Looking for upgrade advice, about $300

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Devilpup

[H]ard|Gawd
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Sep 4, 2002
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I recently upgraded my gaming monitor to a 27" and feel like my system might be a little sluggish in games. I'm considering dumping another $300 into the build (current specs are in my sig) so I'll answer the questions from the sticky before going further:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Primarily gaming (WoW is about as advanced as I've gotten) and storing files, sometimes we watch movies on it (playing dvds).

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$300 US, tax and shipping not included

3) Where do you live?

SW USA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

Not sure, looking for best increase for the targeted game. Possibly HDD, or CPU/MB, or GPU

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

Will re-use all parts from signature that are not replaced

6) Will you be overclocking?

I haven't OC'd in a long time but can, current rig is stock.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

27" single monitor, gaming @ 1920 x 1080

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

anytime, I am contemplating on waiting for the AMD Bulldozer release if a CPU upgrade is in order.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.

If replacing the mb, USB 3.0 would be cool

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Yes, running Windows 7 32-bit
Click to expand...

What I am thinking about are a couple of options:

1 - Upgrading my OS to 64-bit and system drive to a SSD
2 - Upgrading the CPU and MB
3 - Upgrading the GPU

I'm thinking that if I'm going to upgrade, I want to get the best bang for my efforts. Since I am only on a single monitor, do you guys think my 4870 is good enough to max WoW settings at that resolution? I am currently dipping down below 30fps at times and it can feel choppy, but it also felt choppy at times when I was running 50+ fps on a 20" monitor.

I have read that WoW is very cpu intensive so that's why I was thinking of upgrading the mb and/or cpu instead. I picked up the 550 BE due to having a low thermal output and at the time I didn't want to OC or generate a lot of heat as I was in Iraq and using stock cooling. I know the new intel processors are sh!t hot as far as power goes, but I think the new AMD Bulldozer procs are only a couple of months away so I'm debating on waiting to see how those roll out before upgrading a CPU.

With the GPU, I like the new cards but I have a sneaky suspicion that an upgrade there will be bottlenecked by my CPU, so I'm hesitant to bite on that.

I know a lot of people rave about the SSD hard drives and I know WoW has to pull a lot of data off the hdd fast, especially since it loads so many different characters and clothing. I was wondering if anyone has gone from a traditional drive to an SSD and can provide any input on how it impacted performance in WoW.

Overall I keep trying to find an answer to the question "what do I want it to do that it doesn't do now?" The answer I keep coming up with is "I don't know, I just want it to be smoother/faster." Can you guys help me find the weak point in my system and offer suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Start overclocking. Luckily for you, a highly OC'd X2 550 should be enough for WoW at 1920x1080 AFAIK. So option 2 is out if you're willing to overclock. Oh and Intel's current Sandy Bridge CPUs aren't as hot or as power hungry as their previous Nehalem brothers. In fact, they run so cool to the point that you could actually OC with the stock HSF.

The best option IMO is to get both a SSD and a new GPU. WoW does indeed improve immensely when it's installed on a SSD. In addition, due to your resolution, the HD 4870will struggle even with a SSD upgrade. Unfortauntely this option will exceed your $300 budget by about $75 to $100. Then again right now this is kind of a bad time to buy a current gen SSD as newer gen SSDs are coming out in a few weeks or so.

So if you absolutely cannot spring the extra cash, then I recommend just waiting for these new SSD to hit the market and pick up one of those. Main reason I recommend this option is because you were seeing choppiness even at a lower resolution which does help prove the fact that a SSD will help out immensely.
 
1st off Update your bios & shoot for an Unlock & then overclock. You very well may be sitting on a quad core in disguise all for the price of FREE which is the best upgrade you can do bang for buck wise. Next off a New GPU is in order. Probably a 6850 or 6870 given the resolution & you should be fine (I have no problems with wow on my 6850 & most settings are maxed). If the build is pretty much just for wow, then after the above 2 you should be able to watch for a deal on a 64gb ssd. The c300's ovvasionally go on sale for 100 bucks or so & if not a 6850 & 64gb c300 can still be had for 310 shipped.

& Danny will disagree with me on this point, but a Sandforce based SSD will still do very well for you. Not as well as there spec's would suggest since there inflated, But moving from a Very fast Mechanical HDD to a SSD makes a hell of a difference in WOW. & you can grab a 64gb A-Data SSD for 115 shipped from newegg as there regular price which would bring you back down under the 300 cap.
 
I am going to be re-installing my system into a new case tonight as I got my cpu fan, so hopefully I'll start oc'ing by the end of the night. I've done some reading and it would be cool to oc the 550, even if I can't unlock any extra cores maybe I can get an extra 500 mhz or so.

I am really attracted to the new 6950 cards and the price isn't bad. Really I can wait a few weeks for another generation of ssd drives to come out, I didn't know they were going to release more soon. If that's just around the corner, and Bulldozer should be out a few months later, maybe the gpu upgrade would make the most sense first?

Appreciate the opinions guys, just want to make sure if I upgraded something else my cpu wouldn't hold me back.
 
GPU makes the most sense. TBH though your not going to gain a whole lot with a single display at 1920x1080 in going from a 6850 on up. Not saying dont go with the 6850, but the performance difference isn't going to be great as throwing an SSD in there. & if the current pricing holds true your not going to be looking at a next gen SSD even in a few months. Currently the 3rd gen drives that are out are all at a premium that doesn't justify the performance gains compared to a good 2nd gen drive
 
Most definitely unlock the cpu and overclock the cpu. Your motherboard has the SB710 southbridge chipset. With the proper BIOS, you should have a feature called ACC - Advanced Chip Calibration. You'll need to set EC Firmware Selection to Hybrid and ACC to Auto in the BIOS. Download cpu-z software to use to see specs of your cpu, mobo, RAM. if the unlock is successful, it should say AMD Phenom ll X4 B50 Processor
 
Whelp, got around to flashing the bios and unlocking the processor. Unfortunately I don't think it's going to fly for me as it was not stable at all and wouldn't even load windows properly. I freaked out for a minute thinking I fried everything as the keyboard stopped working too, but eventually got the BIOS reset.

Instead I just oc'd it to 3.6 ghz and am running prime to check it out. I had it to 3.8 but it wasn't stable, so I might just stick with this as I don't want to up the voltage. Seems stable so far, I'll game on it later and check it out.
 
Just to chime in here if you do decide to go with an SSD you will want at least a 120gb. a 64gb ssd won't even get you windows + wow installed let alone any other programs. A fully patched wow install is about 24gb. I have an 80gb with only wow and a few minor programs installed and i only have about 10gb free. as far as the performance goes, it is definitly noticeable but i wouldnt say it is a bajillion times faster. the main thing i noticed was the loading of textures was alot smoother whereas before there would be a slight pause in some cases. Loading screens on the other hand are significantly faster.
 
Yeah if I went with a SSD I couldn't bring myself to go any lower than 128gb. Just wish they were cheaper, right now I think I'd rather spring for a better video card. I was doing some gaming last night at 4xAA and 16xAF and it dipped down into the 20's a few times, but most of the time it was at 50+ fps. My CPU usage was up around 60-70% per core but I couldn't tell what my GPU usage was. Anyone know a good program to monitor that? My CCC wasn't registering anything on the usage side so I'm a bit in the dark there.
 
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