So I've been looking at mainly Video Cards lately on Newegg, Amazon and reviews in general due to FFXIV coming out next week. I won't be getting these parts for a LONG time, but I want to hear the communities specs for their PC and what they'd suggest. The CPU is to help TF2 run better as I know it's very dependent on it and I'd like a higher FPS min/max. Before we start I'd like to say I'm a complete noob at anything internal concerning the PC unless it's changing RAM, however I have a very IT competent dad and friend who do security software and hardware, so they can help put parts in if I cannot. I have no idea what overclocking does, if I'd need a cooling system on the card I've been eyeing; the GTX 460 as it's relatively cheap, is meant to be way more reliable, quiet and faster running than the higher 5-700 series. The card goes for around £180-200 on a group of sites. Currently I'm running: nVidia 8600GT Intel Dual Core @ 2GHz (I keep hearing a lot about the i7 processor, any good?) 4GB RAM 32 bit OS Vista Home Premium (I plan to go to 64bit Windows 7 to take advantage of my RAM) I'd like to to replace these ASAP for Final Fantasy/other non FPS'. In TF2 I get about 20-50FPS, 70 on CS:S and 20-60 on L4D1/2. The computer is two years old but has served me well and I'd like to upgrade it's innards rather than go get a new PC. How is Windows 7 in terms of reliability, compatibility, security (UAC better be gone),playing games/TF2? Questions are welcome, I look forward to learning a few things from you guys. I better see Kittens, Dutch and Luke in here, as I know they fiddle with their PC's a lot and have fairly new parts Budget: £400 (I know that's seems a lot but I'm not sure on how much CPU's cost)
Well lucky for you I've spent the last months looking for a new video cart :lol: Going to tell you this to begin with, I think you need to choose if you want of new processor or a new video cart. Because getting both just 400 pounds might not work. I think you'll be able to get 2 very decent components but far from top of the line. If you want an GTX460 I'd rather go for a bit less cheap one, for better performance. So f.e. this version But I like ati better. If you want the kind of cart that luke and those guys have, you'd better win the lottery. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product I currently have this cpu and I'm pretty content with it, although I think it might need some OC to really be great. Good luck ^^
i'm not in for msi i've had 2 msi motherboards. Both stopped working within 2 years. 1 For a molten cooler and 1 just stopped powering on a couple of months ago. I don't OC and my case is very well ventilated with a true power 550watts(or 600) antec power supply. Got a couple of IT friends who steered me away from msi to about reliability problems. I've got an i5 760 now, quite like it. i7 is a little expensive. Problem is: with a new cpu comes a new motherboard. new motherboard means probably like me, you need ddr3 ram. (and you've got to ditch that old IDE HD that you might have been using as storage, only sata left and 1 IDE slot.) And you're old graphics card might even not be pci express
There is no way you can upgrade both for £400, if you want a new processor then that also means a new motherboard, maybe new RAM as well, thats another £100 for the Mobo, getting Ram would be another £100, then £150+ for the processor, and you want a Graphics card with the pennies you have left from £400. I would say either expand your budget to around £600 to go for a full upgrade (if you do then post back and i can advise you on components); or just get a new card. The card i would advise is This It comes with a hefty factory overclock and is only a few quid more than other 5850's What the hell here is my full upgrade list: MOBO: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/Gigabyte ... -RAID-uATX £84.07 CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/Intel-Co ... 95W-Retail £144.70 RAM: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-%282 ... 4-DHX-165v £81.22 (I assume the RAM you have isnt DDR3, so you need that ^^) Graphics card: (As above) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX- ... DVI-I-HDMI £222.06 Total Cost: £532.05 This is assuming you dont need a new power supply for the new stuff, you have a decent enough case with ventilation etc. I would also reccomend you get a third party cooler for you processor, it will run cooler, be less noisy and live longer. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gelid-Tr ... 2-AM2plus- Out of Stock ATM, but im sure you can pick one up somewhere else, should be £20 - £25. You could easily double this going for a mega upgrade (like i did), but if your budget is limited then this should be a very competent all round pc, that will give you a good performance in games. EDIT: Oh i would also recommend Windows 7, you would see a performance increase on your current PC if you upgraded nothing else but your OS to 7, Vista is bulky and resource heavy. EDIT 2: Whatever you decide STAY AWAY FROM NVIDIA
Mm, get the E8400 cpu, it overlcocks very easily (up to 3.8ghz) with no voltage increases although you would need an aftermarket cooler for £40. Also, yeah, im not an nvid fan D:
300 & Alias > first time I see ppl saying NVidia is bad ! But I'm not really a Pc-parts nerd so I don't know much about he ATI/Nvidia debate. So why don't you like Nvidia ? ^^ (sorry for being offtopic !) BTW, I have to say Windows 7 is really, really, really, REALLY, really better than Vista I don't even think I had to manually reboot my PC because of it (when a program crashes, it crashes alone :lol. Compatibility is ok too, now almost every program runs without problems. I never heard about security problems from friends or relatives. For what's about the UAC, if you mean the annoying popups that always ask you if you are sure to do <some action>, yes you can disable them. And, last but not least, TF2 runs perfectly with Seven... so, Go! Go! Go! :lol:
I think it's just like the console war. Some only want Nvidea, others only ATI. I've had 2 Nvidea cards and 2 times I wasn't overly happy with them... However other would rather have an nvidea card that's less good, than an ATI card.
I've got an Asus En9500gt card. It's great imo, its specs are; Spoiler Asus EN9500GT/DI/1GD2/V2 Specifications Memory Memorybus 128 bit Clockspeed memory 800 MHz Graphic adapter DDR2-SDRAM Processor Processor-k... 550 MHz Grafic processor GeForce 9500GT Technical details Support for parallel processing SLI DVI-I ports 1 Maximum resolution 2560 x 1600 pixels Mac-compatible... No VGA (D-Sub) port 1 Technical details Amount of HDMI-ports 1 HDMI Yes HDCP Yes Resolution (maximum analog) 2048 x 1536 pixels Shader clock 1375 MHz Type cooler active Connection possibilities Connection PCI Express 2.0 DVI port 1 Video DirectX version 10.0 Videomemory Maximum memory graphical adapter 1024 MB (don't mind the weird words, I translated it from dutch to english but didn't know all of the terms xD) Best of all is that this card only cost me 50 euros ^^.. it's really great imo, I can play tf2 with max graphics on high resolution. Too bad my cpu sucks xD.. If you want a good graphics card for a low price, you should definetly pick this one
I personally wouldn't got for that one. Perhaps you can buy 2 of them and crossfire them or something. but then you'd need a new powersupply, so you'd better go for a more decent card imo
Ha he wants to upgrade, not downgrade... @ Antou I have nothing against nvidia personally, i had nvidia before i got my ATI card. The thing is with their latest 4XX range; too expensive, too little, too hot, too late. At a bang per buck level ATI is far superior, the cards do have a marginal performance over ATI cards, but as they are so much more expensive its not comparable, they run far hotter than ATI cards (ATI's top single GPU cards tops out at about at around 70c, Nvidias at 94), and have very noisy fans, Nvidia released their DX11 4XX cards 6 FREAKING MONTHS after ATI.
Hehe sorry, appearantly I'm a bit old fashioned when it comes to hardware xD I thought my videocard owned
the problem is guys, you are recommending all sorts of graphic cards. But does he have pci express? I believe he still has AGP slot. If he wants an upgrade he'll have to go all the way with a new motherboard, which in turn comes to replacing ram and cpu nvidia vs ati ati is cheaper but nvidia drivers run better, that's my experience with it. Same as amd cpu vs intel, intel better but amd cheaper and changes slot every 2 years, so hardly any upgrade possibilities
If you can show me an AGP 8600GT then i will personally buy Zippy his new computer. Also of course AMD is cheaper, its an inferior product...
intel changes there cpu sockets also very fast corei7 other slot then corei5 etc... Amd is just slower so its cheaper, they are all around the same price/prestige ratio...that's the advantage of competition. OT : I cant really make up what to do with this. core duo : could be anything from old interl core2duo (I guess you have) to a corei5 Core i7 is good but if you wanna upgrade cheaper go for the core i5 760 (also quadcore) around 80 pounds cheaper and the difference is futile. Memory : DDR2 ? you cant do shit with it anymore, if you upgrade its all DDR3 these days. Video: nvidia or Ati, doesnt really matter: best bang for buck is ATI 5770, but it changes constantly... So 400 pounds should be just enough if you go for basic parts with a new mthrboard,memory,gfxcard and cpu... I would say, save for some more money to get decent parts and you can go for a gtx 460 or equivalent. Good rigg Processor - Intel Core i5 750 (4x2.66) but easily oc'd. 4GB DDR3-1600 Mthrbrd: MSI P55-GD65 or a cheaper gigabyte USB3 P55 mthrbrd (if you wanne have the new USB3 connection) Gfx : Ati 5850, the gtx 460 is cheaper but overall 12 % slower @ 300 kitty : And stay away from nvidia sounds to me like a atifanboy speaking, on this moment ATI has the better bang for buck but it changes constantly. They DO have better drivers; I have an ATI gfx now but I think my next is gonne be a nvidia just because of there drivers, but thats professional related (butter OpenGL performance/reliability)
At the end of the day there is so much choice out there and you have to be careful as you can buy something for £100 more and see basically no difference. My views: CPU - When I got my PC back in Feb 09 I got the E8400 cpu (duo at 3.0ghz). Yeah I could have got better but tbh, I dont need better, it copes fine as it is. I knew how easy it was to overclock which also made me buy it. Now, with a £40 aftermarket cooler its running stable at 3.8ghz with basically no effort at all. But I know in 2 years I will probably get a better cpu as quad core seems to be the buzz atm. OS - I have W7 32 bit (easier to crack) and for me, runs everything, no bugs, security is fine. Yeah, every OS from windows was good for me, im not bothered about the niggly things as I use it as my own personal PC and its just fine. GPU - Again, Feb 09 I got the 4870 HD Toxic Edition, I can run every game I have fine and pretty high settings and im not looking to invest in a new one any time soon... End of the day, you can either go all out and buy things that you won get your monies worth from as your not a hardcore gamer (like, has every game and plays 27/7). Or, you can save loads more, dont get the top specs and still have a PC that works and plays games pretty damn well. And a side note, what case do you have? If its a crappy stock one from like Dell or whatever you are going to need a new one because of space and cooling.
Yes I have PCI express and DDR2 RAM. In terms of the case it is a full size MESH tower. I'll show you my CPU-Z details. Also, I know already, oooooooooold Motherboard. It is from 2007 to be fair. CPU Caches Mainboard Memory Graphics