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Upgrading

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Aldeth the Foppish Idiot, Dec 19, 2011.

  1. Proteus_za

    Proteus_za

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    For the extra video memory? No. If you did want to spend that money on a graphics card upgrade, you would be better off getting a faster card with the same amount of video memory, such as a 6870.
     
  2. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    You're talking about the Radeon one? Also noticed they are running a Valentine's Day special with hard drives. Upgrade from a 1 TB hard drive to a 2 TB one for.... $0!

    With the Radeon 6870, we're at $995... so still in my price range.
     
  3. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    They would not offer you a memory option not appropriate for what they are selling. DDR3 is the architecture for the memory (double data rate type 3). Higher MHz does mean faster, but I couldn't tell you how much you would notice. Dual Channel implies the modules are a matched set (a closer match than if you bought them as individual modules) for dual channel architectures, but that's probably more of a sales pitch i.e. : You've got a MB/Processor with a dual channel architecture, so you need some dual channel memory! :)
     
  4. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Aldeth, what is your budget? I know you mentioned $1,000 earlier in the thread, but I wasn't sure if that was the budget or just a number.

    Don't forget that the base Cyberpower system doesn't include Windows, and it doesn't look like you've factored that in, so add another $104 (it's on the third page).

    The system looks good with the upgraded GPU and PSU. Personally, I would just stick with 8GB of RAM (Valentine's special - upgrade to Kingston HyperX), and maybe spend $3 to go from 2GBx4 to 4GBx2. Bear in mind that the RAM you're looking at is Corsair or major brand, so you really don't know what you're getting.

    If you're tempted to spend a bit more money, put it into a better GPU (not by increasing RAM, but moving up a level, as Proteus says).
     
  5. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    For my budget, I'm not setting an upper cut-off limit, as in "There's no way I'm spending more than $X for this." That said, I'm being realistic too, and I'm interested in getting the most bang for my buck. I don't need a state-of-the-art gaming system that would run me in excess of $1500, but at the same time I'm not going to penny pinch if I can get something considerably better for a few extra bucks.

    So when I say my budget is $1,000 - keep in mind that there is wiggle room there. If I can get something totally baller for $1100, of course I'd fork over the extra money.
     
  6. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    That's what I heard, and the local merchants will stretch it out even further than that if possible. So I'd say it's rather futile to hope for any price drops any time soon.

    I thought this wasn't very amusing though:

    So uh, prices going up 50 to 100+% is quite legit, right? :rolleyes: I know Seagate wasn't directly impacted like WD for instance but they still increased prices way beyond what the actual damage to them was.
     
  7. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Well, for $1,016, you can get your system with a Radeon 6870, 8GB RAM (Kingston, 4GBx2), the Coolermaster PSU, the 2TB HD, and Windows 7 Home. Even though you could double the RAM (although at lesser quality) for only $32, it would in no way make the system “baller”. IMO, the best upgrade would be to go to a Radeon 6950 GPU, which can give up to 20% better frame rates (depending on the game), but at an extra $123, it’s not a cheap upgrade.

    Note that there is an icon on the left that looks like a lightning bolt. By upgrading the GPU, it goes from green to a flashing red, and mousing over, it says that you need a 700W PSU instead of 600W. Simply put, this is a lie – 600W is more than enough. Hopefully they’ll actually let you order the system without going to 700W.
     
  8. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Well, it's supply and demand at play... price doesn't necessarily have much to do with production cost. And supply has been disrupted while demand has likely not changed.
     
  9. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Tom's Hardware has updated their video card buying guide.

    The 6870 is on the list. Next up is the 6950 1GB, tied with the GTX 560 Ti. After that is the 6950 2GB, which is the only version offered on Cyberpower. If you decide that your starting point is the 6870, and are considering an upgrade, the GTX 560 Ti is a cheaper alternative to the 6950 I suggested in my last post ($84 vs. $123).
     
  10. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Why is the Radeon 6850 so cheap? Is it crap?

    EDIT: And I didn't realize Windows 7 was available in 32-bit or 64-bit.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2012
  11. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Not at all. It's a good card (it's on page 3 of the Tom's list), but it's been out for awhile and there are several other cards that have come out since that are more powerful. Newer cards tend to drive the price of older cards down. Putting a 6850 in your system would be fine, but you'd get less mileage out of it than with someting more powerful before you ran into framerate issues.
     
  12. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    I'm playing around with the video cards, and looking at FPS. What am I shooting for here as a benchmark? Some of them give 80, some give 120. What should I be looking for?
     
  13. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    With any current mid-range card (like the 6850), you should be OK. As long as frame rates are >30, you're fine. However, the more you are above 30, the more future-proof the card is.

    Also note that different games (and game engines) put different stresses on cards. So in Game X, Card A might perform better than Card B, whereas it might be the other way around for Game Y.

    Edit: And don't use the FPS counter in Cyberpower. Look at actual tests from reliable test sites like Tom's or Anandtech
     
  14. Aldeth the Foppish Idiot

    Aldeth the Foppish Idiot Armed with My Mallet O' Thinking Veteran

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    Well in that case, almost any of these cards will work. I don't want to have to upgrade in a year though. I'm basically looking for something that meets the requirements of everything out there now, and something where I'd be reasonably confident that it would also meet the requirements for games a year or two from now. If I have to upgrade after that, I wouldn't mind too much.
     
  15. Splunge

    Splunge Bhaal’s financial advisor Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    The 6850 might be good enough, then. However, don't forget that frame rates will vary depending on your screen resolution, which in turn depends on what kind of monitor you have.
     
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