help upgrading hardware in my pc......

[jamesofdeath]

Hi guys, I'm just after a bit of advice as to what I can upgrade to. I custom built this PC a couple years ago but it seems to be lacking performance and is in need of an upgrade.......the current configuration is:


Asus P5NE-Sli motherboard
Nvidia Gefore 6600 GT graphics card
Intel Dual Core E2160 processor
2GB RAM

Running Windows Vista


The pc is ok except since I upgraded to vista I am having a few power issues, occasionally crashing and the sound card not working. The main problem thought is that a few of the games I have recently bought (up to date games) have green flashing lines when I am playing them and I don't have the option to set graphics, shadows etc to High.....so I'm guessing the graphics card is struggling. So primarily I want to upgrade the graphics card to a decent card that will play most the games out at the mo........general system speed could improve too. Problem is, I'm not so sure what graphics cards will fit my motherboard, if I should upgrade the whole system.....that kinda thing. any advice on graphics cards, possible sets up etc would be great. Thanks a lot

James

 

[rohan23]

It all depends on your budget. I would recommend moving up to at least a Core 2 Duo processor. What games do you primarily play? What size monitor do you have? Your motherboard can support newer cards. What power supply do you have? You could just start a brand new build and salvage your motherboard, RAM, case, and maybe your PSU.

 

[jamesofdeath]

It all depends on your budget. I would recommend moving up to at least a Core 2 Duo processor. What games do you primarily play? What size monitor do you have? Your motherboard can support newer cards. What power supply do you have? You could just start a brand new build and salvage your motherboard, RAM, case, and maybe your PSU.

Hey. It's a HIPER Psu, one of the modular ones, about 600w. Monitor is a 17", and games are primarily RPG's like the new Empire game. Budget wise I was really wanting to keep the upgrade to under £350. Excuse my ignorance, what's the difference between the dual core 2160 and the Core 2 Duo processor?

 

[worshipme]

Hey. It's a HIPER Psu, one of the modular ones, about 600w. Monitor is a 17", and games are primarily RPG's like the new Empire game. Budget wise I was really wanting to keep the upgrade to under £350. Excuse my ignorance, what's the difference between the dual core 2160 and the Core 2 Duo processor?

That's good, Hiper make some quality PSUs (Americans: they are a British brand only sold in Europe at the moment)
You can do a lot with £350. Unless you are going to consider overclocking, I would upgrade the CPU and video card, maybe the RAM.
The difference between the E2xxx series and the C2Ds is that the E2xxxs have only 1MB of L2 cache and operate at much lower frequencies. The reason I said "unless you are going to consider OC'ing earlier" is because the E2160 is a fantastic OC'er. It runs at 2GHz> but has the potential to operate at the frequencies of the C2Ds.

Your motherboard has a PCI-E slot so you'll not be limited in your choice. Because you only have a 17" panel, a 9800GT or an HD 4830 would be fine for you. Your PSU would handle it fine. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...Hz-GDDR3-GPU-600MHz-112-Cores-2xDL-DVI-I-HDTV

 

[jamesofdeath]

That's good, Hiper make some quality PSUs (Americans: they are a British brand only sold in Europe at the moment)
You can do a lot with £350. Unless you are going to consider overclocking, I would upgrade the CPU and video card, maybe the RAM.
The difference between the E2xxx series and the C2Ds is that the E2xxxs have only 1MB of L2 cache and operate at much lower frequencies. The reason I said "unless you are going to consider OC'ing earlier" is because the E2160 is a fantastic OC'er. It runs at 2GHz> but has the potential to operate at the frequencies of the C2Ds.

Your motherboard has a PCI-E slot so you'll not be limited in your choice. Because you only have a 17" panel, a 9800GT or an HD 4830 would be fine for you. Your PSU would handle it fine. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...Hz-GDDR3-GPU-600MHz-112-Cores-2xDL-DVI-I-HDTV

That's excellent advice mate. I was chatting with one of my friends last night, he suggested upgrading the cpu to a core 2 duo e8400 and graphics card wise go for an ATI 4870 1GB? What would you think?

 

[GhostGT]

That's excellent advice mate. I was chatting with one of my friends last night, he suggested upgrading the cpu to a core 2 duo e8400 and graphics card wise go for an ATI 4870 1GB? What would you think?

Those are excellent choices, and I'm sure worshipme will agree.

The 4870 is a superb performer and beats out many cards that cost much more. You might even be able to get something a little cheaper (4850) and still be fine, but since I have no experience with either product, I'll let the owners do the talking!


Cheers,

Chris