Looking to upgrade something in my computer!
 

Too all those computer buffs...

Well, just got the go ahead to pick up one thing for my computer.

My specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz
Elitegroup G31T-M (Shut up.. It was part of the combo deal at Frys)
Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC6400
Nvidia GeForce 7200GS/7300SE
Random Case from Fry's w/ 450W PSU

As you can see, my dad kinda cheaped out on the Case+PSU, as well as my Motherboard (kind of), and Graphics card...

Here are the links

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-036-_-Product

Motherboard: (This is made by MSI, but mine is made by Elitegroup [ECS])
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0234&Tpk=g31tm

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-184-_-Product

VGA Card:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_7300.html

--------------------------------

I got about $65 in Best Buy gift cards, and was looking into upping something.

I'm mostly a gamer, so I was looking into upping my VGA.

MAYBE to a EVGA GTS 250 512mb (DDR3) PCIE....

What do you guys think, I should upgrade, and if the VGA, which VGA?

Thanks!

I`m no expert but why not get a better video card?For $30 to $40 dollars more you could get a NVIDIA 9800 or a ATI equivalent.Is this going to be for internet surfing or gaming?

Mostly gaming.

Which one is better, the 9800 GT(x, EE) is best, and compared to the GTS 250? They're both about the same price range...
Seems the 9800 GT is more "out there" while the 250 I've never really heard of...

I would go with ATI, at least their HD3000 series, more preferably their newer HD4000 series. Problem is it they are gonna be above your cost range, but at least get something in the HD2000 series or higher. Even the HD2600 or HD2900 would be a decent choice, I have the 2600 in my iMac (because that's the best they had at the time) and I can run most games with med settings in native resolution. The newest games are getting to where I have to turn down the resolution, but go for a 3000 or 4000 and you should be fine, or the HD5000 if you have the money!

http://www.amd.com/us/products/Pages/graphics.aspx

eww, ATI.
Never really been an ATI fan, NVIDIA all the way :yes:
Will looking into those series, but seriously doubting I'll pick one up. :lol:

OC that CPU to 4.0GHz (minimum). I have the E8400 3.0GHz that I'm running at 3.99GHz (pretty tame OC'ing). That probably means you need a new MB too to get all the BIOS options. I have a Gigabyte MB from NewEgg and it has every BIOS option you could ask for.

+1000 for the nVidia GTS250! I have the 1GB version. That card is a beast... I used to play EVE Online at full resolution/settings for hours without a hiccup.

The PSU might need to be upgraded if you get the GTS250. I have a 550W in my case. No problems- that's good! :smile: You should put out the extra cash for a modular supply. It makes life easier.

Of course if you do all this you'll probably need a new case too. :lol: Can you see where this is headed? If you can afford it, take your CPU and RAM and put them into a new system. Definitely look at NewEgg. I got my whole system from them with free shipping incl. the 25" monitor.

LOL
I knew this was a bad idea.
I think I'm gonna do a quick PSU calculator, and pick up a new modular later.

I will need some major help OCing though..

for gaming upgrade your video card E8500 is more than enough.

these days until nvidia fermi comes only new 5850/5870 radeos are really the choice for the future

for cheaper cards nvidia GTX275 is a good buy.

GTS250 is a low end than wont allow you to play at higher resolutions with high details.

450W PS is ok if it not a junk.
My PC takes 310W at full utilization when gaming and I got
E8400, 6GB RAM, 8800 Ultra and bunch of hard drives and lots of fans

My E8500 is my CPU, not my video card.
My video card is a 7200......

The PSU calc just told me with my current setup, I'm only pulling about 212watts out of a 450W PSU.

If I put myself up to a GTS250, I'll swing myself up into the 300's watts, and if I OC w/ a 9800 GX2, I'd put myself around the 435W area.. Looks like my PSU is fine for now.

I think I'll be settling around the GTS250 or the 9800, mostly because I don't have $300 to drop on a VGA card with a shatty motherboard...

i know E8500 is your CPU :)

With gts250 you wont be nowhere near 300W. PSU calcs use lot of reserve. I have a Watt meter in my PC :)

Wait, as in, nowhere near, as in over 450? :(

A good vid card will net you big improvements in gaming. I run the same processor at 3.8ghz in my "Black Ice" machine. I won't get into OC here, but its something not to take lightly as you can easily ruin your equipment if you don't know what your doing.

How much are willing to spend max for a video card? It will also depend on your PSU as 450watts is "average" for gaming PC usage, and I highly doubt that PSU is going to reliable put out 450watts under a high load considering it came with a budget Fry's case.

Here's my gaming setup, let me know if you need help. I've been building my own gaming PC rigs for years now


*Black Ice* Gaming PC
|| Core 2 E8500@3.8ghz || || ASUS P5E-VM HDMI || EVGA GTX 260 192 || 4gig G.Skill DDR2 800
|| Audigy 2 5.1 || WD 640gig AALS || ASUS DRW-2014LT1T Lightscribe
|| Antec TruePower New 550w || Antec mini P180 || Xigmatek "Black Knight"
||Viewsonic 20" VX2025VM || Logitech Z5300e 5.1 || Logitech MX518 || Saitek Eclipse 2 || Win7 Home Premium 64bit

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m...SFF/night2.jpg

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m.../silence15.jpg

GTS250 is newr smalle nm GPU with much less consumption than my old highend 8800 Ultra. you will be around 250W :)

however it also depends how efficiend your PS is. I have pretty good one with 80%+ certification

Yeah, I really worry about the "quality" of that PSU with a Fry's budget case. Low quality PSU's can wreak havoc with PC's

I hate you Freezebyte sometimes.. (I'm kidding, I know budget PSU's blow. Haha, no pun intended) Linc...

Here I am all giddy with my NEW GTS 250, working flawlessly, and now I have thoughts of buying a new modular PSU...

So yes, my dad had to go run to Fry's real quick to exchange a cable, it was on sale so we rebought it :party:

Told him I had the gift cards, and a GTS 250 was magically on hold for me. :whistle:

Anyways, I had to run by Staples as well, see if they had a clearance item (for all those slickdeals people, you know what I'm talking about), if not, 320GB, and some 250GB external hard drives were selling for $15 bucks..

Some stores had em, some didn't, you couldn't call because then the people would say oh we ran out, and just buy em for themselves. :whistle:

I come home, I have to rearrange everything in my case... my hard drive, cd drive, it was a weird layout, now it's a beautiful thing. I need longer wires, more power, and some sleeving! :party::yes:

I'm not rocking CSS (Counter Strike Source) at a little over 250FPS, everything max'd out, with antialiasing on medium, I'm rocking over 400FPS!

Before I was only getting 125 haha.

I guess this expands my games that I can now play! If only I didn't run Windows 7...

Oh, I see you already bought the GTS 250. Never mind then... Whats wrong with Win 7? Its crap loads better then Vista, I ditched Vista finally last Thursday and i'll never go back.

Nothing, I just meant games like CODMW2, which I think I can now handle, isn't W7 supported yet...

I had just bought the GTS250 after your post Freezebyte, the one regarding PSU...

Thanks :D

Just because it isn't "listed" doesn't mean it won't work. Win 7 is very identical to Vista so it should work just fine. I had 6 year old games running on my Vista build with few issues.

I know that, but I usually use Can You RUN It, before I download *COUGH* I MEAN BUY the game...

everything works under W7. been using W7 64bit ultimate for several months and so far no problems.

CODMW2 works of course.
biggest improvement in W7 is the indexing service that works compared to Vista where I had to turn it off.

BTW whats the point of 400fps when your 60Hz LCD can renew the image only 60 times per second :)

Ah, so CODMW2 does work... Interesting.. Time to save up...

I'm not sure, I just like bragging over 400fps :D

Who wouldn't like 400FPS to brag about lol

Well, in the gun world 400fps would be bb gun level. So no bragging rights there. As for 'puters, well I can barely work the mouse...

400FPS is basically useless as your monitor can't render that many frames a second anyway so I imagine your texture tearing is horrible. The human eye isn't capable of taking in anything beyond 60FPS and noticing a difference, for most peeps anyway

*sigh* Were talking frames per second linc, not feet per second :lol:

That's why he said "in the gun world" I think.... :neutral:

Really? Whenever I go to Sam's Club and look at all the huge TV's (which would be one heck of a desktop if you could hook them all together with, say 3 video cards and 2 TV's each per machine and use MaxiVista to link two or three of those together :surprised:), I notice that the 120Hz TV's are smoother than the 60Hz ones and the 240Hz are just butter smooth. But Plasmas are supposedly like 600Hz, so idk. I'm don't look at the plasmas much.

Has anyone ever seen a plasma monitor (24" ish)? I think that would be cool if we could keep the burn-in to a minimum around the taskbar area.

Brijar!!!

It gets really complex if you want to get into the nitty gritty, more then I wanna type up so i'll just refer ya to this link

http://hometheater.about.com/od/tele...evsrefresh.htm

Sooo, I might be thinking to take my 3.16 GHz up to 4.0 but I'm not too sure if that's a little over, or too tame?

4.0ghz is getting up there, even I don't push mine that hard, mostly because I don't wanna raise the CPU's VCORE which equates to higher temps, I run at 3.8ghz with my FSB bumped up to 800mhz at a 1 to 1 ratio without having to mess with my memory timings or DIMM voltage settings. If you don't even know what I'm talking there, I suggest you do some SERIOUS research before even attempting to overclock.

Go see my friends here and here for info. Make an account and be prepared to be info overloaded for awhile. There simply is no cookie cutter way to OC CPU's, there are to many variables to consider. Screwing up can cost you, literally.

http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/

http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5

Of course, I'm guessing 3.50 might be a safe spot? Interesting, registering now!

It simply depends on your RAM design, type and settings, mobo maker , CPU make quality *yes, two exact SAME CPU's will overclock differently* the ability for your PSU to handle higher voltage draw, BIOS flexibility to change settings, ect...ect....

You may reach 4.0ghz with few issues or you may not even be able to overclock at all. Judging from the specs of your hardware, you might be able to get a decent OC but wether or not it will run stable is a whole nother issue entirely. Keep in mind that stock Intel heatsink fan units are crap for overclocking with, so there gonna suggest you spend money on a better HSF unit and likely a better power supply. I'm Freezebyte on both those forums FYI

Yeah, I'm mostly worried about my PSU and Motherboard, Corsair XMS2 I have found is quite reliable, and quite good for now..

Corsair makes pretty good stuff, though their timings tend to suck in comparison to other makers. Your RAM will handle a light OC, but not much more then that, its not designed to be pushed hard. Memory, CPU's and mobo northbridges start running very warm when you start OC, heat is your enemy. Thats why some people will run liquid nitrogen in the most extreme overclock setups. Some do water cooling, others huge and loud fans or a peltier system or refridgeration or even AC cooling.

Aww, okay, will do some researching! Thanks

Totally agree. I always turn on V-Sync in the game settings or go edit it in the .ini file if I have to. I can't stand tearing. Anything above 60fps might as well be 60fps.

If you wanna see by what I mean extreme overclocking and cooling, check this out and this is several years old

[YOUTUBE]yyK3WlWTi10[/YOUTUBE]


Oil cooling is also becoming more popular

[YOUTUBE]pb4UumU6ee0[/YOUTUBE]

The problem with VSYNC though is typically if the computer isn't able to sustain near 60FPS, it will automatically jump down to 30FPS which equates to a very "stuttery" game experience depending on the game and hardware.

*updates* My 3.0GHz E8400 is now running at 4.124GHz! :yipi: (464MHz x9)