Advice please. Current PC is nearly 4 years old and even though I spent a fair bit on it, I'm wondering if I need an upgrade / new PC.


CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® CoreT 2 Duo E6850 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache 64-bit
MOTHERBOARD: (Quad-Core Supports) Asus P5N32-E nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
VIDEO2: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader

The rest of the gear is pretty standard and it gets a 5.3 on the Windows experience thingy.

I'm running Windows 7 and it copes with pretty much everything, even new games on medium settings, but I'm starting to see a lot of blue screens associated with the gfx so i wonder if one of the cards is on the way out. Would sticking in a single more powerful or a couple of mid-range gfx cards in SLI give me a bit of a boost for the newer games?

Am I reading right that you only have 2GB of memory? If so adding more to that should improve your score a bit. Your specs absolutely piss on anything I've owned in that time and am likely to own any time soon other than memory and I get a 5.8 on Windows 7. Have you looked to see the individual item scores on Windows experience?

To be honest if you have the cash a new machine would probably be better if you have the funds for it.

You can get a decent machine even with out going top end of the market.

Just really depends of your cash situation.

I agree that you just need more memory J

I agree with sifty n beans ..

You should be running 4gb minimum and youll notice one hell of a difference


I get a 5.9 score based on my disk transfer as ive got 1 eide drive still in the machine.

Otherwise Processor 7.3 , memory 7.5 , gfx both 6.9

Ive got an AMD Phenom II 4 955 (Black Edition) and 4gb DDR3 in and 1 AMD 6750 Formula Edition.

Thank you all, new RAM on order.

I'd agree with the others on the memory needing a boost before deciding if you need a new rig.

But i did fine the move from my AMII 5200+ (OC@3.2) to a i7 2600k a bit of a shock speed wise.
(I'd have both cores running at 95%+ load doing any games so it was needed)
So if it was me I would go the same route with yours as I did mine

I Picked up a gtx 570 (oc's to 580 spec easy so best bang for buck imo) An I kept old 260s to run my side monitors in new build
(you'd maybe need on or could use one as a dedicated physx card).
Then waited till thier was a good offer and had the cash and got a new cpu/mobo/ram.

The whole process took about 8months which helped soften the blow.
Now im just pondering a SSD (hdd is getting a lowly 5.8! lol).
(and improving my cooling or water liquid maybe if needed but i hope not.)

edit:
4/560 (then sli later on as they age) is a great budget option for gaming imo.
I only went for the 570 as it was a great offer and I had my 260's to take the strain of my other monitors.

Interesting thread... I must be getting old though as I've just ordered my new machine and it's completely inadequate for gaming, purely for my studies and writing on...

Ah I picked up a netbook for working/writing on.
Stops even the temptation to get side track with photo editing or any decent games.

Did it look a little like this mate?

Im assuming your pc would a little like this then Sifty ?

That's about right mate, only the bike would be on its side, not upright

lol

It was the fact it was on some handle bars that made it special

Exactly like that, only complete with 1950's secretary...

RAM upgraded to 4gb but the Windows experience points are the same. The thing holding it back is the hard drive, everything else is coming in at around 6.3 or 6.5.

Very expensive day today. Razer Copperhead decided after 4 years of use to give up the ghost on the left mouse button so had to replace. Printer needed new ink too.

SSDs are cheapo now J

Yeah, thought about one of them, but had to fork out for a small car to do the school run as well this weekend, so all in all I'm about £3000 down, so it will have to wait.

Just put a 120gb ocz agility 3 SSD in. Faster boot time is very nice, load times are good but not shocking, it dose feel that bit more snappy.
But tbf its a perk item imo still, adobe CS/MS works/OS are nice on it, and for online FPS games I can see it being great.
Other then that meh I'll keep most/all of mine on a HDD.
When they get to the point where you store files on em, now that will be nice.

And ignore the Windows Score it will be sub 6 unless you put a SSD in regardless of what else you have.

Ouch