[Colonol Dekker]

http://www.gamingpc.net/buy/Best-Gaming-PC-Nvidia


ARGH.

[headdie]

give it 5 years and you are looking at average top line-mid line gaming PC in power but without the instruction sets to make best use of it

[LHN91]

This. This is the reason why I more or less only build mid-range computers for myself/people I know. Because high end systems like that are a horrible investment that depreciates wildly and ends up within 100 dollars value of the mid-range system within 3 or 4 years.

[Colonol Dekker]

This is what i thought too.

In fact, only this morning. It dawned on me (<3 Dawn -insert trollface) that my phone, which has 350mb of ram, 8GB storage, and a 1Ghz+ CPU has better specs than the PC on which i first installed FreeSpace.

[Commander Zane]

Holy **** that price.

[Polpolion]

48GB of DDR3 RAM

WUT. Unless you're playing games that are PC exclusive it will have been designed to use < 1GB of RAM. With six cores, I suppose you could just play a could games at the same time. Anyway, for the price I suppose you could easily do worse.

Also same as Dekker. My first FS2 computer had an 800Mhz CPU, 256MB RAM, but 10 whole gigabytes of storage. Good times, man, good times...

[T-LoW]

10 gigabytes?! You big pimp! Mine had same specs except there was only a 4GB HDD.

Never forget the very first computer (except the C64 <3 ) with 99MHz processor and a mofo 15" monitor windows 95 installed! (2000,-DM) Awesome times...

But **** that 12000,- computer. New rig will be awesome and costs about 900,-€ - surely lasts up to 4 years (as always).

[Colonol Dekker]

On the topic,

I've had this rig since 07.

Where should i start upgrading?

Packard Bell IPower X8620 with the following spec;

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600
8MB of cache
1066 MHz FSB
LGA 775 Socket Motherboard with 2 conventional PCI, 3 PCI Express x1, 1 PCI Express x16 or 2 x 8 (SLI mode)
2048MB DDR2 533 / 667 Mhz Memory
500GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
8 in 1 Multimedia Card Reader
DVD+/-R9 optical drive
2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 GS PCI 512MB SLI Graphics Cards (so 1024MB combined dedicated memory)
Realtek ALC 883 integraded sound card
2 x front, 4 x rear USB 2.0 Ports

[jr2]

My first computer was a Tandy 80286, 8MHz, 640KB RAM, 20MB hard disk, 3 1/2" floppy, DOS 3.20, 16-color monitor.

My second computer was an 80486, 33MHz, 8MB RAM (or was it 16?), 400MB hard disk, a CD-ROM drive (4x?), and a floppy drive, Windows '95, VGA monitor.

Both computers were given to me (so the high-mid range was 133MHz Pentium w/MMX, and the ultra high-end was 166 / 200 MHz range.  My Dad had a 100MHz AMD DX4 that somehow out-performed the 133MHz Pentiums at work... well, it was put together custom by someone who knew what they were doing, so that figures.)

EDIT: Sorry for OT, back on-topic:

On the topic,

I've had this rig since 07.

Where should i start upgrading?

Packard Bell IPower X8620 with the following spec;

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600
8MB of cache
1066 MHz FSB
LGA 775 Socket Motherboard with 2 conventional PCI, 3 PCI Express x1, 1 PCI Express x16 or 2 x 8 (SLI mode)
2048MB DDR2 533 / 667 Mhz Memory
500GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
8 in 1 Multimedia Card Reader
DVD+/-R9 optical drive
2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 GS PCI 512MB SLI Graphics Cards (so 1024MB combined dedicated memory)
Realtek ALC 883 integraded sound card
2 x front, 4 x rear USB 2.0 Ports

[The E]

On the topic,

I've had this rig since 07.

Where should i start upgrading?

Packard Bell IPower X8620 with the following spec;

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600
8MB of cache
1066 MHz FSB
LGA 775 Socket Motherboard with 2 conventional PCI, 3 PCI Express x1, 1 PCI Express x16 or 2 x 8 (SLI mode)
2048MB DDR2 533 / 667 Mhz Memory
500GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
8 in 1 Multimedia Card Reader
DVD+/-R9 optical drive
2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 GS PCI 512MB SLI Graphics Cards (so 1024MB combined dedicated memory)
Realtek ALC 883 integraded sound card
2 x front, 4 x rear USB 2.0 Ports

I'd add another 2 GB of RAM, and switch to Win 7.

[Colonol Dekker]

On the topic,

I've had this rig since 07.

Where should i start upgrading?

Packard Bell IPower X8620 with the following spec;

Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600
8MB of cache
1066 MHz FSB
LGA 775 Socket Motherboard with 2 conventional PCI, 3 PCI Express x1, 1 PCI Express x16 or 2 x 8 (SLI mode)
2048MB DDR2 533 / 667 Mhz Memory
500GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
8 in 1 Multimedia Card Reader
DVD+/-R9 optical drive
2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 GS PCI 512MB SLI Graphics Cards (so 1024MB combined dedicated memory)
Realtek ALC 883 integraded sound card
2 x front, 4 x rear USB 2.0 Ports

I'd add another 2 GB of RAM, and switch to Win 7.

I'm on Win 7, courtesy of a certain...................HLP UK event

IT handles Crysis 2 quite well at the moment to be honest. I just wish it could run Supreme commander FA a bit better.

[T-LoW]

Replace them RAM with the max MHz ones your mainboard can handle.

And buy 1 or 2 9800GTX (pretty cheap now).

I have a similar rig, but I'll replace it completely when the new processors come out.

[LHN91]

Replace them RAM with the max MHz ones your mainboard can handle.

And buy 1 or 2 9800GTX (pretty cheap now).

I have a similar rig, but I'll replace it completely when the new processors come out.

^This. 4Gb should be tons of RAM, your board most likely suppports 800 mhz DDR2 and may even allow you to grab some 1066, though you'd have to manually set the timings and such. After that, yeah 9800s are quite cheap at the moment. You might also take a look at some of the newer generation parts if you want DX11 or some of the other goodies (Eyefinity, etc.).

[Fury]

Replace them RAM with the max MHz ones your mainboard can handle.

And buy 1 or 2 9800GTX (pretty cheap now).

I have a similar rig, but I'll replace it completely when the new processors come out.

Unless the motherboard supports 1066MHz DDR2, it'd be pointless to get faster RAM. 800MHz for example wouldn't be in sync with the 1066MHz FSB, making 533MHz better choice. Unless of course the FSB is overclocked. Other than that, upgrading to 4GB RAM (8GB if you can) and GPU should give you nice performance bump.

Also, screw 9800GTX. If he's going to upgrade, he probably should look at Radeon 6850/6870 or GeForce 460/560 (non-Ti). Personally I don't recommend SLI or CrossFire, it's way too game and driver dependent and also has microstutter among other small issues.

However, it might be better to save that money to get completely new rig.

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm keen on mah Nvidia branding
Any comments on potential CPU Upgrades?

[Polpolion]

i5 2500k is solid CPU if you've got 200 USD. If you really want it (you probably won't need it), 100 more USD will get you just about the same processor except with hyper threading in an i7.

[Fury]

CPU upgrade I reckon would be rather pointless unless you plan to get new motherboard too. At that point it'd be just better to get new rig entirely. But if you really want to consider CPU upgrade anyway, first you need to look up what motherboard you have and then see what CPU's it supports. Q9650 is potentially the best CPU your motherboard could support, but it may not be worthwhile upgrade over Q6600 unless you can find it real cheap somewhere.

i5 2500k is solid CPU if you've got 200 USD. If you really want it (you probably won't need it), 100 more USD will get you just about the same processor except with hyper threading in an i7.

Wrong socket buddy. He wouldn't be able to put one of these onto his current motherboard.

[LHN91]

Last time I looked the higher end 775 socket quads' prices were hugely inflated in comparison to their performance. Your next CPU upgrade should probably be on your next build.

As a side note, I'm noticing that DDR2 is starting to go up too.

[Fury]

As a side note, I'm noticing that DDR2 is starting to go up too.

It already has, at least here. Costs a lot more than equivalent DDR3. Sadly.

[LHN91]

There's a couple places up here that still have decent deals on DDR2, but those deals have been evaporating over the last year. Main reason why my current system will never go above 4gb. I'm not spending an arm and a leg to upgrade from my twin 1066mhz G-skills.