Upgrades

[LCADolby]

Here is my PC build;

CoolerMaster Elite 310 Mid Tower Gaming Case with see-thru side panel
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 530 2.93GHZ 4MB L3 Cache LGA1156
HDD: Single Hard Drive (1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive [+31])
MOTHERBOARD: MSI H55M-E33 Intel H55 Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 LGA1156 ATX w/ Onboard Graphic, HDMI, DVI, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, HDMI, USB2.0, SATA-II, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
MEMORY: 4GB (2x2GB) PC10666 DDR3/1333mhz Dual Channel Memory
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts Power
VIDEO: ATI Radeon HD 5770 PCI-E 16X 1GB DDR5 Video Card 
CD: Sony Optiarc 22X DVD+/-R/+/-RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER
FAN: Coolermaster Hyper TX3 CPU Cooling

What upgrade(s) would you experts recommend to allow me to squeeze out more performance?
I have always gone for best performance for price, which resulted in the above build 3 years ago.

<S>

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Here is my PC build;

CoolerMaster Elite 310 Mid Tower Gaming Case with see-thru side panel
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 530 2.93GHZ 4MB L3 Cache LGA1156
HDD: Single Hard Drive (1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive [+31])
MOTHERBOARD: MSI H55M-E33 Intel H55 Chipset CrossFireX Support DDR3 LGA1156 ATX w/ Onboard Graphic, HDMI, DVI, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, HDMI, USB2.0, SATA-II, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
MEMORY: 4GB (2x2GB) PC10666 DDR3/1333mhz Dual Channel Memory
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts Power
VIDEO: ATI Radeon HD 5770 PCI-E 16X 1GB DDR5 Video Card 
CD: Sony Optiarc 22X DVD+/-R/+/-RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER
FAN: Coolermaster Hyper TX3 CPU Cooling

What upgrade(s) would you experts recommend to allow me to squeeze out more performance?
I have always gone for best performance for price, which resulted in the above build 3 years ago.

<S>

For a low cost upgrade you could get another 4Gb of ram (helps mostly load times when superfetch can cache more stuff), swap your display card to a Nvidia 670 (which are now on discount) or Radeon 7970 + overclock the i3 as far as it goes. That should give your system legs for another 2 years.

[Debrody]

uhm...
Wasnt it You, MrRipley, who said that the PhenomII 955 is a bottleneck for the 7770? And now, the i3 530 isnt a bottleneck for a 7970?
Check PMs Dolby.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

uhm...
Wasnt it You, MrRipley, who said that the PhenomII 955 is a bottleneck for the 7770? And now, the i3 530 isnt a bottleneck for a 7970?
Check PMs Dolby.

I said a low cost upgrade. It's not sensible to buy anything below a 670 at the moment because when he will upgrade the rest of his system, any lesser card is left obsolete.

If he can overclock that i3 it can give it enough boost to live a bit longer. The LGA1156 i3 should overclock quite a bit with ease. Otherwise his options are basically a totally new rebuild. I would not start buying a new CPU for the H55.

[Debrody]

Overclocking might give a 20% boost, but thats nearly an extreme case (is the i3 530 multiplyer-locked? if so, then 10% is a helluva achievement).  But still, that CPU is slow, that 10-20-30(?)% wont make wonders.
The best would be to switch to an LGA1155-i5 3570K-7970 platform, but thats expensive.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Overclocking might give a 20% boost, but thats nearly an extreme case (is the i3 530 multiplyer-locked? if so, then 10% is a helluva achievement).  But still, that CPU is slow, that 10-20-30(?)% wont make wonders.
The best would be to switch to an LGA1155-i5 3570K-7970 platform, but thats expensive.

The LGA1156 package is multiplier unlocked so he can achieve 30-40% overclock in best cases. The 1st gen i3:s were famous for huge overclocks. This combined to the fact that Intel chips do not degrade in performance when overclocked like AMD chips mostly do should give his system a pretty good boost. This combined to the beefier graphics card should carry him a long way untill he upgrades to a new i5/i7 LGA1155 based, USB3 capable platform.

IMO a heavy overclock + a performance graphics card is going to give him most run for his money at the moment. Much else will require a totally new build.

[LCADolby]

Hmm, some valid ideas. I shall look into a few things <S>

[zack1234]

I have two cards for sale Dobly Hd6970 or a Gtx 559ti

[Denniss]

What make/model is your PSU?
600W means nothing nowadays, a bad brand 600W is not even worth a 350W quality PSU and may quit/die/explode easily if confronted with a GTX670