My Current System: Athlon X2 4000+ 4gb Kingston Value Ram ddr2 667 8800gt AMD 770 chipset ASrock motherboard (Not bad, quite new) Naff, boring falling to bits case Generic 600watt old psu (Although rubbish, it isnt causing any problems) 320gb Western Digital Sata old drive This system is used to play game on a 1080p monitor but its starting to be not very good at it. Bioshock 2 can't go above 22fps at any setting which i've put down to the CPU speed. So... After sourcing some dosh (Around £300) im thinking; Phenom X2 550 BE or Athlon 2 X4 2.6ghz Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 tb Coolermaster Elite 330 with 460watt psu Now either i keep the half decent motherboard and upgrade it with 4gb ddr2 1066 Kingston Hyper X ram or New AM3 mobo and New DDR 3 ram Obviously the first option would be cheaper, but is it worth keeping a ddr2 system alive or do i put down the extra cash for a new mobo and ddr 3 ram. For the time being, the 8800gt is okay, the new 5 series radeon have to drop soon so ill get one then.
Some Ideas: (Model of current board: A770DE) Phenom X2 550 BE 3.2 Ghz - Has more cache than Athlon X4 which will make up for the speed of DDR-2 4gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 Ram - Can be overclocked to 1066 on current board 1 tb Samsung Spinpoint F1 - Big and fast Coolermaster 330 Elite Case Original PSU - New one can come with a new GPU in the future Idea 2: Athlon X4 2.6 ghz - Faster ram makes up for lack of cache 4 gb Ballistix DDR 3 1333 ram Asus M4A79XTD Coolermaster 330 Elite case with 460 watt PSU Is there any point in a new DDR 3 board if the current board is not problem?
Some Ideas: (Model of current board: A770DE) Phenom X2 550 BE 3.2 Ghz - Has more cache than Athlon X4 which will make up for the speed of DDR-2 4gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 Ram - Can be overclocked to 1066 on current board 1 tb Samsung Spinpoint F1 - Big and fast Coolermaster 330 Elite Case Original PSU - New one can come with a new GPU in the future Idea 2: Athlon X4 2.6 ghz - Faster ram makes up for lack of cache 4 gb Ballistix DDR 3 1333 ram Asus M4A79XTD Coolermaster 330 Elite case with 460 watt PSU Is there any point in a new DDR 3 board if the current board is not problem?
Well, you could try your luck in X2 550 unlocking. And the MSI 770-C45 is a good board if you so choose it. But I'd stay away from the case + PSU. You should be able to re-use that 770 board, the new DDR3 boards have little gain anyways, unless you'd want to shell out for RAM.
I tries that but there was no considerable difference between an 8800gt, 4850 and 4890 which can only be down to the CPU.
With a budget of £300 you should see a massive difference with a 5 series ATI card or anything over a GTX 260. The 5770 seems to offer fantastic value for money, I'd go with what some have suggested, spend some money on good quality DDR2 800 or 1066 (I'm using the GEIL Black Dragon stuff, which isn't too bad but a tad overpriced), and a new current gen GPU. You could achieve a 5850 card and good ram & still stay in budget, though you may start to strain the PSU. I doubt your CPU really is the bottleneck, though it would hurt nothing to change that.
Thanks for all the ideas. In the end I found the motherboard causing a problem that caused the computer to just lock up randomly and had to be restarted, resulting in ordering the newer ddr 3 mother board etc. but now im stuck with the 8800gt, but, is there any point in upgrading it? gaming resolution is 1080p and is pretty much for the latest big name games.
For 1080p...well a Hd5850 is in order, or at least the HD5770, but regardless, 1080p GPUs are a bit scarce these days. I say wait until the HD5830 comes out or something.
