Upgrade Advice? AMD X2 4400+ / Asus M2N-SLI / 8800GT to Core i7 / GTX 560 Ti

Hi all, I build my last system 4 years ago and it has served me well for a lot of time but now it has become the "minimum requirements" of the latest games!

My Current setup is:

AMD X2 4400+
Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe
Nvidia 8800GT
2GB RAM (2 sticks)
HDD x 3 (1TB + 2x160GB RAID0)
Corsair TX650W PSU (see here)
Microsoft X6 / X8 Keyboard & Mouse
Cooler Master Storm Scout Cabinet Modded with Fans/Leds/Cathodes (see pics, blogpost)
Antec Lansing Expressionist Ultra Speakers
Logitech RumblePad 2 + Joystick
LG 23" LCD Monitor-TV + Samsung 19" LCD
Numeric UPS

Purpose of my Rig: (I am a practical person)

Watching HD Movies, Music
Overclocking in the future (is i7 overclockable?)
Playing Latest FPS/RPG/Racing/Adventure games at High and Extreme settings
Some Photo/Video editing with lots of Media Storage
Low power consumption when High performance not needed. e.g. watching movies
Multiple connectivity like dual Monitors, Multiple USB, eSata, Wifi/LAN etc
Be able to do all that for years to come

I have been upgrading non core components slowey and Only the core components are outdated. Now I want to upgrade them. I want high performance and longevity but also in a economical package. I have learned that there is no point to get hardware like a high end motherboard supporting SLI if I am not buying 2 Gfx cards with it. As I bought the Asus M2N SLI Deluxe thinking that I will later get another 8800GT but that never happened as it was not available after a couple of years or so.

So I want to upgrade such that I get the most bang for the buck and still be able to comfortably play all games on high res high settings but not have a ton of features that I will never use like SLI. So, From what I can tell based on my research: (I am a bit rusty on the latest and the greatest hardware)

Upgrade Option 1: Upgrade GFX + CPU + RAM + MOBO
This is a simple one. Just need to choose the right components:

Core i7 2600K (seems fast and not overly expensive)
4GB DDR3 RAM (which brand is speedy and economical?)
Asus Mobo (P8P67 PRO, P8Z68-V, ... something without SLI.??)
MSI GTX 560 Ti (one of the Overclocked one)

I like the feature in Asus Mobos where we can switch between Hi Performance and Low Power footprint and the Switching between intel 3000 onboard GFX and the main PCIx GFX etc as well as the SATA 3.0, BT Go and the snazzy BIOS etc. But there are so many chipsets that I am lost on how to choose the right mobo for me. I want a mobo with useful features and longevity so one of the latest chipsets wold be ideal. I just know too little about the Core i7 world like the chipsets and various cores etc..

I dont need SLI/Crossfire and I have had good experience with Nvidia and Asus so I prefer these brands for the GFX and Mobo but please let me know if another brand offers nice options.

The big disadvantage for this option is it is very very costly and all expenses are bulked together!

Upgrade Option 2: Upgrade the GFX + CPU(AMD) + RAM but not the Mobo
I have been lucky that my Mobo has active support and community so it is able to support CPUs well beyond its original estimate. It is possible for me to upgrade to a Phenom II X4 CPU (max 3.4Ghz 4 cores) but I am not sure how viable it is as the bios update for the motherboard is beta and will always be IMO. A lot of people see success and bugs both with that upgrade.

I addition I can upgrade to 4GB and get one the faster GFX cards like GTX 560 Ti. I know there will be bottle necks (like the GFX-CPU link running slow as the mobo is limited and outdated RAM etc) but I dont know if it is a big enough bottleneck. so I need advice if this option is worth exploring.. It is also very economical to me.

Upgrade Option 3: Upgrade the GFX (MSI GTX 560 Ti) Only (is it even possible?)
This is the most economical but gives me the option to be able to wait a few more months before upgrading to a Core i7 and related components. I know the CPU and everything else will be a major bottleneck.. but if I am able to play Crysis 2 with a OCed CPU (I have good experience) then I can live with that. But I dont even know if There might be any compatibility issues with using such a new GFX with old hardware...

Please help !!

Thanks you.

D

ur first option is good.u dint say ur budget?

I have an open budget but I prefer to spend the least amount.. i.e I am looking for max value for money components.

Well, you are in luck. With the BIOS Update 5001 , your motherboard will support all the AM3 processors. I go the info from a Tom's Hardware Link. The guy is using a Phenom II X4 940 with it.

So, currently upgrading the Processor, Ram and Graphics card, i.e. option 2 will do the trick.

But you did not mention any budget. However, here is my suggestion for you:-

1. Phenom II X4 955 B3 Revision with 95W TDP @ 6.2K OR Phenom II X6 1090T @ 9.5K (your mobo support 125W CPU)
2. Kingston 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 Ram @ 1.4K
3. Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB @ 14.5K @ MSI Twin Frozer II/OC GTX 560 @ 14K

Your CPU+GFX card link will properly, only the Hyper Transport Bus Speed will be reduced to HT 1.0. But that doesn't introduce any noticeable lag. Since you already have 2X1 GB memory, adding another 2 GB in the third slot will also work on Dual channel mode. Your other components are ok.

D

Processor
Intel Core i7 2600k
16500
Motherboard
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO
13500
RAM
G.Skill Ripjaws X
F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL
2600
Graphic Card
MSI HD6950 2GB Twin Frozr II/oc
x2 CrossfireX
30000

TOTAL-62600!
If u have enough money to spend!!

Cilus said:
Well, you are in luck. With the BIOS Update 5001 , your motherboard will support all the AM3 processors. I go the info from a Tom's Hardware Link. The guy is using a Phenom II X4 940 with it.

So, currently upgrading the Processor, Ram and Graphics card, i.e. option 2 will do the trick.

But you did not mention any budget. However, here is my suggestion for you:-

1. Phenom II X4 955 B3 Revision with 95W TDP @ 6.2K OR Phenom II X6 1090T @ 9.5K (your processor support 125W CPU)
2. Kingston 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 Ram @ 1.4K
3. Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB @ 14.5K @ MSI Twin Frozer II/OC GTX 560 @ 14K

Your CPU+GFX card link will properly, only the Hyper Transport Bus Speed will be reduced to HT 1.0. But that doesn't introduce any noticeable lag. Since you already have 2X1 GB memory, adding another 2 GB in the third slot will also work on Dual channel mode. Your other components are ok.

Thanks that answers a lot of questions. I am tending towards a Phenom II X4 955 and increasing the Ram to 4GB with 2x1gb sticks

The MSI 6950 Twin Fozer III looks really great specially due to the unlockability and OC room! Thanks for introducing me to the 6950.

I was thinking I could just buy the GFX card and test our Crysis 2 demo on it and see how the current specs fare. Then I can either OC the existing CPU and buy completely new DD2 800 RAM that can be overclocked well.. what do you think?

Demon Lord said:
Processor
Intel Core i7 2600k
16500
Motherboard
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO
13500
RAM
G.Skill Ripjaws X
F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL
2600
Graphic Card
MSI HD6950 2GB Twin Frozr II/oc
x2 CrossfireX
30000

TOTAL-62600!
If u have enough money to spend!!

Looks good but with a single GFX and that to Froze III non OC.. Any ideas about a cheaper mobo but still with nice features.. maybe non SLI/Crossfire..?

Also what is with the multiple chipsets for socket for i7 2600K!! I cant understand what is the different or how it matters!

I will definitely go the i7 way if I cant reuse my existing mobo

I'd suggest waiting for a couple of months as AMD Llano and Bulldozer processors will be launching sometime during this month and should be expected in India by July/August.

These are the rates I am getting in my Town (Dehradun)

MSI HD6950 2GB Twin Frozr III/OC : Rs 17000/- (non OC not avail here. Does Anyone know the approx price for it? what about unlocking the OC model..?)

Option 1
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO : Rs 14000/-
Core i7 2600k : Rs 16900/-
DDR3 RAM: (Strontium?? 2GB stick) Rs 1000/-

Option 2
Existing Asus M2N SLI Deluxe with new BIOS
AMD Phenom II X4 955BE: Rs 5900 /-
DDR2 RAM : (Generic 1Gb stick) Rs 750 /- and (Kingston 2GB stick) Rs 1400 /-

Looks like I will have to bargain a bit for better price and look for RAM online. Any idea where which brands are good Performance/Value for both DDR2 and DDR3. Keeping in mind Overclocking..

Cybertonic said:
I'd suggest waiting for a couple of months as AMD Llano and Bulldozer processors will be launching sometime during this month and should be expected in India by July/August.

I dont think they will work on my 4 year old mobo :razz:

and if I have to get a new mobo that the fastest Core i7 I can afford will decide it..

Go with the option 2. When AMD Bulldozer will be launched, you can easily sell the CPU+Mobo+Ram and get the new ones. And one thing, get the Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB instead of the OC version. In 95% cases you can unlock it to HD 6970 and will get far higher performance without any OC.

^^ he will hardly get any money from current gen CPU+Mobo as soon as Llano is launched.

@Cybertonic but I am not worried about resale as my previous components are already very old and it is very hard to find AMD buyers.. specially for non generic hardware as local people are not that tech savvy. So if I go with the Option 2 then I will be adding life to my PC and I wont need to resell

Anyway, I am trying to find out other companies like XFX, ASUS, Gainward .. Any ideas?

XFX HD6950 2GB is Rs 17000/-
Asus HD6950 2GB is Rs 18800/-
Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB Not available (Any Online source?)
Totally mind boggling prices :-?

Cilus said:
Go with the option 2. When AMD Bulldozer will be launched, you can easily sell the CPU+Mobo+Ram and get the new ones. And one thing, get the Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB instead of the OC version. In 95% cases you can unlock it to HD 6970 and will get far higher performance without any OC.

I am interested in the MSI model because of its excellent OC potential in addition to unlocking.. and I see online that these cards can also be unlocked to it merits further investigation to confirm..

Rollercoaster, Here is the lynx-india link for Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB. It is available @ 14.4K +5% vat = 15.12K +Shipping.

And regarding MSi HD 6950 cards, the Twin Frozer II cards cannot be unlocked and Twin frozer III can be, but the 17K price point is not justified.

The reason of the superb custom cooler is to overclock the card while keeping it cool to get some extra performance. Now an unlocked normal HD 6950 will have the stream processor count of a HD 6970 and will offer very close performance of HD 6970, better than any Oced HD 6950.

The unlocked cards can be considered as under-clocked HD 6970, better than a overclocked HD 6950.

The thing is I am hoping that I will get two step advantage. first by just unlocking, just like the sapphire one and second with further OC after the unlocked shaders and clocks. The bigger heatsink would definitely allow better OC then I can do with sapphire.. Does this sounds worth it?

I am choosing the MSI 6950 2GB Twin frozr III because even if I fail to unlock it then I can still get a good boost by simply OCing it. I.e if I can get a better price.. otherwise I will have to get one online.. but support would be a big issue as not all companies have support herer

I suppose I can get better value from the 8800GT if I can sell it somewhere as it is still good enough for a casual gamer.. This might be a silly question but what happens if I plug in both my 8800 and a new 6950? Would things blow up or nothing will happen..I am curious?

^u may use 8800gt as a physx card along with 6950.

how much performance improvement would that give me? I mean is it worth it or just selling it is better..?

As you know PhysX is a proprietary Physics Engine from nVidia and right now only a handful of games (MAfia II, Batman Arkham Asylum , Metro 2033, Homefront) support it.
However, AMD cards can't process the PhysX code and while playing those games with AMD cards won't show you any difference. You can use the existing 8800 GT as a PhysX card and can execute those PhysX code in 8800 GT to view the difference.
One point: Currently with nVidia official driver, you can't use any nVidia card with any AMD cards. SO you need to mod the nVidia offical driver. It is a very easy and straight forward process and even sites like guru3D, Toms Hardware actually tested this setup.
Now if you use AMD cards, there won't be any performance improvement in terms of FPS as AMD cards won't process the PhysX code.

But if you use an nVida card as main card, like 560 Ti, then if you enable PhysX the FPS will drop as the same card is processing both PhysX and Gaming calculation. Here adding a dedicated PhysX card will improve the performance a lot in PhysX enabled titles as the PhysX calculation is getting processed by your h8800GT and gaming calculation in 560 Ti.

Now AMD card + PhysX card delivers more performance than nVidia main card + PhysX card..

I would say, get reference AMD HD 6950 2GB or nVidia GTX 560Ti Factory-overclocked. Sell off 8800GT. Not worth keeping it even for PhysX to only play 4-5 games with extra cosmetic effects which add nothing to the gameplay.

R

i suggest u to buy corsair ram if u are oc.

I think I will use the 8800GT as physx until I can find a buyer for it

I really like the MSI frozr III even thought it is slightly costly as in my town the reference cards from XFX is similarly priced so I wont get that. Sapphire and AMD make are also hard to find

I am also thinking of getting a new AMD CPU + performande DDR2 RAM, if I can find it. This will be cheap. Then I can update to the best platform after a few months (hopefully an year.. )

B

Hey, I recently bought MSI nVidia GTX 560Ti and very much impressed with its performance, specially playing under 3D. The card comes with 1G memory and has a couple of cooling fans that runs the card cooler. Surprisingly the card fans run very quite and the build quality is top notch. However many people recommend AMD 6950 so I believe it is also a very good card.

Anyway, it cost me 15,800 here in Hyderabad. It also available on lynx india as well. So decide the best one. All the best.

^^ What 3D monitor you are having?

@ Rollercoaster

I would suggest sticking with option 1 i.e to get a new board + cpu + ram +gpu

Get the i7 2600k along asus p8p67-m @ 7.9k ( cheapest p67 board). For rams, get a single 4gb stick now. Corsair vengeance 4gb is available @ 2.5k.

For Gpu, get 6950 2gb or gtx 560-ti. Since you won't sli or cf , i recommend the msi gtx 560-ti Hawk @ 14.5k. Its a factory overclocked model and offers good performance.

The current h61,h67,p67 & z68 boards also support intel's future ivybridge processors. So its not like amd is only giving you future proof options. I don't recommend buying current phenom 2 based processors at your budget. If you can afford the i7 2600k, then go for it eyes closed. Its blazing fast and has the potential to sucessfully compete with the upcoming amd bulldozer cpu's.

B

Cilus said:
^^ What 3D monitor you are having?

Dell Alienware. This is very good except you can't play over 2 hours continuously. Otherwise be ready with Navaratna oil

.

vickybat said:
@ Rollercoaster

I would suggest sticking with option 1 i.e to get a new board + cpu + ram +gpu

Get the i7 2600k along asus p8p67-m @ 7.9k ( cheapest p67 board). For rams, get a single 4gb stick now. Corsair vengeance 4gb is available @ 2.5k.

For Gpu, get 6950 2gb or gtx 560-ti. Since you won't sli or cf , i recommend the msi gtx 560-ti Hawk @ 14.5k. Its a factory overclocked model and offers good performance.

The current h61,h67,p67 & z68 boards also support intel's future ivybridge processors. So its not like amd is only giving you future proof options. I don't recommend buying current phenom 2 based processors at your budget. If you can afford the i7 2600k, then go for it eyes closed. Its blazing fast and has the potential to sucessfully compete with the upcoming amd bulldozer cpu's.

I too agree with you. I used to have AMD processors before ( I was fan of AMD in fact). But recently after migrated to i7 2600k, I came to know the real speed of this little processor and I couldn't imagine how cool this processor runs. AMD XP processor was used to overheat causing my system shutdown (I do not have AC.. LOL)

Btw.. mine is Asus P67 Sabertoth MB which is little bit costlier but worth the money (around 15k). I don't recomment MSI motherboard which I used to have on my older PCs which are not quite good.

Athlon XP is a historical processor now and don't mislead people by putting invalid examples. All the current generation processors from AMD, starting from the 2004 Athlon 64 bit, don't having any heating issue.
Ya, 2600K or any Sandy Bridge processors run cooler than AMD processors due to their new 32 nm fabrication process (AMD is 45nm) but they run cooler than any previous generation intel processors also, like Core i7 950 or i5 760.

Now why I'm suggesting just a processor upgrade is currently Sandy Bridge processors are highly priced since they have no competitors in the market. Within couple of months the scenario will be completely different as Bulldozer will be launched and user will have far more options than today.

The other main component, the Graphics card can be used with the new rig also.

I have been reading up on the 'slow CPU fast GPU' situation on the net as well as the Phenom II X4. It appears that a modern GPU will independently function well enough (not 100%) even if the CPU and the chipset architecture is slow so long as the CPU is not below the minimum req of the application/game.

So, to me getting a Phenom II X4 955BE and another 2GB RAM sounds more then enough.. It will cost me less then 8K and with a new gfx card I believe the system will be able to play even Crysis 2 handsomely. Perhaps not @ Extreme settings as that seems to require a X6 core (can someone confirm?).

The reason for this is, by just spending 8K I will be give new life to my system. It is cheap, it is easy and it provides me with more time to wait and get the next top class CPU/Mobo. So why should I spend a lot more on a new platform like the i7 at the moment.

Sure the PCIe will run on 1.0x (the gfx card would have to fall back and yes they are backward compatible) and the HTT will be limited and the RAM will be a bottleneck (DDR2) but I should be able to get atleast 80% performance in comparison to a DDR3/PCIe 2.0/Z68-P67Mobo. A Phenom II 4 Core 3Ghx+ CPU should easily satisfy any games in the mean time.

Even so I will only get the GFX card first and benchmark to see how big a bottleneck the existing X2 4400+ is. I dont expect it to be a bottleneck enough to have a detrimental effect except for extreme games like crysis 2. And dont forget the extreme OC potential of AMD cpus. I can push the limits as well, since I am not worried about burning out the CPU as it doesnt have much of a resale value. If that happens I will get the Phenom II X4. It will be unimaginably cool to burn out a CPU though

I have been able to OC from 2.3 Ghz to about 2.9 Ghz (in the vicinity of a X2 6000+) earlier without much temps (I have an airy cabinet

)

Sorry for all the crazy analysis but I want to squeeze the last drops of clock cycles from my PC. I love it.

Crysis 2 is far less demanding than previous Crysis or Crysis warhead. Phenom II 955 + HD 6950 will give you more than 50 FPS even in extreme setting. You don't need X6 for that. For little better performance overclock your 955 to 3.4 Ghz and you will see some performance improvement instantly.

ico said:
I would say, get reference AMD HD 6950 2GB or nVidia GTX 560Ti Factory-overclocked. Sell off 8800GT. Not worth keeping it even for PhysX to only play 4-5 games with extra cosmetic effects which add nothing to the gameplay.

Why sell the 8800GT? He will get peanuts selling that card now considering how old it is. Better to use it for PhysX.

does anyone know for sure that the MSI 6950 2GB Twin frozr III has a bios recovery switch like the one is a reference 6950 board? Apparently Frozr II didnt have one..

Also, I am very excited to use the 8800GT as a physx card.. atleast till I can get a decent price for it.. but would the card use full power or just nominal power for the physx load..? If it will take full power that I might be pushing my 650w PSU

^yes it has dual bios switch.
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