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What puter part to upgrade?


What puter part to upgrade?  

27 members have voted

  1. 1. What puter part to upgrade?

    • CPU
      16
    • GPU
      8
    • RAM
      2
    • Other (specify)
      1


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I want to treat myself in terms of boosting my computer solely for Black Shark.

Which component will give me most boost in DCS? (Os : WinXP 32)

My budget will be around 2000 NOK ~250 euro

 

My current system got:

CPU : Intel Dual Core 2 6400 @ 2.13GHz (overclocked with 15%)

GPU : Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT

RAM : 2GB

A-10C, AV-8B, Ka-50, F-14B, F-16C, F-5E, F/A-18C, L-39, Mi-8, MiG-21, MiG-29, SA34, Spitfire, Su-27, Su-33, UH-1H

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RAM and processor both should be feasible for €250. RAM's pretty cheap nowadays, and my guess is the current high end range of processors wouldn't fit your motherboard. So, you'd have to buy stuff from a year ago or something, socket 775 processors with a FSB clockspeed of no more than what your motherboard can run. I'm guessing that's going to be 1066 (/4 = 266,5 = an E6400's FSB), or 1333 maybe at the maximum for your motherboard.

 

-Z

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I aaaaaam ... a banana!

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It's been a while since I upgraded my system, and can't recall what kind of motherboard I purchased. Is there any way to find out what I got without rebooting into BIOS?

A-10C, AV-8B, Ka-50, F-14B, F-16C, F-5E, F/A-18C, L-39, Mi-8, MiG-21, MiG-29, SA34, Spitfire, Su-27, Su-33, UH-1H

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The GPU could do with a boost, but it won't make much difference with the CPU you have, and as Zembla has said, you may need to change mainboard and RAM to achieve that... :s

Intel i9-9900KF @5.2GHz

MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon

32GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR3200 RAM

MSI RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio

40" Panasonic TH-40DX600U @ 4K

Pimax Vision 8K Plus / Oculus Rift CV1 / HTC Vive

Gametrix JetSeat with SimShaker

Windows 10 64 Bit Home Edition

 

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Try running CPU-Z. It's a neat tiny proggie that'll fetch all your relevant system info.

 

-Z

thanks!

 

Here is my motherboard:

 

motherboard.jpg

Do I need to upgrade my motherboard if I want to upgrade my CPU, or can you get better CPU's with the same chipset?

motherboard.jpg.7eb708d30c11df7ba5f3ed85f63eb3ea.jpg

A-10C, AV-8B, Ka-50, F-14B, F-16C, F-5E, F/A-18C, L-39, Mi-8, MiG-21, MiG-29, SA34, Spitfire, Su-27, Su-33, UH-1H

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The good thing is it's the same socket as most CPU's on the market. The bad thing, as I said, is that you'll aparently only be able to get a CPU with an FSB of 266,5MHz max. Which isn't half bad, but doesn't give you a whole lot of options to be honest. With a FSB like that you'll be looking at an E6*** or Q6*** processor. The Q6600 is still fairly pricey, and eventhough I'm perfectly happy with mine, I wouldn't recommend getting that one for new, it'd be better to shell out a little more cash when you have the chance, and make a leap of progress, rather than a not all that big of a step.

 

You can check Tomshardware's CPU charts. Or, you could buff the €250 to €500 or something when you can, and go for a newer/better system that way.

 

It's always tricky advising people what to upgrade. Upgrading can be a lot of money, and not always be money well spent. It kinda depends on what you expect/are willing to spend. That said, for now, seeing as your processor isn't that half bad to be quite honest, and mainly that it's not old enough to really have any feasible upgrades that come at a low price, I'd suggest giving the RAM a good hugging for the time being :)

 

Shouldn't cost much, but will make a difference, not necessarily much of a difference either though.

 

-Z

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Thanks alot Zembla, realy appreciate your honest answer! Think I'll go for another 2GB RAM for the moment. :)

 

Rep incomming :)

A-10C, AV-8B, Ka-50, F-14B, F-16C, F-5E, F/A-18C, L-39, Mi-8, MiG-21, MiG-29, SA34, Spitfire, Su-27, Su-33, UH-1H

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Nvidia 9800GT 512MB: ~119€

GygaByte GA-M56S-S3: ~53€

Athlon X2 +6400 2x3200Mhz 2x1MB L2: ~84€*

*(Boxed, CPU fan included)

-----

256€

That's here in Spain, with a 16% taxes included. All retail prices, not OEM.

 

 

I have an AMD X2 5600+, Nvidia 8800GT 256MB and same nForce 560 chipset (but Asus MB) and I get +30 fps @ 1680x1050, anisotropic 8x and Freetrack running on background. No Overclocking.

 

EDIT: With a 32bit system you can adress 4GB of RAM, but you should also count with Graphic RAM and more components so most 32bit systems with 4GB only adress a few hundreds more than 3GB of RAM (3,2GB-3,3GB). 4GB is "waste" money and 3GB is lost the dual RAM channel benefits. DCS must work fine with 2GB RAM under WinXP 32 bit.

 

EDIT 2: I play on MAX settings.

 

That's my advice.


Edited by Gael
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Most tests show an X2 6400+ to be about the same performance wise as an E6850, a chip he could fit on his motherboard. Also, your current CPU, that you seem to be getting favorable performance with, comes up in the benchmarks as being nearly (with a tiny margin of 1,5% depending on which benchmark). Logic then would dictate that if you're getting good fps, he wouldn't need to get a new processor, let alone buy / fit a whole new motherboard.

 

So yeah, maybe a new graphics card wouldn't be bad either, but again there, better to advance in strides, than to only make a small step.

 

Also, 4GB vs 2GB holds up if you use WinXP32bit, but, if you go 64 bit, or in general, with the current RAM hungry games, 4GB isn't such a waste at all. I'm on Vista 64 bit, and nothing but a few ancient programs won't run, what I need to run which won't run I dual boot into 32 bit XP for.

 

-Z

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I aaaaaam ... a banana!

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Thanks alot Zembla, realy appreciate your honest answer! Think I'll go for another 2GB RAM for the moment. :)

 

Rep incomming :)

 

 

FYI go to OCZ forums and ask them whats the fastest ram your MB supports.They helped me out a lot.I went from 2 gigs 667mhz plain jane ram to 4 gigs of 800mhz OCZ Gold gamiming ram.that gave me great peformence for about $ 70 USD.

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Most tests show an X2 6400+ to be about the same performance wise as an E6850, a chip he could fit on his motherboard.

 

Yep 240€ the CPU only.

 

And about the RAM:

 

I want to treat myself in terms of boosting my computer solely for Black Shark.
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Yep 240€ the CPU only.

 

And about the RAM:

 

I guess you just didn't read the whole post then? :)

 

You're suggesting he spend €250 on an upgrade that's more of an update, a patch if you will. It's better, but not by as much as I'd say really warrants an upgrade. It's his choice ultimately.

 

For the RAM, I wouldn't go above the 800MHz mark either, try getting low latency RAM, rather than fast clocked RAM. Unless you're instantly going to overclock, you won't notice that much of a performance boost with the higher clocked RAM in comparisson to the lower clocked RAM. Between 800MHz and 667MHz etc though there is a sensitive difference.

 

-Z

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I aaaaaam ... a banana!

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Zembla, he didn't ask for a hard-core gamer PC, I can give him the Alienware link. I'm offering a solution to get great performace with 250€. Perhaps he can move on to 4GB 800Mhz + Vista 64bit in the future, and get great performace with FSX but he asked for play DCS:BS, and 4GB will NOT give him framerate on DCS:BS.

 

EDIT: Tomsardware CPU benchmark. Performace increases 20%-25% in games with high CPU reqs like Supreme Commander or Deep Fritz between E6400 and 6400+, is d0ppler decission anyway.


Edited by Gael
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I would say the gfx card is the slowest thing in your system

 

If you got a better cpu cooler you could over clock it to about 3Gig ish

If you really want to update your CPU your board could take most of the E or Q series intel chips (may need bios update for newer cpu's mind you )

( dont touch amd CPU's they havent had a good one out for about 2 years now )

A E8600 with a touch of overclocking would be damn fast

 

The graphics card I would upgrade to a gtx260-216 core version

 

You appear to have a SLI board so I would stick with nvidia cards and at a later date you could add another.

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thanks!

 

Here is my motherboard:

 

motherboard.jpg

Do I need to upgrade my motherboard if I want to upgrade my CPU, or can you get better CPU's with the same chipset?

 

LOL, you poor, poor soul. I have the exact same motherboard!

 

I say that because ASUS made a lot of promises about this board when it was first released, but none of them ever worked out :(

 

I run an Intel X6800EE at the factory default speed of 2.96GHz. I've overclocked it previously to 3.1GHz, but my CPU fan had to run at high speed to keep it cool pretty much most of the time, and I don't really need to overclock it that much, so I don't.

 

You can check out the compatible CPU's for our board here at the Asus support site, and the relavant BIOS version needed to support them : http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

 

I have the ASUS recommended Kingston DDR667 RAM in the board, I used to run Corsair XMS 2 DDR1066 RAM, but I had a lot of issues with it, and if you read the forums, running anything over DDR667 usually ends in frustration. Since installing 2GB of this RAM, the board has run perfectly, and good news is that it's pretty cheap now. New Egg sell 2GB for $41.99! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134193

 

Finally, I recently came back over to ATI from Nvidia (again), and I'm absolutely stoked with my Powercolour 1GB 4870, but I'd say you would get away with the 512MB version, but it will only save you $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131120

 

So what does this get me? It get's me Black Shark running at maximum detail settings at 1680 x 1050 with 2xAA and 8xAF and it is smooth as silk, even in the citys :D

 

I hope some of this stuff is useful for you. I'd say you should be able to find very similar pricing in Europe, and good luck!

1412280558_cpusupport.thumb.jpg.9e3aa25d4af692a955fa6f1bd980e884.jpg

CPUz.jpg.2c577f97664885f7b84906b35589da81.jpg


Edited by Highwayman-Ed

Intel i9-9900KF @5.2GHz

MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon

32GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR3200 RAM

MSI RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio

40" Panasonic TH-40DX600U @ 4K

Pimax Vision 8K Plus / Oculus Rift CV1 / HTC Vive

Gametrix JetSeat with SimShaker

Windows 10 64 Bit Home Edition

 

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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Thanks a million for the aid all of you have given me. Maybe I should just bite the dust and invest in a motherboard along with a bit more modern CPU than the 775 slot. Need to think this through...

A-10C, AV-8B, Ka-50, F-14B, F-16C, F-5E, F/A-18C, L-39, Mi-8, MiG-21, MiG-29, SA34, Spitfire, Su-27, Su-33, UH-1H

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