. or if you dont want to go intel, you should atleast try to get an am2 cpu/mobo.

 

[meat_helmet]

Thats still a pretty nice system, even by todays core 2 duo standard. The cpu wont overclock much unfortuantely, and you wont see much performance increase in games from upgrading you cpu (which is still good for at least another year).

I would suggest looking at a 8800GTS. It will give you the biggest performance increase in games than anything else. Your video card is the weak link.

 

[Byzantine21]

Many thanks to all for the responses and thoughts. I am going to look into upgrading to a 8800 GTS in the near future. Do those cards throw off a lot of heat, more than say my existing 7900 GS?

I've got a Coolermaster Wavemaster case that should handle the length of the 8800 GTS nicely, but am not sure if stock cooling will be enough.

Thoughts?

 

[Bot2011]

The 8800gts puts out a good amount of heat but the stock cooler on the card will be sufficient. I would say they produce more heat than the 7900gs and as long as the case has good airflow you should be fine.

 

[darksideleader]

Athlon FX-57 is still single core right? Might wanna up to a dual-core socket 939.

 

[Pinscher]

i would just say, if you're going to stick with amd (nothing wrong with that) just try to go for am2 and dual-core. It will prove to be a lot more future proof, and not too much more expensive.