Hi guys, new here a little advice needed pls

[robfosters]

Been reading these forums for ages, and you lot seem very knowledgable so i'd like your advice pls.

My system specs are:

Q6600 (stock speed)
Gigabyte G31 mobo
Arctic cooling freezer pro
2GB Corsair DDR2 RAM
EVGA GTS8800 512MB
250GB Seagate Barracuda HDD
Corsair HX620W PSU
Win Vista 32bit

I like playing games like FSX with all the FPS demanding add on scenery and environments, Napoleon: Total War and COD. TBH, i'm struggling a bit.

I dont want an i5 or i7 just yet. I want to wait till spring next year and build a new sandybridge system when I have more disposable income. But for now I need more performance.

What improvements could I make for around £300 to this system that will keep me going nicely with these games till spring at a res of 1920X1080?

Thanks

 

[Jony27]

overclock the cpu
add more ram
and replace gpu with either gtx 460/gtx 470/hd5870(with current prices)/hd6870~(if can stretch this far)

 

[koooowweeee]

sell your 8800 to me buy some ram its a must really 4gb and with the 300 gtx480

thats all you need

 

[robfosters]

I was thinking about the RAM, but isn't there an issue with a 32bit OS?

Also, is my cooler and mobo OK for an overclock?

EDIT: What's an 8800 worth? Unboxed, just the card.

 

[koooowweeee]

i think theres a hack to get more ram. but yes it only uses 3.5gb or something with 32bit

so if it is 3.5 if will still be better than 2gb

i think with that coller you can get cpu to 3ghz. depends on the stepping. download cpuz it will tell you

 

[95thrifles]

32 bit will only address somethign like 3.25 of the 4, its still a lot better than 2 though
You could buy a retail copy of win7 now and transport it across to new rig once done (make sure you get retail not OEM)
windows 7 retails circa 100
4 gig of new RAM (better so you can OC CPU, just bin or sell the old 2 gig set) bout 60
460 1 gig version 130
under 300 and it includes win7 for new build in new year

 

[robfosters]

 

[koooowweeee]

G0 stepping your good to go lol thats the better cooler cpu should get 3ghz easy out of it with that cooler

 

[Chuggerboom]

Been reading these forums for ages, and you lot seem very knowledgable so i'd like your advice pls.

My system specs are:

Q6600 (stock speed)
Gigabyte G31 mobo
Arctic cooling freezer pro
2GB Corsair DDR2 RAM
EVGA GTS8800 512MB
250GB Seagate Barracuda HDD
Corsair HX620W PSU
Win Vista 32bit

I like playing games like FSX with all the FPS demanding add on scenery and environments, Napoleon: Total War and COD. TBH, i'm struggling a bit.

I dont want an i5 or i7 just yet. I want to wait till spring next year and build a new sandybridge system when I have more disposable income. But for now I need more performance.

What improvements could I make for around £300 to this system that will keep me going nicely with these games till spring at a res of 1920X1080?

Thanks

You will see a big difference just by overclocking the Q6600. Shove some more ram in and get a 460. That's what i would do.

 

[koooowweeee]

if you have 300 to spend get a better card than a 460. you can play at those res's but not max setting i prefer higher setting to res IMO

 

[Chuggerboom]

if you have 300 to spend get a better card than a 460. you can play at those res's but not max setting i prefer higher setting to res IMO

460's are good for overclocking. He could save money that way. It's up to him though, i know what i would do.

 

[VFM Addict]

A G31 mobo won't go past about 320FSB so it is impossible to get a decent oc out of that Q6600. That will significantly hamper any decent gcard.

For £300 it is possible to go another route. An Athlon II x4 (which will oc to 3.6Ghz'ish plus a basic AM3 mobo plus 4GB of DDR3 plus a 460 768MB could all be squezzed into that budget.

In addition the current kit, including the Q6600 could be sold for almost £100. So the total upg would effectively only cost about £200.

 

[robfosters]

When I say £300, I mean up to £300. I would like to get away cheaper seeing as I will be building a new rig in the spring.

I am thinking maybe of getting a 460 and then getting a 2nd later and sli'ing them in my new rig. I would probably need a new PSU for that though.

 

[koooowweeee]

could get a second hand gtx480 for 230 i sold one today in the MM i know there beasts only reason i sold it because im skint. no work over the winter being a gardener. can pic up a 460 really cheap second hand and save a lot more.

also i would get a new harddrive. bit old and slow not them. need a new drive myself.

samsung f3 40quid cant beat that

i would have thought if you did sli you would need a new psu

 

[robfosters]

A G31 mobo won't go past about 320FSB so it is impossible to get a decent oc out of that Q6600. That will significantly hamper any decent gcard.

What about a good second hand mobo like a striker?

 

[VFM Addict]

What about a good second hand mobo like a striker?

Yep you could go that route. It’s a mobo switch for yet another 775 board but yes you could do it. It’s not the cost effective option but you could do it.

I’ll tell you what I myself would do. I’d buy an Asrock N68C-S UCC mobo plus an Athlon II x4 total cost £100’ish. That mobo takes either two sticks of DDR2 or DDR3 and has a terrific oc’ing bios. It will oc the Athlon x4 to around 3.6Ghz or 3.7Ghz. If you’re lucky you may even find you can unlock some extra cache on the cpu also as a bonus.

I’d keep your current ram and use it in the Asrock mobo.

Then I’d sell the Q6600 and G31 mobo. You’d get £80 at least for those items. So all in all your total cost would have been £20 (i.e. £100 minus £80). That’s the cheapest option by far. It also allows you to roll onto DDR3 easily if the prices bottom out as they are expected to do in January/February before they start to rise again.

Either way the can use a 460 or better gcard if you wish.

 

[95thrifles]

Hmmm

Firstly ASRock suck ass, big time
Secondly a mobo and X4 for a ton??? really???
Thirdly I never heard of unlocking an X4 to an X6??? X2 to X3 and even to X4 if lucky but not X4 to X6, I may well not be too informed on this but aint heard of it yet - I stand to be corrected
Fourthly given 2&3 did you mean to say mobo and X2 is a ton?
And Fifthly he plans to do a rebuild in Spring, Sandy bridge, as such its pointless (IMO) spending any money (no matter how small) tweaking a soon to be dead system
The RAM is holding you back massively however so Id get another 2 gig of RAM at a minimum
Then as before a new 460 and a copy of win7 retail can both be taken across to your new system, so the only money youre spending on the "dead system" is for the extra 2 gig of RAM

 

[robfosters]

Cheers for your help guys.

I have decided to stick with the Q6600 and just see what I can get out of it.

I will add more Ram, although the mobo only has two slots so I will have to buy a 4GB set rather than add 2 1GB's.

I will buy a samsung F3 and a GTX460. As said before, I can transfer these items to my new build in the spring, thereby lowering costs there. If I have any spare cash, I may even consider an SSD for my OS and favourite games.

 

[VFM Addict]

Hmmm

Firstly ASRock suck ass, big time
Secondly a mobo and X4 for a ton??? really???
Thirdly I never heard of unlocking an X4 to an X6???

Firstly, earlier Asrocks were limited by their bioses not quality. And there were even ways to get around that if you knew what you were doing. On an SoA board I had a Appelbred Duron doing 2.37Ghz stable. And on a 754 mobo a Sempron 3000 doing 2.94Ghz stable. You wouldn't get either much further on air with any board. Vcore was sorted by socket shunts in both cases. As regards more recent Asrock mobo's their bioses are very oc friendly and the top end Asrock boards, often well over £120, are some of the best boards around. Check the reviews.

As regards a mobo and x4 for a ton. Check OCuk prices. Asrock N68C-S UCC is £32.99 inc vat and a x4 630 £75.19 so alright £108 but the x4's are often on offer.

I did not say that extra cores could be unlocked I said very clearly extra cache might be possible to unlock. Many of the Athlon II quads are locked Deneb's and the cache can be unlocked. For that matter pretty much all of x3 445's are locked down Deneb cores.

As for the RAM being the only dead spend what about that Q6600 in a G31 mobo? That's the big problem. The G31 won't go past 320FSB so how the heck can he get a decent oc from that Q6600?

 

[Chuggerboom]

Hmmm

Firstly ASRock suck ass, big time
Secondly a mobo and X4 for a ton??? really???
Thirdly I never heard of unlocking an X4 to an X6??? X2 to X3 and even to X4 if lucky but not X4 to X6, I may well not be too informed on this but aint heard of it yet - I stand to be corrected
Fourthly given 2&3 did you mean to say mobo and X2 is a ton?
And Fifthly he plans to do a rebuild in Spring, Sandy bridge, as such its pointless (IMO) spending any money (no matter how small) tweaking a soon to be dead system
The RAM is holding you back massively however so Id get another 2 gig of RAM at a minimum
Then as before a new 460 and a copy of win7 retail can both be taken across to your new system, so the only money youre spending on the "dead system" is for the extra 2 gig of RAM

Tell us all in detail why Asrock suck ass big time?