Upgrade parts time for me what should I buy first Video card? Memory? etc

[MadMax2911]

Hi Guys I just need some input on what parts I should buy first ( Video Card, Memory, monitor, or other stuff ie hard drive and maybe even windows 7? )

If I could put the need on certain parts they would be in this order:
1 Video Card (for the UD3LR) I have my eye one one in particular found here at amazon
Amazon.com: MSI Computer Corp. ATI Radeon HD7770 1020 MHz 1GB DDR5 PCI-Express 3.0 x16 Graphics Cards R7770-2PMD1GD5/OC: Computers & Accessories

2 DDR 2 RAM for one P45 Machine preferrably 4 Gigs or higher. (I have another set of Mushkin ram, but muskin does not sell performance DDR2 anymore).

3 Monitor: I have heard a lot about asus monitors recently but they are operating at 60 Hz, will this not reduce the frames per second displayed if I am outputting up to 80 FPS??? Maybe I will look at saving for a 120Hz monitor,that will be a better performer and give a smoother display of video and games. Most of my monitors are Cathode Ray Tube type monitors so I am a bit behind the times. I have one Compaq LCD monitor but it stopped working, two years after purchase (very convenient Compaq :) ) Also I do have a 50 inch big screen that I plan on using for movies. Its a panasonic Projection TV model number xxxxxx It has the required outputs and I also have the cables as well (needs a backlight bulb).

4 SSD upgrade from mechanical hard drives that I have on hand. This will require some research and price shopping. Or I could just try to RAID the two seagates (SATA2) that I have, but they have been reported to have problems with firmware and later turing into bricks. Maybe I could settle for a good backup system and leave it at that. :)

5 Upgrading my operating systems to windows 7 at long last. Maybe this will be before going SSD due to evaluating the difference between certain parts...ie if I can test with win 7 on a regular drive with benchmarks and then compare the difference after I upgrade to a SSD.

Another thought is I wish to forsee any potential problems during the upgrade cycle. For example, if I upgrade to a faster mobo will the parts work well in the faster mobo without needing to be replaced. As Professor Jim stated in another thread buying a faster part now will mean that it will work in the newer system, that I buy in the future.



Thread is not finished yet, I have to go to work now....

[profJim]

How about upgrading to win7 with an ssd?
I bought the win7 Family Pack (with 3 licenses) for about $130 and did a clean install when I upgraded both of my older systems.
The win7 learning curve was a bit steep when I left the win2k world.
A 60GB ssd is a bit small as the space will eventually fill up about 2/3 of the drive or more. Go with a 128GB model.
If you buy a sata3 model synchronous Nand, you'll be able to move it to a newer system when the time comes and use it's full speeds.
You'll be limited to sata2 speeds with your current systems, but it was a major performance boost for each of my dual core systems.

Last year, I upgraded my P35 system to 8GB of ddr2 1066 memory and it cost about $84 with an MIR and Newegg promo discount.
4GB is fine for most win7 systems unless you have software applications that can use the additional memory. I couldn't buy additional matching Mushkin memory for my P35, so I installed two 2x2GB Kingston HyperX kits. The Mushkin's run fine in my SLI system. A quick check shows that one 2x2GB kit on Amazon is $70.

You can buy a decent lower end video card for $125 - $150 that will be good for gaming with moderate quality settings.
My N460GTX SLI setup does nicely in my N650SLI-DS4 system and you'd need to spend about $200 - $250 or more for a nice mid-range video card. My ancient 7600GT video card is fine for watching videos and everyday non-gaming uses.

My 24" Asus monitor is shared by both of my systems and has been excellent. They've got their act together with there no dead pixel 3 year warranty and I'm pretty sure that they pay shipping charges both ways if the monitor needs to be RMA'd.

I think that your best bet is to save up for a newer Ivy Bridge system and to use one of your older systems as a home file server.
Upgrading your monitor or installing an ssd as your boot drive will give you the most bang for your bucks.
DDR2 memory is way too expensive, unless you can find a good price on a high quality used kit.

Check out the New SSD: OCZ link in my signature for information about my win7/ssd adventure.
my 2 cents....

[MadMax2911]

How about upgrading to win7 with an ssd?
I bought the win7 Family Pack (with 3 licenses) for about $130 and did a clean install when I upgraded both of my older systems.
The win7 learning curve was a bit steep when I left the win2k world.
A 60GB ssd is a bit small as the space will eventually fill up about 2/3 of the drive or more. Go with a 128GB model.
If you buy a sata3 model synchronous Nand, you'll be able to move it to a newer system when the time comes and use it's full speeds.
You'll be limited to sata2 speeds with your current systems, but it was a major performance boost for each of my dual core systems.
...

Hi Prof Jim, I am sure that is a good way to go regarding the OS and SSD upgrade, although its not what I was planning on just yet, but who knows what deals there are out there. If the price is right, I could probably squeeze it in to my budget, but we will have to shop around.

Regarding the Videocard, I have come to a point where I cannot continue with this 6600GT from EVGA. It may serve me better as a paperweight IMO then being used in this system(well it does turn on and work for 90 percent of the time. It may well be the cause of my recent freezes and other problems. The only other Video card I have to use is an even older PNY 5200 Verto Geforce PCI did I say PCI?? The BFG 8800GTS is in the DS3R build right now, which still works BTW.
I have been reading some reviews and the Radeon 7770 HD is the recommendation from toms hardware. Yes there are some Nvidia offerings, but not that give the most "bang for the buck", like the 7770 cards.
Here is a link for the audience mostly, as you probably already know this. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ew,3107-2.html

Sounds like good advice on the SSD, I will look around a bit. I did hear some info regarding certain models being able to support TRIM or do all models support TRIM now?

I just found toms hardware review as we speak ....http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...tion,3255.html
Its going to take some time to read and google this and find deals. Finding deals on the hardware may be the best way to go as some things will vary in price IMO.

I found the Kingston HyperX memory on Amazon.com Is this it? http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-800MH...n+hyper+x+ddr2

Here is corsair XMS2 memory as well 2 x 4G http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-PC2-64...ir+ddr2+memory

[profJim]

Have you removed and reseated the 6600GT video card to see if this helps?
Did you inspect and clean the electrical contacts on the video card and the motherboard's pci-e slot?
You should swap the 6600GT and the 8800GTS video cards to help determine if the 6600GT is defective.
Be sure to unplug your system from the wall outlet before removing or installing any hardware.

I'm pretty sure that winXP does not support trim for ssd's.
As of now, win7 trim support does not work with ssd raid setups, and should work with all non-raid ssd's.
Newer ssd's with synchronous or toggle Nand memory offer the best real world performance; avoid the slightly less expensive ssd's with asynchronous Nand.
Check out the Tweaktown ssd reviews and pay special attention to the section that deals with PCMark Vantage - Drives with Data Testing.

Both of your memory links are for DDR2 800MHz rated at Cas 5.
Your Mushkin memory is rated at 1066MHz with Cas 5 and 800MHz with Cas 4.
The HyperX memory that I bought is 1066MHz Cas 5 memory and I'm running 8GB at 876MHz with 4-4-4-10 timings.
Your 32-bit operating system will only recognize around 3GB of memory and you need a 64-bit o/s to use all of your installed memory above ~3GB.
Mixing different brands or models of memory can be iffy at best and is often problematic.

A quick web search shows that HD7770 video cards sell for $120 - $160 and Nvidia GTX 550 Ti cards are in the same price range.
Newegg has several GTX 560 (non-Ti) video cards with rebates that lower the final price to this price range.
Read web reviews to see which card will best meet your needs and offers the best overall performance.

[MadMax2911]

Have you removed and reseated the 6600GT video card to see if this helps?
Did you inspect and clean the electrical contacts on the video card and the motherboard's pci-e slot?
You should swap the 6600GT and the 8800GTS video cards to help determine if the 6600GT is defective.
Be sure to unplug your system from the wall outlet before removing or installing any hardware.

Removed the 6600GT and cleaned the dust as much as I could without taking it apart(needs a fine philips screwdriver). I also cleaned the elec contacts as well. Only blew dust out of the MOBO slot at this time, because I am looking for things to clean that slot w/rubbing alcohol or paint thinner-acetone. What to put in there that will not leave strings fibers behind? Coffee filters come to mind right off hand with rubbing alcohol.

Yes I can swap the 8800GTS card in there for a quick test as well. I will have to uninstall the 175 drivers (which I have for 3Dmark06 on both systems (may not be exact same driver on both systems but its close) Then reinstall with the different card for proper configuration correct? I am pretty sure its the grapphics cards fault as I do remember other problems in the past that I thouhgt were memory problems. Thus the reason for the upgrade to muskin memory.

A quick web search shows that HD7770 video cards sell for $120 - $160 and Nvidia GTX 550 Ti cards are in the same price range.
Newegg has several GTX 560 (non-Ti) video cards with rebates that lower the final price to this price range.
Read web reviews to see which card will best meet your needs and offers the best overall performance.

Yes the old question which card is better for your present needs eh? Well after having a 8800GTS blowing tons of hot air in my case and out the back, I do wonder, if I would be better served with a Radeon 7770 graphics card this time. Sure its close to the bottom of the barrel, but it does have a new chip "Cape Verde" (that is not fully utilized I know) It will serve the purpose of the backup PC at this time. This purpose is to turn and work faithfully, use minimal power, and support Direct X11.0. and do some light games and play movies-TV.

[profJim]

A coffee filter might be OK or you can use a lint-free cloth.
Lightly dampen the coffee filter or cloth. I prefer using 91% pure rubbing alcohol or denatured alcohol.
I would not use paint thinner or acetone on any motherboard slots.
Is your 6600GT currently installed in the EP45-UD3LR?

You didn't get the 2nd quote quite right, but it's fine as is.

[wazza300]

i think you need win7 for dx11 also?

the sandisk extreme ssd's are a good price

[MadMax2911]

A coffee filter might be OK or you can use a lint-free cloth.
Lightly dampen the coffee filter or cloth. I prefer using 91% pure rubbing alcohol or denatured alcohol.
I would not use paint thinner or acetone on any motherboard slots.
Is your 6600GT currently installed in the EP45-UD3LR?

You didn't get the 2nd quote quite right, but it's fine as is.

6600GT is in UD3LR yes, will do tonight after work. Yeah Wazza300 Thats what I thought about Dir X right now I am only finding three paks that are upgrades only not the full versions. It will be cheap but for installs I may need to install Win XP then upgrade each and every time which may be tedious. May just buy the OEM at 99.00, but this may be down the road a month or two. i think I need the video card first.

CONTACT CLEANING

Just cleaaned the Videocard slot and I retested with sveral tests only to see that there is still a redraw problem as far as I know. I am providing a SS to show you what I mean. I sis a test with auqamark but there is more memory in the system now then when I tested it last.(2GB then 4GB) I did notice while playing videos in mozilla firefox there were some pauses but only if you are looking for them. Overall is the best video performance in a while on FF, but IE is another story altogether. Video would not run Maybe due to security settings or other stuff. aquamark is inproved but there is more memory now then before. I am borrowing a mushkin stick the help performance.
next is card swapping.

CARD SWAPPING

OK well before I removed the 6600GT, I realized I needed to try a test with 2 Gigs of RAM, similar results were seen. One test the whole screen was garbled like horizontal lines across the screen(sorry no screenie).
Prior to installing the 8800GTS these things were done:
1 Remove the 175..xx driver with revo uninstaller (to see what left behind after uninstall).
2 Clean the contacts on the 8800GTS and again on the PCIe slot, with rubbing alcohol and a coffee filter(folded up).
After installing the 8800GTS these things were done:
1 Cleaned old files and installed the 197.45 Futuremark approved driver using the tutorial found on this page. TweakGuides.com - Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide and this page TweakGuides.com - Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide
2 Made a few changes to the Forceware control panel according to this page TweakGuides.com - Nvidia Forceware Tweak Guide

TEST AND TEST AGAIN

Testing with AquaMark3, Battlefield play4free and Pc Pitstop.com I am starting to think some of my benchmarks are not the best and even suspecting that windows XP is getting a bit aged and losing some muscle tone(ya know what I mean?)

Some testing on wednesday revealed one program freeze in BF Play4Free (its actually a browser game) However, it ran smoothly for another hour after that. Aquamark3 ran real well for two tests with way higher scores than with the 6600GT(not surprising) Tomorrow will get some other tests going with Prime95 and PCPitstop.

Thanks

[MadMax2911]

Testing continued from the last post....

PRIME 95 TESTS WITH CPU-Z AND MEMSET

I started testing with prime 95 and saw some high temps (see the SS) 57 degrees fahrenheit which is 135 degrees Celsius.
Core speed is a bit slow at 2000MHz or 2.0 GHz
One stick of memory is installed at 2Gigs Corsair gaming memory from BestBuy no link.

Second test ran and then started beeping due to high temps.

Notes I was using the Small FFTs, its the first selection in P95s list of tests. Here is a pic with the other tests included.

Regarding the system/program freeze I have not seen that, but did see a small pause as my system was handling p95 and some other apps :) No redrawing problems like the ones with the 6600GT.
Regards

[profJim]

Your 2.0GHz cpu speed is probably due to the energy saving bios options (EIST and C1E) set to enabled.
With my P35 system, the cpu multiplier varies from 6.0x to 8.0x depending on the system load.
When overclocking and stress testing, I always disable EIST and C1E. Once I've reached my o/c goal, I then enable both of these settings and repeat my stress tests to ensure that my system is still stable. Not all older systems can reach a high overclock with one or both of these settings enabled.

Running with a single memory module means that overall memory performance will be lower than running with the same total amount of memory and two modules in dual channel mode.

My Prime95 core temperatures are 50 - 52^o (C) when the room temperature is near 18^o (C) which is about 70^o (F). If my room temperature rises, the cpu core temperatures rise by the same amount when doing stress tests.

I had no problems when I installed my MSI N460GTX Hawk video card in my P35 win2k system shortly before installing win7 on a new ssd about 18 months ago. I don't know if you will have any issues if you try to install a new video card, drivers and software (Nvidia or Radeon) with winXP.

**edit**
Your Performance Level (aka tRD or Static tRead value) = 8 isn't optimal right now, but this can be lowered later.
I prefer to run with a slightly looser tRD when overclocking, as this needs to be increased at some point as you use higher cpu host frequency settings.