Considering PC Upgrades

[DarkChiron]

I'm considering some upgrades to my PC, but I thought I'd run them by the tech gurus around here and get some opinions. I build my own PCs, but the highly technical stuff I can sometimes misjudge. The main problem I have is my monitor only goes to 1366x768, which is lower than the 1920x1080 I'd like to be running at. However, beyond the money I have for the parts listed below, I don't really have alot more to work with. Basically I just need some more opinions on if I can tone down any parts and still display the game in a high res with good graphics settings so I can pick up a monitor as well.

Anyway, the parts I'm looking at:

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231313) (I run Win XP still so 4GB is all I need atm)
AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103996)
GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128521)
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908)

I know we don't know anything for sure, but some insight is appreciated.

[Goku]

Answer these please

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=37183

[Rbstr]

If we go by the CPU chart you're better off, by a fairly large margin, with a Sandy Bridge i3 than that FX.

Only $10 more http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115078
A matching mobo won't run you more than what you've got either.

[DarkChiron]

1. What is your budget and does that include shipping/taxes?

$400-$500

2. Where do you live (Please list if possible town, state, and country)?

USA (beyond that doesn't matter in terms of cost)

3. What do you need this computer to do (like gaming, Photoshop, and so on)?

Play Planetside 2 at least at 1368x768 (hopefully 1920x1080 if new monitor budget can be found)

4. What parts will you need for the computer? Please list what parts specifically.

CPU
Motherboard
GPU
RAM

5. Are you reusing any parts for this computer? If so please say what parts.

PSU
Hard drives
Case

6. What kind of monitor/resolution do you have or want to get to use for the computer?

1920x1080 is desirable.

7. Do you have a legit OS? If so what OS and is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

Windows XP (don't tell me to upgrade to Win7, I know, I know)

8. What are you looking for the motherboard to have feature wise? Like SLI, Crossfire, Firewire, USB 3.0, Sata 6.0 Gb/s, and so on.

Sata 6.0 Gb/s, at least capability for 1600 DD3. Beyond that I don't know or care really.

9. Any plans to overclock the CPU or GPU?

No.

10. What time kind of time frame are you planning on ordering these parts?

Over the course of the next 3-4 months.

[Goku]

I'm asking town and state due to Microcenter deals and avoiding sales tax.

What PSU do you have? Need the specific model.

For actual parts I would try and go for a i3 2100, H6X motherboard, and a AMD 7850 right now. However with 3-4 months ordering out that really is too far ahead to be planning this. Pricing on GPUs is likely to change by then and the CPU area will be changed a bit.

[DarkChiron]

Ah, well ok...

I'm asking town and state due to Microcenter deals and avoiding sales tax.

Owensboro, KY

What PSU do you have? Need the specific model.

My PSU is a rocketfish RF-500WPS2


For actual parts I would try and go for a i3 2100, H6X motherboard, and a AMD 7850 right now. However with 3-4 months ordering out that really is too far ahead to be planning this. Pricing on GPUs is likely to change by then and the CPU area will be changed a bit.

I'll look into those parts. Thanks for the help. I know prices change, I'm just trying to get an idea of if I'm going overkill with the GPU and the CPU won't keep up, or if there are cheaper alternatives to my considered parts to get a similar performance.

I'm looking into various sites that benchmark and trying to see what I can get together as well. I just know some of you around here are much more knowledgeable.

[Goku]

Nope no MC for you then.

That PSU is going to have to be replaced. Low quality unit = bad and take all your parts if it blows potentially. Add that to the list of parts.

A Core i3 2100 is actually a strong CPU. If a game doesn't scale past 2 cores you are unlikely to notice much of any difference verse a quad core SB or IB. I'm not saying pair it with a $500 GPU, but a 7850 isn't any issue.

I have a sticky with hardware reviews to the sites that I like and are trusted throughout the tech community too. I really like HardOCP as they show the highest playable settings of each card in their review.

[DarkChiron]

Thanks anyway.

EDIT: I really mean it. Sorry if the original post didn't sound that way.

[Ailos]

I know you don't want to upgrade from WinXP, but for the sake of having extra RAM, I must still voice my recommendation for you to do so. 4 GB of RAM is enough for web browsing and older games, but playing PS2 at your desired 1920x1080 will mean that GPU (whichever you end up having) will be shifting through lots of textures very quickly, and a good way to ensure that it can do that is to give it plenty of headroom as far as fast memory goes. That means more than 4 GB of RAM. I also invite you tread through this article. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778.html) RAM is quite cheap right now, and upgrading from 4 GB to 8 GB is going to give you a noticeably better experience.

If you don't want to pay much of an OS upgrade, here's a recommendation: sign up for and give a go to Windows 8. Back when Windows 7 was hitting store shelves, I was able to buy a full copy of Windows 7 for $30 because I was one of the public testers from Beta 1 all the way to RC2. I've received communication from MS that they will be doing a similar promotion this time around as well.

EDIT:
Thanks anyway.

I asked for parts potentially cheaper and all the suggested parts cost considerably more than what I was looking at. Oh well. I will have to settle for subpar performance, I suppose.

We're giving higher targets to aim for because of your 3-4 month ordering time frame. What's expensive now, won't necessarily be expensive then.

[Rbstr]

You said a budget of $400-500, don't blame us for using it.
Seriously, you're looking at 10 more bucks for the i3 compared to the FX. It's a much better gaming CPU choice than the FX-4.1k

Go for your card choice or the nVidia GTX 460 if you don't have the budget. Just don't expect to run at 1080p with the detail cranked up. Chances are in your time frame there will be some significant price reductions.

You'd want to have a different power supply no matter which you picked. That'll run about $70.

[DarkChiron]

If you don't want to pay much of an OS upgrade, here's a recommendation: sign up for and give a go to Windows 8. Back when Windows 7 was hitting store shelves, I was able to buy a full copy of Windows 7 for $30 because I was one of the public testers from Beta 1 all the way to RC2. I've received communication from MS that they will be doing a similar promotion this time around as well.

I know about the benefits of having more RAM, and I know it's cheap as dirt at the moment. It's just that a legal upgrade to Windows 7 is over $100 and that really sucks.

Thanks much for your suggestion. I'll look into that program for Windows 8.

We're giving higher targets to aim for because of your 3-4 month ordering time frame. What's expensive now, won't necessarily be expensive then.
You said a budget of $400-500, don't blame us for using it.

Sorry if my thank you sounded disingenuous. I know you guys are trying to help me out within the context of what kind of settings I was wanting to run at. I am actually only disappointed in my inability to fund quite as much as I'd like to in terms of upgrades. I wrote $400-$500 budget, but if I need a new PSU and then the parts suggested cost about $100 more than the $377 I was already spending, it all starts to be outside my budget (and destroys any chance at a new monitor any time soon). Hopefully you're right and by the time I get around to the graphics card the ones you guys are showing will have dropped a bit.

[Mutant]

Its worth noting that PS2 could well be a DX10+ game so to run on XP you would need to use an DX10 emulator.
I have not tried it but i hear it can have issues.


I have a box with windows 8 on atm, its fairly usable but has some issues, (sleep mode kills my network card requiring a restart and eyefinity mode causes crashes and resets display settings)
I absolutely would not put windows 8 on anything remotely critical, but a home casual gaming machine could get away with it now.

You could dual boot XP and win8 for best of both.

[DarkChiron]

You could dual boot XP and win8 for best of both.

I may give this a shot, at least until the official release of Windows 8 is out (and if it's not one of their horrible OSes). I have two harddrives and the space on my non-XP one to do it so we'll see how it goes.

EDIT: The i3 2100 you guys suggested actually got a price cut on NewEgg, apparently, so it's the same cost as the processor I was looking at, and one of its mobo combos on the site actually meets my requirements and will end up saving me a few bucks. So thanks much for pointing me in that direction.

[Ailos]

I have a box with windows 8 on atm, its fairly usable but has some issues, (sleep mode kills my network card requiring a restart and eyefinity mode causes crashes and resets display settings)
I absolutely would not put windows 8 on anything remotely critical, but a home casual gaming machine could get away with it now.


Are you still running the Consumer Preview (Beta 1, build 8200) from February? That build did hate A TON of issues with it. However, the more recently released "Release Preview" (RC1, build 8400) is MUCH more stable. Also, much less resource hungry. When I updated it to this most recent one, noticed an instant performance bump.

[Mutant]

Are you still running the Consumer Preview (Beta 1, build 8200) from February? That build did hate A TON of issues with it. However, the more recently released "Release Preview" (RC1, build 8400) is MUCH more stable. Also, much less resource hungry. When I updated it to this most recent one, noticed an instant performance bump.

I am running 8400, which is mostly stable unless I use eyefinity, some games like Civ V crash within mins but are stable for hours without eyefinity.
Also when i reboot the eyefinity settings get removed. I am not the only one who has these problems http://www.overclock.net/t/1120720/windows-8-preview-eyefinity-issues.

My network card issue i think is a driver issue i have it odd and intermittent. seems like the sleep signal is being interpreted as a full power down single.

[Ailos]

I am running 8400, which is mostly stable unless I use eyefinity, some games like Civ V crash within mins but are stable for hours without eyefinity.
Also when i reboot the eyefinity settings get removed. I am not the only one who has these problems http://www.overclock.net/t/1120720/windows-8-preview-eyefinity-issues.

My network card issue i think is a driver issue i have it odd and intermittent. seems like the sleep signal is being interpreted as a full power down single.

Sounds more like driver issues then (especially the Eyefinity thing, will probably be fixed in one of the upcoming Catalyst releases).

[DarkChiron]

Thanks for the help everyone gave in here. I've been an AMD/NVidia guy for a long, long time, and it was good to hear about the other companies since they seem to be more useful for the cost right now.

Well, here's the latest on my plans and the last I'll have to deal with it for awhile. I was going to buy a part or two a month for a few months until I had my full set finished for the upgrade, but with your advice I've decided instead to just save up all the money for a few months and get it all at once. If prices are slotted to drop a bit soon then this will probably be the best bet (my old worry being that I'd miss out on a few of the deals they had going right now, which in the end don't amount to much savings really).