Upgrade/Migration from AMD to Intel

A

AARGH!

Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2003
Messages
766
My current gaming rig is as follows:

MSI K8N Neo4 Plat. SLI
AMD Athlon64 4800+X2 w/Zalman 9700
2 Gig DDR Corsair TwinX1024-3200C2Pro
2x SLI 7900 GT KO eVGA
Dell 2405FPW
Antec 550w NeoHE
2x Seagate 200Gig
Samsung SH-S183L DVD
SB Audigy2ZS Plat. EX
Antec Nine Hundred case

I am looking to migrate to Nvidia DX10 capable, and switching to Intel C2D platform. I am on the fence on SLI, since support seems to vary greatly, but it does provide a nice spot for upgradeability. I mostly play RTS's, and FPS's, with some COH/V thrown in occasionally.

I don't think I can convince the missus on a full blown complete upgrade out of the gate. So with that in mind what would be the better "1st stage" upgrade? Upgrade the two 7900GT's to a single 8800 (and then which one?) or upgrade the motherboard, cpu and memory?

As a sidenote, what's the opinion on SLI? Is it still viable going forward? Do developers even consider it at all? SupCom caught me by suprise when it didn't support it, and wondering if this will be the new trend.

Thanks,
 
what rez do you game at? If its high rez, I'd just worry about the video card for now, since it will be mostly gpu limited

you didn't mention a budget. I'd go with an 8800gtx.
 
Well, you can always switch to alternate frame rendering mode and get /some/ performance boost. That said, a board that supports SLI is like, $20 more, and when you're looking at the kind of prices you /will/ be looking at, $20 is nothing.

Now.

E6420 is a great overclocker, $187 at Newegg. This is especially true now that the new batch of E6600's are horrid for overclocking, so don't listen to anyone telling you to get one, they likely have one of the older, more OC-friendly chips.

Stick a Scythe Ninja on it and hit 3.2Ghz (up from the stock 2.13Ghz) easy, or a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme if you have some more cash and want to run cooler with more headroom. You'll have to buy your own fan the the Thermalright, though. A Tuniq Tower is another good option. Scythe is around $40, the other two, $60-65, plus a fan for the Thermalright. The Tuniq comes with a fan. They're all big though, so make sure there's enough room in your case.

680i or 650i chipset is the only way to fly if you want SLI, and even without they're fast and stable, though people do have trouble with them sometimes. I for one haven't, and I'm sure the problems are rare, but still. With that in mind, going EVGA makes sense. They have great customer service, and if you pay $30 when you register the board, will pay shipping both ways and cross-ship you a new board should something go wrong. A-series boards have lifetime warranties, T-series boards have 2 year warranties. If you don't plan to overclock a quad core (you could still run one at stock speeds just fine, however) and just want to OC dual cores, you could get a 680i SE board from them for $150 after rebate at Newegg. I have one and have been very happy with it thus far.

Also go EVGA with the 8800 series, as they warranty overclocking and you can do the same deal to cross-ship a new card should anything go wrong. Same warranty differences on A and T series cards as with the motherboards -- A has lifetime, T, 2 years.


Back to present day.

You're running an X2 and have the wattage to support one, so you could go to a single 8800GTX if you are willing to spend the cash, or a single 8800 GTS 640MB, but for the moment the 7900GTs are doing just fine, I imagine.

$400 or so gets you the new motherboard, processor, heatsink, and 2GB of G.Skill DDR2-800 ($83, no reason to pay more, period). Higher than DDR2-800 is really not a good choice unless you plan to go over 3.2Ghz with an E6420, as at 3.2Ghz with the RAM frequencies linked and synced to the processor you're running DDR2-800 again, just as you were with the processor running stock speeds.

Given your current graphics setup and CPU setup should be doing fine in today's games I'd suggest at least waiting until the C2D prices drop in July, unless you're feeling it slow down and just want to take the plunge now.

Hope this was at least somewhat helpful.
 
Thanks for the great info guys. Yeah forgot the budget, looking at doing it in $500 chunks if possible. Also, I'm not a big overclocker, especially for CPU's. I just don't have the patience, video cards oc'ing is about as much as I can do.
 
OCing Core2Duos to around 50% over stock is... insanely simple. There is zero reason not to do it. They still run cool (with a replacement heatsink) and you get another 1Ghz or so of performance pretty much free.
 
Is my Zalman not enough for a replacement cooler? Also I do play at max res for my 2405.
 
The Zalman should do fine assuming you don't get crazy with the OC -- it should be able to handle a 50% OC (2.13Ghz stock to 3.2Ghz OC with a E6420 for example) without issue.

A single 8800GTX will handle 1920x1200 (max resolution on your panel) without issue. Go with EVGA, as I said before, due to customer support.
 
You've still got a great system. If you just want to improve gaming performance, you don't need a full overhaul. Heh, all you really need to spend is $550 on a new GTX and if you want, OC that 4800+ to 2.6Ghz. Then, sell your 7900GTs for around $150 each to help offset the cost. With those changes, you'll be set for another year. In a year, pickup a quadcore CPU, as they should be goin for the same prices dual cores are goin' for right now.

I built a c2d for myself, but I dont game much. Since the overall performance gain wasn't much compared to my main rig, I decided to give to someone who actually needed an upgrade... my mom, lol. To be honest, I throw alot at my current system (except for gaming), and it still handles it all pretty damn well. So, when I finally notice it slowing down, I'll consider an upgrade -- thats the only time you'll fully appreciate an upgrade. If you don't need to upgrade, then don't.

My general advice about SLI:
SLI is only good if you have or plan on getting a 24" or larger LCD, and the highest end vidcards to go with it. Otherwise, theres really no need for SLI. SLI as an upgrade path is just a marketting ploy, unless, again, you plan on upgrading to an extremely high resolution monitor. There will always be a better single card solution and you could always sell your old card to help offset the cost.

Since you have a 24" LCD, a single GTX should be fine. If you want, wait for the 8900GTX refresh. It should be coming out soon. Try out one first, then if it isn't good enough, pickup a 2nd. If the 2nd doesnt do anything for you, then its the CPU bottlenecking.

My example as far as SLI as an upgrade path goes:
If I were to upgrade my current system to an SLI system, I'd have to throw down $150 or so to get a used 7800GT. My other option would be to sell mine for about $150 or so to bump my budget to $300. And for less than $300, I could pickup an 8800GTS that would outperform two 7800GTs in SLI.
 
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