Upgrade options for system

[eneki]

Hey all it has been some time since I have been on here last login was 09. So I have not really been following computers all that much. What I am looking for is for a medium upgrade, If it is even beneficial to upgrade parts of my system. I will spec the system to my knowledge and what I want to achieve.


Current
MOBO: ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP LGA 775
CPU: E8400 775
VC: Radeon HD 4870 512MB
MEM: CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 1600
PS: 600w something I dont know the brand

Upgrades
Maybe an 8gb kit DDR3?
Already Purchased Radeon HD 6850


Basically my motherboard supports 8gb max memory it is ddr3 so I could use it in the future. How much longer will this CPU go... BTW I am very impressed with my 4870 I have never kept a video card so long in a system.

[ShyguyXPC]

what do you need this system to do?



Honestly all the hardware aside from the RAM is really outdated now. Though still quite capable, but it is out dated.

The 4870 has been replaced by cards that cost $100-120 now days, use half or even in one case, nearly 1/3 of the power consumption it needs (Radeon HD 7750).

the 4870 is still a good lower range Gaming card, sits right in at the border between budget and mid range gaming cards.

Which is dominated by the Radeon 5700/6700 series, the newer HD 7700 series, and cards like the Geforce GTX 550 Ti, GTS 450, and GTX 460/560 SE models.

the Range at which the 4870 used to sit when it was one of the top dogs, is now dominated by cards nearly twice its performance, even more sometimes.

Your card is a 512MB as well, so it has a bit of a handicap for higher end games also, needing 1GB or more to run smoothly with really high resolutions, like 1080p or higher.

I have a 1GB 4870 sitting around here myself.

Your new 6850 should be a nice mid range upgrade, it will be more powerful than the 4870, not a HUGE jump, but it will be noticeable, along with 1GB or more of Memory (don't think I've ever seen a 512MB model before).

if I remember right the 6850 also uses less power than your 4870, so should be easier on the PSU.

Would be nice to know the Brand and model of the 600W PSU though.

you have 4GB of DDR3 1600 which should be enough for gaming, but if your doing workstation like tasks and stuff on the PC, 8GB might be fine, but also with the low cost of DDR3, $50 gets you 8GB easily enough now days.

Honestly, if you can afford it, I'd consider a CPU and Mobo Upgrade, Intels Core i series, on socket 1155.

there are still plenty of CPU upgrades for your system, but they can be hard to find, since very few are available online from retailers these days.

and Socket 775 was dead as soon as Socket 1156 came out 2+ years ago. even 1156 is dead now that the 2nd gen of Core series CPU's came out on Socket 1155.

Sadly Intel has been replacing socket designs every year and half to 2 years it seems.

Since 775, there has been 1366, then 1156, then 1155 (replaces the latter) and Socket 2011 just last year that replaces 1366.

I'm still rocking my 1366 platform from 3+ years ago, in fact my newest system is a slightly faster 1366 system with a bit more upgrade options (SLI capable Mobo rather than Crossfire only), faster CPU, Faster RAM, Liquid Cooling kit, lighter case, faster Video card, faster and larger capacity HDD's, etc.

Though embarrassingly its taken me over a year to build this thing, some of the parts I didn't get until this past fall, but have only recently gotten together, mainly procrastinating.


Whats your Budget for the Upgrades, and what do plan on doing with the system?

[eneki]

what do you need this system to do?

Thanks for the information! Very well put. Well the system is used to play music/internet browsing/playing HD content. I was able to play mass effect 3 on high without issues/ Civ5 was on high but would get a little grabby/ Diablo III is maxed on video as well and I have no issues.

I was looking at the 2x4 Gskill kit on newegg for like 46 bucks.

The reason I went with the 6850 is the Price for the performance, After the rebate I will be sitting in it at 120.00 and I have been thinking about adding another for SLI just because they are so cheap.

So how about an 8gb kit and another 6850? That should hold me for a few more years? at least the video I hope.

I can get power supply specs when I get home. I believe it is a cooler master eXtreme. My last power supply started sparking and tripped the breaker in my house at night, that was interesting lol

Basically when I play games I want it to look good and perform good on high settings. My budget just depends on if its worth it to me nothing set in stone yet.

[ShyguyXPC]

Crossfire, not SLI. SLI is Nvidia Card, Crossfire is ATI/AMD.

Thing is Crossfire would be an option, but that CPU may get bottlenecked by 2 of those cards in Crossfire.

8GB is a waste for gaming, anything more than 4GB is plenty right now.

If your running 64-bit Windows 7, and you have tons of programs open while gaming, the 8GB can come in handy, but there are still few truly 64-bit games out yet, and those that do support 64-bit usually only use a max of 2 or 3GB of RAM anyways.

but for the price right now, 8GB would be plenty, hell in 2 years I don't think many people will really need 8GB even then.

Myself I use 6GB in both of my systems, but thats because I use Triple channel mode, so its sets of 3 sticks in my system, either 3 or 6 sticks total. Currently only have 3 sticks in my newest system, 6 in my older one, both running 6GB.

Its actually more than enough in most games, my limiting factors are my CPU and GPU's and I'm already running a GTX 470 in one, and a GTX 560 Ti in the other. the older one runs a Core i7 920 2.66GHz Quad core, and the other a Core i7 940 2.93GHz Quad core.

But then I also dabble a little in 3D rendering and some other workstation tasks where more than 4GB is NEEDED for that stuff.

ultimately I plan on putting 12GB in my newest system, but it can support up to 24GB in either one. Downside is I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit which will only allow up to 16GB of RAM, if I had Pro or Ultimate, it would allow 128 or 192GB if I remember right.


Your CPU should be fine with a single 6850 but 2 in Crossfire I think it would choke a little.

Also to keep in mind, your Motherboard uses 1st generation PCI Express, the Radeon 6850 is a PCIe 2.1 card, and there have been some compatibility issues with PCIe 2.1 and 1.0/1.1 cards so if it doesn't work on your Mobo don't be surprised.

It SHOULD work, but its hard to say for sure, I'm not sure which chipsets specifically are the culprits, but Nvidia had a similar issue with their Geforce 8800GT series when it was first released as well, 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 chipset boards.

I think with the radeon 6 series its was 1.0 spec boards, and yours should be a 1.1 spec.




You could try Overclocking your CPU a bit, since you have DDR3 1600Mhz RAM, and 800-1066MHz was standard for the time when your CPU/RAM/Board was made.

you have head room on the RAM clock speeds to OC the CPU, that might help some.

If you can nab an older Kentsfield Core 2 Quad to put into your Motherboard, like a Q6600 2.4GHz Quad core, and Overclock it a bit, for cheap enough, that would be an Option to hold you over and prevent any Bottleneck issues with Dual 6850's in crossfire.

but honestly, I'd be concerned about the max bandwidth of PCIe 1.0/1.1 on Dual Crossfire 6850's, since the slots would be 8x 8x bandwidth, which might limit the cards performance a bit as well. If it was 2.0 8x 8x (which is same as 1.0 x16 x16) it wouldn't be a concern at all. but I have seen occasional comments on 6850 and similar spec cards run on 2.0 spec 16x 4x Crossfire motherboards, with the 4x slot resulting in a slight performance loss on the 2nd card.

Its hard to say really, you might have a slight performance loss, but then again, it would be enough of a performance boost over the single 4870 to make it worth while as well.



if you do go for a new 8GB Kit of DDR3, make sure to grab one that runs at 1.5v, since that is DDR3's standard default voltage, also for the price, I'd grab 1600 Rated stuff as well, this way it leaves open OCing options, if you needed to up the voltage a bit in OCing, and clock speed head room.

but I'd start out with a Single radeon 6850 right now and see how it is, then maybe a 2nd if you think you need more.

Or, even a Radeon 6870 right now, and then add a 6850 later for a bit of a boost. Since with Crossfire you can combine GPU's of the same family.

You can run a 6870 and 6850 together, or 6950 and 6970 & even 6990 all together, or 6750 and 6770 together, the odd duck in this is the 6790, which is actually a 6800 series gimped, and slapped with a 6700 series name, and can't be crossfired with either series from what I understand.

The New Radeon HD 7770 that came out, performs close to the HD 6850, and uses about 80W or so of power, runs cooler as well.

that might be an option also.

some of those cards start out around $130.

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Video Cards & Video Devices, Desktop Graphics Cards, Radeon HD 7000 series, Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

just some examples.

Keep in mind this was with an absurdly OC'd system as well:

HIS Radeon HD 7770 iCooler 1 GB Review | techPowerUp

one reason why i take these reviews with grain of salt, that CPU run at stock speed is already several times more powerful than what you have, and IMO should of been run at stock speeds, and was NO need to even OC it at all... Toms hardware pulls the same BS when they do reviews as well, but I trust TechPowerUp more than I do Toms usually.

Guru3D is a bit more conservative, though again, no reason to OC the CPU at All.

AMD Radeon HD 7750 and 7770 review

[eneki]

I did forget to mention I have Win7 64bit Ultimate. I used to buy Nvidia cards so I always say SLi my bad ha.

The 7770 Did come close and compare very well with the 6850 from what I was seeing. I did see that the new card was a 2.1 and if I am trying to get the most out of my old system it might not be worth doing, I would still be going backwards buying older parts.

I would be better off buying a new motherboard and CPU it sounds like so I get it all.

Thanks for all the info and help! I might be able to get some stuff used and such to save some coin.

[ShyguyXPC]

yeah, you might be able to pick up a new Mobo and CPU for cheap, keep an eye on Open Box and refurb parts on newegg.

not much in CPU's but Mobo's you could pick up.

to keep Upgrade options Open, I'd look at Z68 Chipset boards, ones that can be updated via a bios Update to support the newer Ivy Bridge Intel chips, and PCI Express 3.0 support.

otherwise the newer Z75 and Z77 boards are PCIe 3.0 out of the box with use with an Ivy Bridge CPU.



For cheap, doesn't support PCIe 3.0, but will all the Sandy Bridge CPU's with PCIe 2.0.

Newegg.com - Refurbished: ASUS P8P67-PRO-BO-R LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

its a bit outdated, and the original top end chipset for 1155, but with its Dual x8 config it should support Crossfire or SLI.

It also supports Ivy Bridge CPU's with latest bios update, but doubt its capable of PCIe 3.0 bandwidth with its chipset and slots.



plenty of Open Box Z68 boards though: Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Motherboards, Intel Motherboards, LGA 1155, Open Box, Intel Z68

some other P67 boards: Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Motherboards, Intel Motherboards, LGA 1155, Open Box, Intel P43/P45/P55/P67

[stroyal]

What about this?

Newegg.com - ASRock B75 PRO3 LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Isn't this good for Ivy bridge?
New Egg is bundling them, with Ivybridge.

I have been considering them, because I don't plan on dual cards, and don't plan on Intel Smart Response.
When I go SSD, it is going to be strait SSD.

I think this a very loaded board for the price.

Am I missing something?
Is there a down side to this board?

[ShyguyXPC]

nothing wrong with that, the B75 along with the Q series are designed with Business users in mind, based on the latest Chipset family.

But here's a chart with the differences of the chipsets:

LGA 1155 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


You can Overclock the CPU on it, but no Memory OC. so honestly if you don't need Rapid share or whatever its called and SRT, its a good choice for home users as well, since H77 you can't do any OCing on other than the GPU.


But the downside, is Crossfire or SLI support, there is only one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, and one 2.0 x16 slot max (at x4 speed).

the OP commented on being interested in running possible 2 6850's, which I wouldn't run on a x4 slot IMO.

going with a P67 with Ivy Bridge support (for newer faster CPU's) but lacking PCIe 3.0, or going with Z68 with PCIe 3.0 and Ivy support, would be a better option if the price was right and you were able to run Crossfire or SLI with a decent x8 x8 config or better.

If the board has SRT or that other stuff on it, simply disable in Bios and don't have to worry about it.

Though on occasion I have seen some Z75 boards for close to the $80 range, but these were single PCIe x16 slot boards.

[stroyal]

I saw the business thing, but didn't know what made it different, from consumer.

I also didn't look into the overclocking

I'm just trying to keep my price down, but I'm sure that's all the wife needs. (with a 6670) also overkill.

I only over clock out of necessity any more.(My Barton had to be overclocked it, it is so old)
That could still change my mind though.

I don't need Smart response, I want the whole SSD system drive.

I was still thinking about the crossfire though, for my machine, (With a HD7850)
With my new laptops, the desktop will only be Flight Sim, and backup storage.

But then again Wish lists are free.

[eneki]

So for budget wise I decided to go with the Q6600 keeping my motherboard buying Gskill 2x4 DDR3 1600 and another 6850. I checked multiple reviews and there was a much higher performance boost in crossfire when using 6850's opposed to 2 6870's

The pricing on a q6600 is fairly inexpensive and I can sell my current chip e8400 for a good price (50+) too. I am also selling my 2x2 corsair xms. Probably bundle it all on ebay I am surprised on how many people are still buying 775 processors.

I appreciate the help and information provided from ShyguyXPC. Although I am going to take a little performance hit on the crossfire being 8x, but it will save me a few hundred by not buying a new mobo and CPU.

[eneki]

Also my Power supply is an OCZ Model# OCZ500SXS

I thought it was a 600 but I guess I was wrong

[ShyguyXPC]

OCZ 500W StealthXStream.

it should have a dual +12V Rail, and should be about 36A combined.

which would be enough to run the whole system with a single 6850, however I wouldn't recommend dual 6850's on that PSU.

It could be overloaded and fry the PSU.

using this PSU Calculator, with a Q6600, the RAM (no OC on the CPU), 1 HDD, 1 DVD, 2 HD 6850's, and a couple 120mm case fans.

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator

came out to recommending 408W PSU for the system...

however, the 500W OCZ PSU can do about 432W on the +12V rail, which is a bit close IMO, since most of that hardware will use the +12V Rail, though some will tap into 3.3 and 5V rails as needed, but the 12v is the most important in modern systems.


if the PSU was a 600W, or even a 550W it would probably be OK, but if you were to OC the CPU at all, you'd want to make sure that thing was 600W at least with Dual 6850's.