Upgrading Gaming Rig

[motounplugged]

Hey this is my first post so here it goes. I took alot of parts from my Dell XPS 210 this time last year and put them into a new desktop.. I am kind of bored with it, and want to upgrade. Here's what all I'm running...

Xclio A380 Turbojet Case Blue LED
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Motherboard (Wondering if this board is SLI capable?)
RAIDMAX 730w power
NVIDIA XFX GeForce 9800 GTX +
Here's where it gets weak:
Intel Duo Core 2 6400 2.13GHz
4 x 1gb DDR2 RAM. Two sticks are dell and two are kingston. Both weak.
250gb Dell HD
$13 coolermaster Heatsink
DVD Drive
Windows 7 32 bit.. only b/c of my student discount. I need 64.

What are some upgrades I could make other than changing to a DDR3 mobo? Would it be a good idea to run Raid 0 with two hard drives? Is a processor upgrade necessary also? Thanks

 

[Muffin Man]

well, what kind of budget are you looking at for upgrade?

as far as sli goes, officially it is not supported on your mobo only xfire is (ati cards), BUT, theres hope for you yet if you wish to try and sli another 9800gtx+.

take a look at this thread from another member here. http://www.techist.com/forums/f76/sli-intel-chipset-219886/ he managed to sli gtx 260's on a non-sli mobo using this here guide Project xDevs: Êîíòåíò / Ïóáëèêàöèè è ñòàòüè / Activating NVIDIA SLI on all motherboards, detailed HOW-TO (credit to philbar71 for this)

actually, i think youre in real luck here. according to that guide, they have a list of a couple mobos and gfx cards theyve already tried this and have been proven to work and your mobo (GA-EP45-UD3P) and your gfx card (9800 gtx+) are on this proven list.

you could also look into upgrading to a quad-core if you have the money, but i wouldnt upgrade your mobo to a ddr3 one with a skt 775 because that skt is basicly dead now. if you do upgrade your mobo, go with either an am3 mobo + cpu or with an 1156 (core i5/i7) or 1366 (i7) mobo + cpu, but these options will probably be costing more.

 

[aliasaid]

I don't see a real need for an upgrade just yet, but if you must, you could pop in a core 2 quad. That should hold you off for another year or year and a half. After that, buy a whole new rig altogether. There isn't much else you can do with that computer.

Muffin man seems to have found a way for you to utilize SLI. core2quad, 4gbs ram, 2 9800gtx's in sli. That should easily last you another 1.5years. I wouldn't try to upgrade anything else, unless it was a major one like mobo+cpu+memory.

But for a quick upgrade now, one of these processors:
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

and if you want another 9800gtx+
Newegg.com - SPARKLE SFPX98GTX+512D3 GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

 

[james.wired]

^ the Q9550 over any Q8xxx any day

 

[motounplugged]

thanks for the help guys.. I think I'm going to just stay with a single video card for now. I've been playing COD: MW2 on my xbox like crazy.. so no real need for that much graphics. I think I'll upgrade to a quad core and upgrade to 8gb (4x2gb) of matching memory. And also with a better heatsink. Any suggestions on ram and heatsinks?

 

[aliasaid]

To be honest i don't really see the point of upgrading the memory, 4gbs is more than enough. And it doesn't really make much sense to be upgrading memory + cpu for old socket 775. If you are to make such an upgrade, then you may as well do it for the motherboard as well and get new technology. You haven't told us how much money you're going to be spending. Tell us how much you're going to spend on this upgrade so we can guide you better.

 

[james.wired]

Yeah...8GB is a little overkill unless you are running multiple VMs or programs that actually use it up. RAM is not as cheap as it was last year, no sir.

 

[motounplugged]

Yeah...8GB is a little overkill unless you are running multiple VMs or programs that actually use it up. RAM is not as cheap as it was last year, no sir.

So I've noticed..

Probably 2-300.. just depends.

 

[james.wired]

Yeah it's pretty crazy. Best to just keep that money in your pocket. I bought my kit for $45.99 in I think April or June of this year, now there are about $99.99...nuts!

 

[motounplugged]

If I was to upgrade memory.. is this any good?

Newegg.com - OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2RPR800C44GK - Desktop Memory