What to upgrade?

[james1988]

Hello,
I'm a little out of the loop at the moment when it comes to computer hardware. I built my current rig about 4 years back and it's served me well up until a month back. Since then it sometimes refuses to boot. It will power up but nothing will happen, it just sits there with a black screen. I'm using this as an excuse to upgrade it.

I use it primarily for browsing the internet and word processing however I do miss gaming on it but it's a bit outdated and seriously slow on anything remotely up to date (I think the newest game I've successfully run was the second installment of STALKER). I would also like to be able to crunch F@H units a fair bit faster than I can at the moment (24hr for a 'normal' sized file).

I dual boot Linux mint 12 and Windows 7 Professional (64bit). Windows is sluggish but I rarely use it although Mint works wonderfully. The spec is posted below. Ideally I want to re-use as much as possible but can't see that happening however, I'm looking for advice on a motherboard, RAM, CPU (preferably AMD) and GPU with a little head room for OC'ing.

Current spec:

[Frost]

Windows is a ram hog, so more ram will help a little, faster ram (if your motherboard can take it) would also improve matters. The biggest single upgrade for OS performance would be an SSD, for gaming: Graphics card.I'd say 80% of gaming performance is due to the graphics card.
If you're serious about playing up to date games you'll want a whole new system. You could probably spend £400 on one and get better results than spending that £400 on parts for your current one.

[james1988]

Are we still using the PCI - E format of graphics cards or have we moved on?

The board will take 8GB of RAM so it may just be worthwhile putting and extra 2 or 4GB in. I'm not to bothered about playing the latest and greatest games but it would be nice to have the capability to do so.

Also is USB 3.0 a massive leap forward or is it going to be another thing that is just nice to have?

I'll definitely have a look at an SSD drive.

James

[CaNsA]

Deffo worth sticking some more RAM in there considering ram is uber cheap, and a better GFX Card..

SSD - nice to have, I'm not sure i would say it "speeds up the PC" more a case of "reduces the amount of time you spend waiting for stuff"

USB3 - Provides more power to stuff, has faster transfer rates.
I have it on my mobo, but I haven't got anything that's USB3 to plug into it LOL.

[The View Askew]

The system is altogether weak, give an indication of potential upgrade budget? And perhaps decide if gaming is something you want as this capability is very design altering.

I would reccommend a carefully planned overhaul.
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[daemonoid]

in this order:
1. Re-install windows
2. RAM
3. HD (ssd if you can)
4. gfx card

At a paltry 2GB the ram will be severely affecting windows performance. The re-install is not to make windows work again, but to get rid of all those crappy applications you've installed that you never use but get started as soon as you get into windows. It's amazing the difference a fresh install makes. SSD will make a noticeable difference in windows and application load times, as CaNsA says, it's not going to improve performance per se, but it will make everything feel quicker (ie. your benchmarks/F@H won't go up much, but your user experience will be improved massively). gfx doesn't really matter until you want to push all the settings high on intensive games, plus they're expensive.
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[james1988]

Thanks gents. An extra 2GB of RAM it is just to keep it ticking over. I'll stick with the Xbox and PS3 for now until I have the funds to do a complete overhall.

James

[CaNsA]

Windows will chew through 4gb in no time. stick an extra 4gb in there for good measure.
should cost no more than £35 delivered.

[james1988]

[orac]

[Frost]

https://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-jb5d9pr/0/L/i-jb5d9pr-XL.jpg

[CaNsA]

[james1988]

It's definitely time for some new components. It's flat out refusing to POST now. I'm thinking new motherboard, CPU and RAM and re-using the GPU.

My mate gave me a Phenom X4 last night and some RAM after I'd read the board will support some AM2+ CPUs'. I gave it a whirl and it did run for a minute but that's that so I think that was the final nail in the coffin

Is £200 an alright budget for such things?

James

*Edit*
How's this?
Asus F1A75 AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM1) DDR3 Motherboard
AMD Llano A4-3300 2.50GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit

All in for £160

[orac]

that a steal, if i had 160 quid u would buy that to my current collection of 5 machines. oh and CPU has a built in 6xxx gpu, which should be better than your 8800 and use less power

and just because the min install us 2 gig doesnt mean it will use more than 3 gig from day to day. like i said my system very rarely use more than 3 (got 8 intsalled in my main system). i would be a bit concerend if it started using more than 3 all the time.

thinking about it my HTPC which is folding all the time uses less then 2 gig and only pushes over that when playing blu ray movies and i have never seen it over 3 of the 4 that it has installed. heck my server only uses 1.5 gig while running media services, print services, file sharing and running server and client backups, all system have OS managed page file, maybe start by checking some of your background servces and see if you got anything not releasing memory back to the system after it been closed.
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[james1988]

I feel a bit thick asking this but are all FM1 CPUs designed to be used with mATX boards? Looking about on the Novatech website they have the same board I posted down as mATX and not ATX. What am I missing?

James

*Edit*
Nevermind, worked it out.