9 replies to this topic

[Tannlin]

I built the PC in 2007, except for the video card, which was upgraded from an 8800GX a couple years ago. I haven’t listed the power supply, case, or CD ROM, but I will if it relevant to the build. The computer feels slow, and I think the time to upgrade is soon. (Hopefully before the GW2 launch.)

This is what I have now –

~~~Intel Pentium D 945 Presler 3.4GHz LGA 775 Dual-Core Processor BX80553945
~~~4 x PQI 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Desktop Memory Model MAC41GUOE
~~~Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600YS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
~~~MSI 945P Neo3-F LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard
~~~EVGA 896-P3-1260-AR GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

I am planning about $500 to upgrade this. I think the MOBO and CPU have to go, there’s just no way to upgrade past the ancient socket and 4GB cap on memory. I am keeping the hard drive (unless it really needs to be replaced?) and the graphics card, which means new MOBO, CPU, and RAM. I realize that the HD seems really small in terms of memory (only 160GB), but I generally only play one game at a time, and this is my gaming computer. I run my music, surf the internet, etc. on my laptop.

This is what I come up with -

~~~~CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
~~~~ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s Intel Motherboard
~~~~Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop

I basically went with the CPU suggestion from the tech forum, and finished picked the other components to match. Pricing it at NewEgg puts me at $550.

Is this a good and/or fesible build? Will the game fly through GW2? Chug along?

[Hegr]

16gb of ram is a bit overkill imo. 8 is a good amount if you are on a budget. Also if you want to wait a few weeks, the ivy bridge processors will come out with a similar or slightly higher price than the current sandy bridge processors.

[Tannlin]

Thanks for that Hegr, I just saw that the Ivy Bridge started mass shipping today. I'm going to adjust when I start seeing retailers with prices.

[WildFire]

I mentioned everything I had to say in TeamSpeak. For the people that weren't in TeamSpeak but are still interested I stated the following, ideally you would also be upgrading the Graphics card but just upgrading to a new CPU, Motherboard and memory would be the most beneficial upgrade for you currently due to the age of the other parts in comparison to the GPU, however as I mentioned your PC is as fast as your slowest component which would be your Graphics Card after the upgrade (close behind is the Hard Drive). You could probably look at the motherboards that are similar in specifications and get one that's on sale to save some money, manufacturers like Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, EVGA, etc are always having sales.

Example
GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD4 LGA - Link
EVGA Z68 SLI 130-SB-E685-KR - Link

You could also look at ram on sale, G.Skill, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston, Patriot, etc are always having sales. Right now on the front of the Newegg Memory section G.Skill has a 8GB kit that would work with your system for $59.99 with free shipping as a Daily Deal. This would change tomorrow to and probably be something similar because memory is a competitive market where the cheapest prices generally earn the most customers. Besides everything I just said previously the 2500k is a great processor, you probably don't want to try overclocking it on the stock cooling, it's doable but it's not recommended because the stock cooling was designed by Intel to be used at the default values for the processor. That's where something like the $30 Coolermaster Hyper 212 or other alternatives come in, just investing that small amount of change (in the grand scale of things) will net you more performance as a result of the additional cooling that allows you to overclock near 5GHz but more a more likely overclock is 4.6GHz - 4.7GHz, unless you're experienced then you could potentially push it above 5GHz. (Personally I'd look at something like a Corsair H60, but these are things that aren't more important than the graphics card upgrade).

PS: Get a dog.

[Tannlin]

Yah! Parts arrived today.

Went with
MB BIOSTAR|TZ77B Z77 LGA1155 R - Motherboard
CPU INTEL|CORE I5 2500K 3.3G 6M R - CPU
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600 - 8GB of RAM

Reformatting the Hard Drive now to install the drivers. I must have done something right because it all appears to be working (Including booting off a front panel USB slot). Oh.. except the power LED is not on. I need to fix that.

[Tannlin]

Oh, and we did not get "a" dog.

We got TWO German Shepherd puppies.

[Silentverdict]

Congrats on the pc (and the puppies!), let us know how it works once It's all fired up.

[Tannlin]

I fixed the power LED. Those damn pins are small, I just had the connector on the wrong pin.

Both my DVD-ROMS are dead though, one won't open and the other wouldn't read the driver disk for the MoBo. I had to put the driver disk into my laptop and copy the drivers to a USB drive to install the drivers. BUT, that's actually good, because I had some doubts (though, why I doubted myself, I don't know) that I had the front panel USBs installed correctly. I'm not actually worried about the DVD-ROMs because I can't actually remember the last time I used them, which probably explains why they're both dead.

I'm very happy with how the whole thing went. The process seemed really intimidating because I haven't built a PC since I put this one together in '07, and booting from a USB drive I've only done once, and it was a PITA that took 6 hours that kept me up until 3am. This time though.. so easy.

I downloaded WoW overnight, and logged in before work this AM. ~60 FPS at Ultra settings while running around Org on a low population server at early morning hours. I'm going to test it out tonight when I can.

One last thought - I plugged my monitor directly into the MoBo thinking I needed to install the drivers before the video card would run, but it came up with a blank screen. Turned it off, connected to the video card, *bam* worked like a charm. Again, super happy that everything worked out so easily.

[Silentverdict]

Fantastic! Glad it worked out. I'll agree on the front LEDs, I actually messed mine up the first time and didn't realize It had a hard drive LED indicator for about a week.

If you're still using the 260 I'm guessing you'll be able to get awesome framerates in GW2 if you keep most of the settings high and back off the shadows slider, but next weekend will give you a better idea!

[Tannlin]

After this weekend's BWE, the new computer, even with the older graphics card is a beast. I ran Friday and Saturday with the slider on performance, on Sunday I moved it over to max display settings and noticed no problems. I tried to set up some streaming, and even on some pretty low settings it was capping all 4 cores at 100%.