Hardware Computer still worth upgrading ?

[Youkai]

Hi there,
I am thinking of getting either a new PC or upgrading my old one (I usually preffer getting a new one as old pc's tend to become very very slow even after formating everything oO)

I add the dxdiag so that you can see my specs, I think some parts are still good so I was thinking that maybe I could only switch the grafic card with a new one.

 

[FAST6191]

Relevant parts as I see it
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 3072MB RAM
1TB Hitachi drive
Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit

Graphics
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Display Memory: 1781 MB
Dedicated Memory: 505 MB
Shared Memory: 1275 MB

I wish half my clients could call this an old/bad machine. Hell I wish I could presently call that an old/bad machine.

I would probably upgrade graphics and upgrade to 64 bit Windows. Assuming you are not doing masses of high end CAD, video encoding or virtual machines then 4 gigs of ram (I assume it is 4 and a gig has been given over to the graphics and/or is being limited by 32 bit windows) should do OK for a while longer.

 

[kaputnik]

I'd upgrade this:

RAM. It's cheap nowadays, get as much as your mobo supports, hopefully 8 or 16 GB. If you're in luck, your mobo supports DDR3, those old DDR2 sticks are getting more and more expensive as the demand dwindles.

Storage. Get an SSD to boot and run programs from, it'll be a tremendeous performance boost. You can get a 128 GB one fairly cheap, aim for a Samsung or Intel one. Use the old 1TB drive as a storage drive for your porn, warez, etc on. Performance doesn't matter as much for that.

A discrete GPU, if there's room in the case (seems like you got something integrated on the mobo now). As you don't really need the latest and greatest GPU:s, and those probably are too expensive for an upgrade/draws too much power for your PSU to handle anyways, I'd aim for a fanless card in the mainstream segment, this one for instance. Of course there are even more cards with fans in the same segment, but why not rationalize away a noisy fan when you can? There are Nvidia ones in the same performance segment too, but as you have an AMD card now, I thought you might prefer those.

If the case is tight, you might want to look into low profile GPU:s. Then I'd recommend get one with a fan, to not have to sacrifice too much performance.

 

[Youkai]

So much time has passed since the last time I actually checked about Computer Hardware and new oO

Could I install windows on an SSD to make most loading times faster ? or only install a few programms on there ?

And well I do CAD/CAM which would require much RAM and CPU but for the RAM I need win 64 and I have allways so much problems with it...
no idea why, so many people say it is good nowadays and "everything" works fine but whenever a friend comes to me with windows problems it is mostly because a 64bit version makes problems again
plus I use an older CAD programm a friend good in technikian school as it is much to expensive to buy one as a private person and this does not work on 64bit.
// I read there is some programm to make more than 4gb ram work on 32bit windows ... is this good or not ?


about the GPU, I do not need the best on the market but I still want to play some games, a friend told me nvidia is better for most games...
with my current ATI card I can play everything but no idea why since a year I have problem in many games like flickering or crashes to desktop that are supposed to be grafic card related.

 

[master801]

-snip-

Could I install windows on an SSD to make most loading times faster ? or only install a few programms on there ?
-snip-.

A SSD would load things faster. But I have a mechanical drive and windows 7 boots in twenty seconds... Which is weird.

 

[Plainscript]

// I read there is some programm to make more than 4gb ram work on 32bit windows ... is this good or not ?

Not sure where you heard it or read it, but don't expect too much of it. Simply not possible.

EDIT: Please post your mainboard too.

 

[FAST6191]

SSD... I like them but their returns are not so great for a lot of things, if you are encoding video that is not CPU locked (transcoding MPEG2 and xvid style MPEG4 are reasonable examples nowadays) then yeah go for it, everything else might just start a bit quicker and not a lot more. CAD varies from program to program but again it is usually just startup and saving that take the effort. Depending upon what you are already spending (and if you need to replace the PSU or not) then I would possibly consider not getting one over spending a bit more on something else. That said a 120 gig samsung thing is some €80 or so right now so who knows.

4 gigs and CAD. Assuming we are not doing light physics, water physics or serious Finite Element Analysis and you feel like taking the ultra advanced step of "shut some things down when you are doing demanding tasks" (quite OK to say "no I need to do it all at once" mind you) I am still not entirely convinced it will do much for you. That said it is cheap and DDR4 is almost upon us so prices might not stay low.

Windows 7 64 bit.... had this still been vista then absolutely the 64 bit backwards compatibility was a right pain. Windows 7 has pretty much sorted that save for those things needing 16 bit support (dosbox and virtual machines for those).

More than 4 gigs of memory on 32 bit windows. The underlying technology is called PAE and has been around for years, there have been a handful of attempts to try something in years past on windows but it is one of those odd things I do not suggest people use unless they have a very good reason to do it ( http://www.unawave.de/windows-7-tipps/32-bit-ram-barrier.html?lang=EN if you do want to read up on it). On Linux machines it is a bit different and some PAE kind of works well enough there that I could suggest using it.

If you are so inclined though virtual machines are pretty good these days and can even speak to graphics cards if you want (still a bit experimental but nice) so you might be able to do CAD on your 32 bit Windows 7 and leave everything else to other things if you want.

Edit: @Plainscript. My bad I should have added that
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/X58-Pro-E.html or some minor version tweak either side of that model.

 

[Plainscript]

No problem. You got an option for 24GB RAM at 6 slots max.

I would definitely go for that to start with. Instant performance boost guaranteed in your CAD soft.

Plus a fresh Win7 x64 install ofc..

 

[The Milkman]

Damn, nice rig man. Why do you want to upgrade anyway? Thats over-kill in terms of gaming, and once you can do that pretty good, theres nothing to stop you from anything else (maybe heavy 3D modeling or something, I dont know too much about those.)

 

[Plainscript]

Damn, nice rig man. Why do you want to upgrade anyway? Thats over-kill in terms of gaming, and once you can do that pretty good, theres nothing to stop you from anything else (maybe heavy 3D modeling or something, I dont know too much about those.)

He's running CAD software. The more power, the better.

 

[FAST6191]

Back in the 2000's I might have agreed with you Plainscript but these days the "3d modelling where you can set dimensions and have easy rounded or chamfered corners" and then make it into an engineering drawing/something for a CNC/3d printer type of CAD, which is most of what most people (including Youkai if my past conversations with him are anything to go by) spend most of their time doing, does not need an all singing, all dancing machine so much. Add simulation of water/fluids, proper light, scale up to 50000 moving parts, do massive architectural CAD or do FEA (e.e.m. in Dutch I believe) and that changes instantly though possibly not enough to really worry here (your once two hour render might now take a hour and twenty or something).

 

[Plainscript]

Hmm. Didn't knew that.

Guess you're right then.. CAD is a huge - and abstract concept.

But still. I would upgrade the RAM. Maybe not 6 * 4GB, but instead 6 * 2GB.

 

[The Milkman]

He's running CAD software. The more power, the better.

CAD? Like MasterCam or AutoCAD?

 

[Youkai]

first thing to say Fast you are awesome oO
and yeah that should be the right mainboard ^^
And yes thats the programm I heard about and I think I "tried" using it on a friends computer some time back

I allways more or less didn't look at the RAM cuz I never wanted 64 bit windows ^^V maybe I should really add some ...
If I am not completely mistake I have DDR3

But how is this overkill in terms of gaming oO? like I said many games crash to desktop (I believe because of the GPU) and many have flickering and other grafic related problems ... well maybe it is due to the rams no idea ...
than again games like Skyrim worked totaly fine on highest settings when I had a pirated version and as soon as a bought it cuz I thaught it was really worth the money it allways crashed right in the intro except if i turn the grafic to lowest settings -.-V
As I said before a friend/coworker told me to get an Nvidia GPU cuz they are better for gaming ...

and about CAD, I usually only make easy things that are not so hard to do but I once did this one here in CAM and the PC was loading half an hour for every single tool I used oO lucky I only used 3 ...

// this is Aluminium but I used some filter to make it look better XD


P.S. yes "like" AutoCAD ... I use SolidWorks and SolidCam and a friend of mine use Autodesk AutoCAD/Inventor/Mechanic ... my Company uses Tebis but as you have to get a new activation every month there is no old version I could use and no "other" version to find ^^V

 

[Rydian]

Crashing wouldn't be a result of low GPU specs.

Do a disk check, and this too.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ht/sfc-scannow.htm

 

[Plainscript]

Crashing wouldn't be a result of low GPU specs.

Do a disk check, and this too.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ht/sfc-scannow.htm

But it could be due too an almost defunct GPU.. Seen that stuff before.

Youkai, yes you have DDR3.

 

[Youkai]

Hmm okay

I was thinking of maybe buying this

http://www.amazon.de/Gigabyte-NVIDI...ie=UTF8&qid=1370195041&sr=8-3&keywords=Nvidia
http://www.amazon.de/Corsair-XMS3-PC-1333-Arbeitsspeicher-DDR3-RAM/dp/B003N8GVUY/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1370195678&sr=1-1&keywords=ddr3 ram

would these be sufficient / good
or is there better stuff in a similiar price class ?

P.S. a friend told me when I get new Ram sticks I need to watch out where to insert them as they might make problems with the one already inside ... he said I would need to put the two new one either in slot 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 and not as example in 2 and 3

 

[Thanatos Telos]

The 650ti is good, but try to get either the boost edition or the HD 7850 if you want better performance. Also, avoid mixing RAM that have different timings or voltages. If I were you, I'd ditch the old RAM entirely. Finally, yes, your friend is right. Usually, most mobos have them color coded. Like in my ASUS one, it's blue, black, blue, black.

 

[Youkai]

thanks found a nice one from Zotac !
I am ordering right now I just have a last question,

As I noticed EVERY single PC gets slower and slower from time to time even if you Defrag your HDD over and over again and reinstall and whatever so I assume
the HDD is as it is used very much more or less "worn out" ... so am I correct that sometimes getting a complete new main HDD and maybe using the old one as
second or external HDD would help making the PC run faster again ?

 

[natkoden]

That 650 would be obsolete from the moment you purchase it. We are a few months away from the next gen of consoles, and that equals a boost in graphics. Wait a few months (there's nothing to play right now, anyways) and get a GTX 770 or a Volcanic Islands.

That RAM sucks too. They're cheaper and far better ram out there. Example: http://www.amazon.de/G-Skill-Ripjaws-Arbeitsspeicher-240-polig-DDR3-RAM/dp/B004I763AW/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1370199944&sr=1-1&keywords=G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB

And you have to OC that CPU, at least to 3.5 GHz. Otherwise, you're better off with a Haswell or at least an Ivy Bridge.

And for the HDD issue, get a SSD right away... best upgrade you can make to your computer. The difference is huge.

EDIT: This is considering you want your PC for gaming. If not, discard my comment on the GPU, and you can also get some cheap Kingston RAM. But yeah, the SSD is probably your best option.