Upgraded my PC

May 21, 2008 – 1:12 pm

I did a budget upgrade on my PC yesterday and I hope all the parts arrive before the weekend!

After taxes, shipping, and rebates, CAD $420 (CAD $1 = USD $1.01 atm) gets you:

Rationale

According to several reviews, overclocking the e2180 from 2.0 to 3.0GHz on stock cooling is very easy with the DFI board. Even without the overclock, 3D gaming today is GPU-driven, not CPU. The board I have doesn’t support SLI but that’s fine because I think SLI is a bit of a scam anyway. Most benchmarks I’ve seen show single next generation cards outperforming dual previous generation cards in SLI. Just because you SLI a second card, it doesn’t even come close to doubling your performance.

I chose the OCZ RAM because it was insanely cheap, highly rated, and 2GB will be sufficient for the time being. It’s easy enough to double it up down the road, but I’m not sure how much of a performance increase I’ll see in WinXP running only a single game client and FRAPS.

The video card was a bit of a toss up. The main reason I chose the 9600GT over the 8800GT was that it requires less power, and I didn’t want to upgrade my PSU at this time. I have a Seasonic S12 430W and the 8800GT recommends 450W minimum… It might have worked but I didn’t want to risk it, especially since I’m running two internal HDDs and plan to OC the CPU. I’ll play around with RivaTuner and the 9600GT to boost performance…

I’ll be recycling my trusty old Raidmax Scythe case, upgraded case fans, PSU, 160GB and 80GB internal 7200RPM SATA HDDs, M-Audio Audiophile sound card (for recording purposes), and 19″ Samsung CRT. I’ll eventually upgrade the monitor to a 22″ LCD but I’m waiting for some decent sales in my home town. I’d rather not order one over the Internet because there’s the potential of getting a bad screen (dead pixels, poor backlighting, ghosting, etc.) and having the hassle of shipping it back and forth until I’m satisfied. I’ve heard too many horror stories of people getting 2, 3, and even 4 lemons before finding a peach.

I can’t imagine Warhammer Online launching beyond these new system specs because it will put them in the realm of Age of Conan’s requirements. Then again, who knows how hairy large scale RvR will get…

This is the last toy I’ll be getting for a while, so I hope it’s an entertaining one! The wife and I bought a “fixer upper” house a couple years back and even though we’ve been making good progress, there’s still plenty of “upper” to do.

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Post tags: Age of Conan, Warhammer Online

13 Responses to “Upgraded my PC”
Congratz

By Adam on May 21, 2008
Very spiffy. I’m looking at ordering a new video card and monitor in the near future, thanks for the help with that.

By Syp on May 21, 2008
Nice upgrade i must make 1 too beafor WAR release.

By Greek on May 21, 2008
I upgraded as well to take advantage of several games in 2008/2009. Feels good to upgrade, doesn’t it?

By Keen on May 21, 2008
Quite refreshing… I’m no longer in the age of AGP!

Going from a 6800XT 256MB to a 9600GT 512MB should be like night and day! Don’t you love the confusing numbering for video cards though? A few years back the ATI 9600 and 9800 were some of the best cards you could get and now it’s the same series number, but by made by nVidia!

Let me know if you need any help with the upgrade Syp!

By Snafzg on May 21, 2008
I don’t think SLI is that bad. It’s good when you SLI two cheaper cards for a performance boost. I wouldn’t SLI the more expensive cards.

I ended up putting in two BFG 9600GTOC2’s in my new comp I’ve built for WAR. I don’t know too much on the specifics of SLI. Performance seems to depend on drivers and how well the game itself is programed for SLI. But all the benchmarks I’ve seen on Ars, PC Perspective and Tom’s Hardware seem to give dual 9600’s good marks, and two 9600’s in SLI seemed like they would give me better performance over a single 9800 at same price if not a bit lower. Plus I was able to buy them one at a time. Easier on the wallet.

I probably went over board on my whole computer in general, but I was playing my old MMO’s on a little 15″ LCD, and I became determined to see WAR in all its glory from the first time I logged in to get a truly great first impression =D

By Alex on May 21, 2008
Heh, there are cases where SLI works I suppose, but I don’t buy into all the video card hype personally. The more you spend, the less increase in performance you’ll see overall compared to similar cards…

Like, you can get an 8800GT for $150ish right now or spend $250ish for a 9800GT and the performance gains aren’t reflected in the price as you’d expect. Ie., you aren’t going to see a 66% performance upgrade even though that’s how much more you’re spending.

Also, I don’t see all the hype behind FPS epeen strokage… TV is broadcast at 29.97 frames per second and people don’t complain about it. Motion pictures come in around 25 FPS. As long as I can run my games at 30-40 FPS without any stutters below that, I’m happy. Spending hundreds of extra dollars to push my game from ~30 FPS to 60+ seems a bit pointless to me.

You are definitely correct that SLI becomes more worthwhile as the card drops substantially in price. The only drawback to the SLI system imho is that you need two perfectly matching cards. I’d be a much bigger fan of this technology if you could mix n’ match.

By Snafzg on May 22, 2008
Good stuff! Great card too.

I have the 9600GT Superclocked from EVGA and love it.

By Bildo on May 22, 2008
Just got word that my order partially shipped… everything should arrive tomorrow except the video card! Crai! Next week it is…

By Snafzg on May 22, 2008
Where did you order from, btw?

By Alex on May 22, 2008
NCIX.com is one of the only cheap and reliable sources for PC components in Canada, so I went with them. If we could order from Newegg up here in the North, things would be sweet, but alas!

By Snafzg on May 23, 2008
Canadian here, and I’ve ordered from NCIX, but DirectCanada, who is actually part of NCIX, actually has cheaper prices for regular buying. But NCIX still has better sale prices. So check out both when shopping. I’ve spent over many thousands of dollars at both, and had good experiences with both, so it’s all a matter of who’s cheaper, which 90% of the time is DirectCanada.

By ScytheNoire on May 28, 2008
Hmmm, I’ve never heard of DirectCanada. Thanks for the tip! I just priced out my system on their site and would have saved about $15. Unfortunately, none of the stuff was in stock (available). Seems like they only have limited quantities.

By Snafzg on May 28, 2008