Lokking to upgrade my PC

[longam]

Originally Posted by BossMark

In the very near future I am looking to upgrade my PC into a better gaming machine any advice as to what to do
Here a the parts I am wanting to upgrade
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2048MB RAM
Display Devices NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285
Sound Devices Creative SB X-Fi Audio

Had basically the same system and the mother board went out so I upgraded at Newegg with the following. Still using a directx 10 vedio card that I need to upgrade, and using windows 7 64bit.

Item 13-131-604 MB ASUS|P7P55 LX P55 1156 RT 1 $104.99

Item 19-115-220 CPU INTEL|CORE I5 650 3.2G 4M R 1 $174.99

Item 20-145-324 MEM 4Gx2|CORSAIR CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 R 1 $49.99

It runs every game with no problem.

[CCIP]

And why on earth would you ever want an 1000-1500W PSU on a budget, normal-format PC?

You should play around with the wattage calculator and check your PSU specs to see if you need an upgrade at all. I recently 'downgraded' mine to a slightly older, lower-wattage CPU (because my 'new' one blew), and have only seen improvements as a result (my system tops out at an actual requirement of 380W, on a 420W PSU). http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

I'd also suggest that you actually give a video card upgrade another thought. IMO these days it's smarter to build gaming-oriented rigs around video cards rather than CPU/Motherboard like it used to be (i.e. that's the first thing you should decide on, and the part that you should consider matching the rest of your system to, since it can determine everything from motherboard type to required PSU power and cooling requirements). Depends on what you play of course, but more and more games are far more demanding on video cards these days than they are on CPU/RAM. If you ask me - a very fast, high-power processor is not a good investment if gaming is your main interest. Better to go with something affordable and solid - that i5 longam suggested may well serve your needs. And unless you're going to use your system for things like video production, 3D animation, and other things of that sort - 16+ GB of RAM is a waste; games or any other standard PC operation right now will never use more than a fraction of that. That will change over time, but right now... not worth it.

[longam]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I'd also suggest that you actually give a video card upgrade another thought. IMO these days it's smarter to build gaming-oriented rigs around video cards rather than CPU/Motherboard like it used to be (i.e. that's the first thing you should decide on, and the part that you should consider matching the rest of your system to, since it can determine everything from motherboard type to required PSU power and cooling requirements). .

Other than power requirements and slot type, what possible requirements would you be talking about for a video card? Always trying to learn and keep up.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by longam

Other than power requirements and slot type, what possible requirements would you be talking about for a video card?

Maybe not 'requirements' per se, but it's wise to keep in mind things like cooling, case and motherboard size, and generally keeping the rest of your system on par with the video card. It's not smart to build PCs with obvious bottlenecks and potential cooling problems - sure they work, but they'll neither give you your money's worth in terms of performance, and might create a lot of headaches down the road.

[longam]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Maybe not 'requirements' per se, but it's wise to keep in mind things like cooling, case and motherboard size, and generally keeping the rest of your system on par with the video card. It's not smart to build PCs with obvious bottlenecks and potential cooling problems - sure they work, but they'll neither give you your money's worth in terms of performance, and might create a lot of headaches down the road.

Ah ok, my case is a high performance case so i knew I would have no problem down the road with cooling and power.

[CCIP]

Yup! Really depends on your budget. If you can afford all the high-performance parts, go for it. But I also believe that you can build yourself a really excellent system on a tight budget, as long as you keep your goals in mind. IMO a good, affordable gaming system can do perfectly well without that 24GB RAM or 1500W PSU, and money you save that way can go to getting a video card that will make your system that much better

[BossMark]

Just need a bit of advice on which would be the best PSU to run my Asus GTX 580 video card, my old PSU one is 3 and a half years old and as not got enough connectors to run the fans