Computer upgrades - post your experience with cpu and video builds

[DaveP]

I'm about to upgrade a desktop that I've upgraded several times. Currently, it has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 and a Radeon HD 3800 AGP video card. My AGP motherboard is obsolete and t's time to upgrade again and move to SLI or Crossfire capable boards. I'm looking at AMD again because of cost vs Intel.

I really like the AMD FX-8350 and may go that route. The FX-6300 is another processor that will do anything I want and I can later install the FX-8350 when the $200 price on that one falls. My reasoning is that the FX-6300 can support an Nvidia GTX 650 and several steps higher without the CPU bottlenecking the video card.

I've spent considerable time looking at benchmark tests with various CPUs and Video cards and I like the frame rates and pricing of the FX-6300 CPU and the GTX-650 TI Boost video card. This is going to be an expensive upgrade because I will have to buy new RAM and probably need to move to Win7 or Win 8 and get away from Win XP SP3. even though I could probably get Microsoft to give me a new license string one more time before they stop supporting XP early next year.

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com

I'm considering this Gigabyte mother board for cost and features. Asrock boards, although solid and popular, seem to have quirks in the reviews on the low end and their lower priced boards lack some of the features of the Gigabyte in the link above. This Gigabyte board is $104.99 after a $20 rebate, along with a $5 Newegg reduction and supports USB 2.0 and 3.0, Crossfire and SLI, gigabit LAN, E-SATA, firewire, optical and analog audio, DDR3 2000.

Am I missing anything? With this board and video combo I can get high frame rates at high video settings and good playability on today's games. My alien style full sized ATX case will be gutted sans my Antec 700 watt PS and my IDE/SATA capable hard drives and the fans.

Thoughts?

 

[DaveP]

I guess we don't have a lot of people on ECF who build their own computers ...

 

[WarHawk-AVG]

Haven't built my own computer in quite a while...that video card has more power than the computer I am currently using

Spending all my money on my new hobby..heh j/k

Looks good, but by the time you get it and put it together..the new hotness will be out (thus goes computer technology..yay)

I have always been partial to ASUS but really haven't kept up...sorry wish I could help more

 

[DaveP]

Haven't built my own computer in quite a while...that video card has more power than the computer I am currently using

Spending all my money on my new hobby..heh j/k

Looks good, but by the time you get it and put it together..the new hotness will be out (thus goes computer technology..yay)

I have always been partial to ASUS but really haven't kept up...sorry wish I could help more

My 22" Envision LCD monitor has a native resolution of 1680x1050, so the higher res modes won't be so useful to me. To get the 2580x1440 modes in native res you need a 27" monitor. I'm only running one monitor, not two or three, so my video card won't be working that hard. The GTX 650 is priced in the range I want to pay and prices go down as a card gets long in the tooth.

I really think that games have caught up with the hardware to a point where people are happy with the clarity and it's not like it was 5 or 10 years ago when people were trying to build rigs to run 1024x768 in games and that required expensive hardware for high frame rates. If I can run Battlefield in 1080 mode with 60fps+, I'll be happy. That card drops to the 40 range in 1920 mode, which my monitor would have to down convert the resolution to 1680 mode, anyway.

I may jump for the FX-8350 (another $75) and my video card may change if prices adjust. There are new models out in the Radeon class that may lower [prices on the higher models of those). It's an ever changing market.