need lots of help with hardware

[AyeAyeRon]

im no geek by any means.. and by that i mean you throw me a name of a graphics card and my face goes blank.

Im currently running a stock Compaq and here are my specs so far.

Processor:AMD athlon X@ 4450e Dual core  (AMD Athlon Dual Core Processor 4450e (2 CPUs), ~2.3GHz)

Memory:3 Gb

Hard drive: 250 GB

Graphics:ATI Radeon HD 4550

and everything else is stock i believe. now im lookin to make a budget rig really.. upgrade it but not make it beastly ya dig ? can anyone help me with pickin some individual parts and possibly explain some details in something the common man would understand ?

 

thanks guys in advance.

 

One Love,

-PrPleKusH

[RogueKill]

You are probably limited on cpu upgrade plus going on budget----My opinion---don't know what version of windows you have, but probably 32 bit--it can only see 4 gb ram -- wierd that u have 3 gigs of ram?to stay in a budget and max out what u have, THIS IS AN ESTIMATE CAUSE i don't know details,----upgrade the power supply,I dont know what your running but more is better-within the budget- the g-card will determine min. watts.I recommend an ATI  5850-- cheap---   for an extreme performance card--you can throw it in an upgrade later and aftermarket cool it for 5870 performance(twice the price)and it is DX 11 compliant for future gaming. Don't fall for the junk 5830!!  Thats about all the $$ Iwould put in that.That hardware you can throw in a better upgrade with new mobo and 64 bit win 7 later so u haven't lost any dinero.-- just my opinion.

 

P.S. YOUR GIRL IS HOT YOU ARE A LUCKY GUY!!    MMJ in Colorado BEBE!!

[AyeAyeRon]

yeah im runnin vista 32-bit.by budget i dont mean cheap skate tho lol so must i buy a new rig to be able to upgrade better ?  thanks man i appreciate the help.. and thanks for the compliment brother

[Dark Asylumn]

here is a good board that will support a bunch of different chips possibly the one you have depending the form factor (am, am+, am3)

it would support upgrades in the future ( I am running the ddr3 version but everything else is the same and it will support a quad core in the future) and if you put this code in yits on $64 dollars then here is the coupon EMCYVNP38. its a good upgrade because the range of adjustability of hardware and also it supports alot of overclocking also very adjustable, if at any point you felt comfortable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-131-595&nm_mc=EMCPB-072310-vB&cm_mmc=EMCPB-072310vB-_-content-_-Item-_-13-131-595

[RogueKill]

Yea ,that is good, I didn't  know how far you wanted to go initially -but you are still looking at upgrading power supply and g-card--I was looking the other direction. Cause you probably won't notice the mobo upgrade although good,your dual core and 3gigs of ram , keeping it cool, will kick ass with a good g-card and power just the same-- then.... upgrade mobo,64 bit 7 , and ram as you go. I am running amd 965 quad processor,1350 watt p/s with 8 gigs  ddr3 ram and 2x ati5850's, win 7 64 bit. I built it gradually on a budget.---thank my wife for that. lol

[RogueKill]

It is like a race car------it will go as fast as you can afford!!!lol

 

[wargerble]

Video card is everything! Though having a good CPU and lots of ram help, but when it comes to gaming most of the work is done by the video card. The textures explosions, mip maps, and all that crazy visual stuff is all put on the video card to do the work.

 

Now with most games out today a 2 or 3 year old 8800 gt 512 (you can get for $50 now a days, should be all you need (forget the dual video card crap I did that and it did nothing to improve the FPS I just spent money on 2 expensive video cards)

 

But with Crysis, well truth is the way the game is programed leaves alot to be desired. Its the lighting used to make the texture glow as if you are really outside, its hard on any video card to do, they call that "pixle shading" Pixil shading is also used to make a texture appear 3d even though its just a plain old texture.

 

2 years ago when I firs got crysis I tried playing with at the time was the best vid card on the market a 9800 gx2 $400 when I bought it, it played it but at low settings. 20 to 30 fps I got frustrated with all the lock ups and errors.

 

So I wated and now I went out and got a cheap ATI card a 5770 $120 well its a mid level card from ATI, and yea it wont do full settings with crysis but I am playing it with good visials all around and the frame rates are around 75 fps not bad.

 

So i would say keep you cpu and memory and upgrade the video, the better the card the better crysis will play, besides crysis wars included in the "warhead" game is in 32 bit mode only unless you are playing from the original crysis game and I think it has a 64 bit mode I am not sure.

 

Oh yea make sure you main board has PCI express slot, you may have 2 but man dont waste your money on 2 video cards I did and it made no difference.

[Dark Asylumn]

well I was thinkg that idf that chip did work this board has core unlocker built in and it helps dual and tri core's by unlocking the unused cores. but you are right there wouldnt be much noticable difference unless one of our members crosslooped with him and overclock it for him, but still not really a visual upgrade.  yeah a power supply and a better card would suit you for now.

 

how do you like your 965.  how far have you been able to oc it.

I have the 955 black and hit 3.9 just stepping up to 18, only ran it for a few seconds as I have a bad cpu temp probe and dont know the true temp. but it passed its validation and stability test.

 

[AyeAyeRon]

Dark Asylumn

well I was thinkg that idf that chip did work this board has core unlocker built in and it helps dual and tri core's by unlocking the unused cores. but you are right there wouldnt be much noticable difference unless one of our members crosslooped with him and overclock it for him, but still not really a visual upgrade.  yeah a power supply and a better card would suit you for now.

 

how do you like your 965.  how far have you been able to oc it.

I have the 955 black and hit 3.9 just stepping up to 18, only ran it for a few seconds as I have a bad cpu temp probe and dont know the true temp. but it passed its validation and stability test.

 

that secpmd part u talkin to me ?

[dollardogg]

id buy new give that pc to ur girl and buy a new one can build a nice one for around 800 with everything

[DREAD69]

dollardogg

id buy new give that pc to ur girl and buy a new one can build a nice one for around 800 with everything

Let DREAD build it for ya!!!

[AyeAyeRon]

if you think your up to it dread... hit me up with details ! lol

[BlackOp8]

Dread could probably set you up with somethin sick

[Dark Asylumn]

PrPleKusH

Dark Asylumn

well I was thinkg that idf that chip did work this board has core unlocker built in and it helps dual and tri core's by unlocking the unused cores. but you are right there wouldnt be much noticable difference unless one of our members crosslooped with him and overclock it for him, but still not really a visual upgrade.  yeah a power supply and a better card would suit you for now.

 

how do you like your 965.  how far have you been able to oc it.

I have the 955 black and hit 3.9 just stepping up to 18, only ran it for a few seconds as I have a bad cpu temp probe and dont know the true temp. but it passed its validation and stability test.

 

that secpmd part u talkin to me ?

 

no that part was for rouge

[DREAD69]

RogueKill

Yea ,that is good, I didn't  know how far you wanted to go initially -but you are still looking at upgrading power supply and g-card--I was looking the other direction. Cause you probably won't notice the mobo upgrade although good,your dual core and 3gigs of ram , keeping it cool, will kick ass with a good g-card and power just the same-- then.... upgrade mobo,64 bit 7 , and ram as you go. I am running amd 965 quad processor,1350 watt p/s with 8 gigs  ddr3 ram and 2x ati5850's, win 7 64 bit. I built it gradually on a budget.---thank my wife for that. lol

Chipset can be the diffrence betwine 12 FPS or 60 FPS. That is part of the motherboard. Motherboard is verry important and it is nessasary to pick a good one. You can get a M3A78-EM for around $60 and I have run one with a few diffrent Phenom II x4 CPU's and It carried all at 4GHz on good cooling and 3.6 to 3.8GHz on air. The board suppors DDR2 1066 and has a single PCI-E x16 which means you can run one video card. You could run a 4870 1GB or a 5870 1GB in this theoretical build and max any game on one monitor with an extended monitor. If you went with the 5870 you would be capable of running triple screen and maxing almost any game on the market right now. Save crysis. FACT.

[DREAD69]

wargerble

Video card is everything! Though having a good CPU and lots of ram help, but when it comes to gaming most of the work is done by the video card. The textures explosions, mip maps, and all that crazy visual stuff is all put on the video card to do the work.

 

Now with most games out today a 2 or 3 year old 8800 gt 512 (you can get for $50 now a days, should be all you need (forget the dual video card crap I did that and it did nothing to improve the FPS I just spent money on 2 expensive video cards)

 

But with Crysis, well truth is the way the game is programed leaves alot to be desired. Its the lighting used to make the texture glow as if you are really outside, its hard on any video card to do, they call that "pixle shading" Pixil shading is also used to make a texture appear 3d even though its just a plain old texture.

 

2 years ago when I firs got crysis I tried playing with at the time was the best vid card on the market a 9800 gx2 $400 when I bought it, it played it but at low settings. 20 to 30 fps I got frustrated with all the lock ups and errors.

 

So I wated and now I went out and got a cheap ATI card a 5770 $120 well its a mid level card from ATI, and yea it wont do full settings with crysis but I am playing it with good visials all around and the frame rates are around 75 fps not bad.

 

So i would say keep you cpu and memory and upgrade the video, the better the card the better crysis will play, besides crysis wars included in the "warhead" game is in 32 bit mode only unless you are playing from the original crysis game and I think it has a 64 bit mode I am not sure.

 

Oh yea make sure you main board has PCI express slot, you may have 2 but man dont waste your money on 2 video cards I did and it made no difference.

You bottleneck with almost any 5000 series ATI card on any CPU stock these days. You have to feed the card. 4GHz CPU dual quad or hexi core = Happy 5000 Series GPU.

 

I built my brother dirtbag333's PC and it is a Dual core Athlon 6000+ 4 GIGs of DDR2 800MHz 780 Chipset and a 3870 512 MB. He maxes every setting in crysis at 40 to 50 FPS.

 

You do not just need parts you need to know how to use them to there potential if you don't want to keep buying newer stuff. It is all in the setup timings voltages, lots of factors that make your computer runn right or good/fast. The more you learn about your PC the faster it will run. You bios will default ram timings loose and underclock lots of ram. Every part has a setting that it wants/needs. It is up to the PC owner to care to optimise the computer or tweek it. Hell my phone runns stock 550MHz I run mine 1.2GHz. So it is no longer just a Droid it is a faster better and still stable DROID!!!

[Heffalump]

omfg Dread, nice rig on youtube, jeez!

[DREAD69]

Heffalump

omfg Dread, nice rig on youtube, jeez!

TY mane.