upgrade

[morfiend]

 I dont often ask here but here goes!

  I have a socket 775 MB,p5ke if it matters,4 gigs of ddr2 800 a 8800GTS E8400 and a 750 watt corsair tx,3 asorted drives and a burner.

 For a long time it ran smooth and at reasonable setting but lately it's bogging down,large groups cause stutters and slideshows.....


  I'm thinking about upgrading my vidcard first and then doing a complete MB,cpu,ram change at a later point.     

   suggestions would be appreciated,looking at a 6970 but I'm open to suggestions as I know just enough about computers to really mess them up and thats about it!

  Have a good case,antec 900,I think,filters top fan etc. so I dont need a new one of those and I'm not sure if I need a larger PSU but will consider that when I do the MB and cpu.

  Oh and I prefer 1 good vidcard over sli,crossfire setup.    TIA for any help!




   

 PS:TD is too far away or I'd go to him!!!!

[TequilaChaser]

I assume you are wanting to stick with an INTEL cpu, morf?


do you have a min or max dollar amount you could give us, so we will know where the boundries are?

so far, the 6970  & the 750 watt corsair  should be just fine with no problems at all


Also, with just a few tweaks, you could take your existing system you currently have and make it scream ( well run Aces high maxed out , anyways......... )

is that ASUS pk5e  the regular version or the deluxe version?

TC

[TequilaChaser]

Also, with just a few tweaks, you could take your existing system you currently have and make it scream ( well run Aces high maxed out , anyways......... )

for starters  you could add in  (1)   USB 3.0  adapter card on one of the extra pcie slots , and then add in (1)  SATA III 6.0 GB/s adapter card  to the other pcie slot....... doing this could give you a bare minimum of (2) internal 3.0 USB ports and (2) internal SATA III 6.0 GB/s  ports ( some of these add on cards come with up to 4 ports per card or 2 ports external & 2 ports internal )

so at around $15 to $40 per card ( depending on brand ) you could improve the throughput for the hard drive, and  purchase yourself a newer model HD  that has 6.0 GB/s speed

also maybe a 64 GB  or 120 GB etc.... Sata III  SSD  to improve your performance and bump that  system ram up to 8 Gigs  of the fastest speed the pk5e MB can handle


windows 7 pro  or ultimate 64 bit will help your performance also

just some thoughts......


TC

[Bizman]

Your PSU seems to be of quality brand, but how old is it? Even review winners can have cheap components inside them, performing perfectly in tests but aging fast in heavy use (read: gaming). If you can, try with another PSU to see if the stuttering and slideshow continues. As said in another thread, a dying PSU can affect in many ways.

[Tigger29]

for starters  you could add in  (1)   USB 3.0  adapter card on one of the extra pcie slots , and then add in (1)  SATA III 6.0 GB/s adapter card  to the other pcie slot....... doing this could give you a bare minimum of (2) internal 3.0 USB ports and (2) internal SATA III 6.0 GB/s  ports ( some of these add on cards come with up to 4 ports per card or 2 ports external & 2 ports internal )

so at around $15 to $40 per card ( depending on brand ) you could improve the throughput for the hard drive, and  purchase yourself a newer model HD  that has 6.0 GB/s speed

also maybe a 64 GB  or 120 GB etc.... Sata III  SSD  to improve your performance and bump that  system ram up to 8 Gigs  of the fastest speed the pk5e MB can handle


windows 7 pro  or ultimate 64 bit will help your performance also

just some thoughts......


TC

I don't understand why people think that having a faster hard drive will make their computer faster in general.  This is just flat out wrong.  While it is true that any time the hard drive gets accessed things will go faster it still can't overcome speed restrictions due to processor/memory/video.  I think making those modifications would be a waste of money at this point especially considering that many new motherboards already come equipped with those functions.

As far as Aces High goes, once all of the textures are loaded into memory the hard drive speed has nothing to do with the performance of the game - aside from loading custom skins  once they come into view and perhaps loading custom sounds (which shouldn't be an issue unless the sound files are huge).  Based on what Morfiend is describing I don't believe this to be the case.

Morfiend that processor, memory, and MB are more than capable of running Aces High just fine.  If AH is the most extensive thing you use your computer for I don't see any need for you to upgrade anything other than the video card (the 8800 is becoming aged even by AH standards).  Just pop in your 6970 and reap the benefits.  If you want a faster computer in the near future then start saving up so you can buy a new MB, Memory and faster hard drive at that point.  Installing add-on cards to your current system (USB3.0, SATA III) in my opinion would be a complete waste of money considering that new motherboards are going to have this already incorporated.  Besides I don't believe you have any USB3.0 or SATA III devices anyway.

I think SSD technology is going to get a LOT more mature after the holiday season - especially with the prices of traditional hard drives spiking like they are.  My theory is that SSD companies will take advantage of the holiday season to sell what they are making now and once sales start dropping afterwards (jan/feb) they will start introducing new technologies to entice people to start buying again.  I don't have any facts to back up that statement but common sense is telling me this is what's coming...

[Krusty]

Aces high has been continuously adding more geometry on the shapes of planes and tanks and such. It has also been adding more skins. Doing a little cataloging last night, there are 93 skins for the Bf109 series alone... It's not that the hardware is slowing down, just that the game is growing. Skins will swap in and out of memory, and there's not enough VRAM on any card I know to hold all the AH skins in memory on high-res texture settings.

Set your AH settings to use lower texture sizes, or remove some skins from your HD, just keep the few you like. You either get the skins but reduce how they display, or keep the higher tex size but reduce the count of skins you keep.

For the number of pixels in a 1024x1024 texture, you can store 4 512x512 textures. Food for thought.

[Dragon]

Go with the new VC and clean up any background processes/clutter and you should be fine. 

[TequilaChaser]

I don't understand why people think that having a faster hard drive will make their computer faster in general.  This is just flat out wrong.  While it is true that any time the hard drive gets accessed things will go faster it still can't overcome speed restrictions due to processor/memory/video.  I think making those modifications would be a waste of money at this point especially considering that many new motherboards already come equipped with those functions.

thanks for your opinion tig

I do not believe that I posted anywhere that "having a faster hard drive will make their computer faster in general."

you posted:

While it is true that any time the hard drive gets accessed things will go faster it still can't overcome speed restrictions due to processor/memory/video.

 

I do believe I addressed the fact that he should go for the 6970 and that his 750 watt PSU would work just fine, and I also acknowledged the fact he should bump his memory to the fastest/largest his ASUS pk5e MB could handle....... so that should take care of the restrictions you are opinionating on, Sir

I also recommended that Morfiend move up to Windows 7 64 bit and get rid of his current Vista OS ........ ( although he never posted here that he was using vista , nor has anyone else in this thread seen Morfiend's DXDIAG report and knows that he also is using a dedicated X-Fi soundcard......... )

like Dragon has posted..... Morf and I have already discussed working on tweaking his current OS and processes last night.........


not counting the videocard....... he can upgrade everything I posted about for less than $300 ........ and have the same technology of the current and upcoming MB's ........ but heck, go ahead and spend $300+ for an ASUS P8Z68, and still have to buy a high dollar cpu, a cpu cooler, new memory, new OS, and whatever else he might want or need.......

oh, also note that those add-on cards ( some of them ) actually out perform  their counterparts that are built in to MB's ....... ( kind of the same principle of a dedicated sound card vs integrated sound on a MB )

I am sure Morfiend appreciates all the suggestions and  I does too 

TC

[Charge]

"I have a socket 775 MB,p5ke if it matters,4 gigs of ddr2 800 a 8800GTS E8400 and a 750 watt corsair tx,3 asorted drives and a burner."

Just a new craphics card would give your setup lots of added lifetime as the E8400 is still rather competitive gaming CPU. I suspect that upgrades to CPU or memory would not yield much improvement in gaming use and 4Gigs of memory should be enought for just about everything, especially if you are running a 32bit operating system, and even a 64bit system is quite happy with that amount.

I had a similar system and upgrading from 8800GT to Ati 5850 gave a significant boost in graphics heavy games.

-C+

[Chalenge]

Since you only mentioned AH the two changes that would make the biggest difference is video card or motherboard. Probably you will find that a significant change up to the Ati you mentioned will not be capable of delivering its full potential with that motherboard.

[Debrody]

I would go for a 2GB 6950, save 100 bucks then update the bios   

[morfiend]

I would go for a 2GB 6950, save 100 bucks then update the bios   

 It seems you can no longer flash the 6950 to a 6970 as folks who've done that are looking at using a 6970 to go SLI with the flashed single 6950.


  I appreciate all the help and responses,I think I'll bump up my ram and vidcard for now.
          Someone asked about the age of the PSU,it was new when I got the machine and thats about 3/4 years ago.

   I think it mostly needs a tuneup... I have 52 processes running on vista 64 so I'm sure I can cut some down.I havent turned off my AV program in past as there was little need but I think I'll shut that down and test to see if that helps.

    I think the old 8800GTS,was top of line when purchased so thats the timeline,is letting me down. I started using a 47 inch monitor and I think I need abit more HP to push those pixels around.



  While pricing components I noticed so MB's come with SSD's as part of the package,onboard ssd if you will.I still dont think SSD's are ready for the average user and I'm an average user,I know just enough to really mess then up,never built 1 but would like to learn.


  I think I could manage to install some ram and even the vidcard,provided the power connectors dont cause me grief.


   Again,thx for the help and any suggestions are welcome!