Potentially Upgrading

[CrazyPenguinDude]

Recently my motherboard kicked the bucket on me for unknown reasons, so I figured that I might as well upgrade some parts. My current build is roughly 3 years old and has served me well thus far. The primary usage of my computer is gaming and such, and I would like to keep the cost of upgrades below $400. I plan on upgrading the motherboard, processor and video card, but I am not sure if upgrading under such a budget the results will be worth it. I'm hoping that the upgrades will allow me to max out games like Oblivion (with mods), CoD:MW2, and L4D2.
Currently I have:

• Asus P5B Deluxe
• Conroe E6300
• ATI Saphire x1950xt
• Corsair XMS 1G (2x 512mb)DDR2
• Western Digital 250GB Hard Drive
• SonyDVD/RW-CD/RW
• Scythe Infinity CPU Cooler

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas feel free to post!

[ryuk999]

Kingston 2GB (2GB x 1) PC6400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...X6400D2K2%2f2G

E8500
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-036-_-Product

ATI 4870
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102825

total: $409 without shipping.

[CrazyPenguinDude]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I already added 2g more ram quite a while back. So I have a total of 3g right now. Do you think with that video card and processor I will be able to run oblivion with texture mods well?

[triquee]

If your power supply will support it, for $5 less you can get a 5770 with two DVI ports, DirectX 11 support, and HDMI.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102858

If you prefer, there's an Asus 5770 for $5 more than the 4870 (if you purchase after tomorrow, it's $5 less if you buy today or tomorrow).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121363

If you're able to expand your budget a little to $440, you can consider a 5830, which combines the advantages of the 5770 with a 256-bit memory interface.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102878

What PSU are you using?

[CrazyPenguinDude]

I currenlty have a BFG 550 watt. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-010-_-Product

How much of a step up would the 5770 be over my x1950xt? And for monetary purposes I was thinking about this for the CPU.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-206-_-Product

Obviously I want the best performance, but I don't want anything overkill

[glc]

Spend your money on a video card right now. See how it performs with your same processor. Look at a Radeon 5830.

[triquee]

I don't know whether or not BFG Tech makes a quality power supply, but Corsair and Antec get recommended around here quite a bit. I have a Corsair and it's an excellent PSU. If you wanted to, with the processor you're considering, you could pick up a new PSU also:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-005-_-Product

The x1000 series looks to be several generations old. The 5770 is the midrange of the 5000 series of Radeon graphics cards which is their latest tech atm. You'd be future proofing a bit with the DirectX 11 support.

The E7400 + the PSU + the 5770 would put you at $377 before tax and shipping. If you're wanting to upgrade your motherboard too, you're looking at spending a bit more unless you keep your current PSU. Someone else should probably chime in on that one though.

Are you planning to overclock the CPU?

[CrazyPenguinDude]

My friend recommended that I get the BFG power supply, and I got it from best buy so it came with a good warranty. In regards to overclocking, I do not plan on doing much. I previously overclocked my E6300 to about 2.4, but it seemed like too much of a hassle (I always felt like I should try to keep pushing it..) and I want to keep things simple this time arround, though I may re-use my scythe infinity cooler on the new cpu and overclock it a little bit.

In terms of motherboard I was looking at this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131232

It got pretty good reviews, but if anyone has any suggestions or alternative ideas I'm pretty flexible. The Radeon 5830 looks a little bit too pricy for me right now, but i think the 5770 looks like a solid bet.

Oh and in response to GLC, do you think that my old e6300 will bottleneck a 5830?

[glc]

Please do NOT buy a board with a Nvidia chipset for an Intel processor. You will be fine with your P5B. Asus has added support for all newer socket 775 processors with bios updates.

You won't know till you try it if you are going to bottleneck or not. If you buy JUST the 5830, you will be in budget, you can upgrade the processor LATER if necessary. Even if you do bottleneck, it will game TONS better than it does now.

[CrazyPenguinDude]

The problem is... my p5b is the problem. So finding a motherboard looks like my biggest problem currently.

[Khalil]

If your motherboard is under 3 years old Asus will replace it. I am almost certain they have P5B in their stock for replacement.

BFG power supplies are excellent, anything that comes from BFG is high quality and their support is as good Asus.

[glc]

Ohhhhhhh.....I missed that. If you have to buy a motherboard, get a P5Q SE Plus or a P5Q Pro Turbo. Check on your warranty coverage first.

[Chewbufu]

CPD, i think you might want to check the reviews on these motherboards again on newegg, because i was reading up on the P5's and they seem to have common issues with USB ports and sound cards. If you replace your Mobo choose carefully. It can make or break your system. I'm actually going to go on a limb and say after an hour of research I found this Biostar has the best reviews. Thoughts are welcome whether opposing or not.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138165 $100

One customer actually stated that he was using an E6300 and said it's a great board.

[Khalil]

uhh, Chewbufu, welcome to the forums but we do not recommend the inferior Biostar over Asus here. Thanks for your input.

[CrazyPenguinDude]

First off, my warranty coverage ran out literally a month before my mobo started having problems. USB port and sound card problems were the start of a rapid degradation of my mobo, just like chubufu said, but asus is a much more trusted brand. The ratings for the Biostar may have been pretty good, but that was only 3 votes compared to the 100's reviewing the Asus boards. I think I will go with the P5Q SE Plus because of money and the fact that it seems like the only advantages of the Pro turbo are its overclocking abilities (though I may be wrong here).

So for sure I am getting the P5Q SE Plus. The only thing I really need to decide is upgrade both processor and graphics card, or just graphics card. I've been mulling over some reviews and I think that I'm going to go with the 5770 over the 5830. The extra 100 dollars for another 15 fps doesn't seem worth it to me because the majority of games I play, other than oblivion, do not require super good graphics. But, GLC if you think that I will have better performance with the 5830 and my current processor, I will take your advice and maybe just OC my CPU a bit.

Oh and thanks for all of the help thus far!

[Khalil]

The 5770 will work great! just make sure buy either Diamond or Asus for ATI cards. You don't even need to OC your CPU at all, that thing is still very capable.

[glc]

Being that you DO have to buy a motherboard - yeah, the 5770 will do the job for you very well.

Biostars are about the only offbrand board I will buy, but I avoid it whenever possible. I used to buy primarily Intel, but when they went to crap several years back I switched to Asus and haven't looked back.

[triquee]

Originally Posted by glc Ohhhhhhh.....I missed that. If you have to buy a motherboard, get a P5Q SE Plus or a P5Q Pro Turbo. Check on your warranty coverage first.

I missed that part too!

[CrazyPenguinDude]

Alright thanks for all the input. looks like ill be going with the 5770 and the p5q se plus. Thanks for all the help and insight! I'll post back once I get everything set up.

[Chewbufu]

Oh yea, I totally agree with everyone here that Asus is by far the way to go with Mobo's. I have an old school computer that I built 6 years ago running an Asus Mobo that is still kickin it. And you're right glc straying from the top dog should be avoided whenever possible. I agree biostar is the only offbrand I'll buy either based on reviews, just watch out for those MSI's. Almost all MSI's I've thought about getting come back with bad technical reviews.
BTW, just joined today hope you don't mind friendly input, I'm just another computer enthusiast

[glc]

I've been in the business for about 15 years. I'm essentially retired now, but I still do an occasional custom build for a few select old customers. Of all the brands of motherboards I've built with and seen in machines for repair, Asus has to be the most trouble-free one of all. They are not perfect - NOBODY is perfect - but they have been the minimum of hassles by far. Yes, occasionally they put out a lemon, but those are few and far between. I won't build dirt cheap machines any more - if someone wants one I send them to the Dell website and tell them to stay away from Walmart and their eMachines.

[Chewbufu]

truth in that sir. well good luck with the build CPD.

[CrazyPenguinDude]

alright well i most likely will not order parts for a week because next week i'm going on spring break, but when I get back i'll be sure to let you guys know how it went.

Edit: Oh and quick question, should i get the e7500 or the e7400.. because on newegg the e7500 is cheaper and faster..

[glc]

If that's the case now, that's a no-brainer to me!

[CrazyPenguinDude]

Due to some other unexpected expeditures, I had to cut back and decided not to order a new processor. Anyway today I booted up my computer, and good news! Straight to windows! This is probably the first time that anything has worked out this smoothly on the first attempt. I haven't really gotten a chance to test out the power of the 5770 because I didn't finish building until late last night and I have lots of work to do today, but by tommorow I will definately get things under way.

The p5q se plus was very nice, but the board is slightly smaller than my previous p5b deluxe, not really a negative, just a difference. The 5770 is also huuuge. I knew graphics cards were big, such as my old 1950xt, but this one barely fit in the huge case I have. Shockingly when I removed the heatsink and cpu to move to the new motherboard, there was almost no contact between the cpu and the scythe infinity heatsink! Some how I manage to obtain decent overclocks of like 2.5 off of an original 1.88 with very stable temps. Hopefulyl now once I break in the new AS5 things will be lower, and this time around I learned from my mistake and placed the heatsink into the mobo outside of the case, so the heatsink and cpu actually touch now!

Thanks for all your help guys! Ill let you know how it handles games and all of that after I get a chance to put it through its paces.

[CrazyPenguinDude]

Alright well I ran into some problems installing drivers and such. First off, the ati 5770 drivers for some reason will not install properly and the installer shuts of 3/4 of the way through. Secondly, I connected my ethernet cable and an orange light came on in the back, signaling that it was transmitting data at 100mbps (according to the motherboard guide). For some reason I cannot connect to the internet, which is very frustrating. If anyone has any ideas feel free to share.

By the way I am running xp

[glc]

Have you installed the motherboard drivers first? The very first driver should be the Intel Software Installation Utility. You should probably use the InstAll utility on the Asus support DVD.

You did do a clean XP install, right?

[CrazyPenguinDude]

Well I got all of the internet stuff working, but the catalyst control center still will not install. The strang thing is I manage to plan cod4 with maxed out settings and without problem.

As far as the intel software utility, I am not 100% sure, but i will definately check it when I get home. (though I did install almost every driver, other than the norton anti-virus ones)

And I did not do a clean install of xp, all I had to do was register my current version because of the new hardware.

[triquee]

Are you using the disk to install the catalyst? If so, uninstall/delete whatever you've got on there and go to the AMD website for drivers.

[CrazyPenguinDude]

thanks that seemed to do the trick. now that I have my cpu temps in the 20's i think its time to overclock