Thinking of Upgrading... what should happen first aka. what's cheapest?

[(TLL)martinroshak]

Howdy everyone,

I'm looking into possible upgrades for my PC to improve gaming performance, but, not being the world's most knowledgeable person on the subject, I thought I'd seek some advice from people who know what they're on about: you  

This is my current rig's specs, not stellar, but they have been doing the job very well so far, I just want to get some more 'prettiness' out of games

Intel DP35 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)
4gb DDR2 800MHz RAM (although I'm running 32-bit XP, so only have access to 3.25)
NVIDIA 9400GT 1gb
430W ATX Power Supply
500gb SATA HD

Hope that information can help you guys.  I'm currently running Crysis and MWLL on Medium settings, shadows on low and motion blur off and it runs perfectly, to give you an idea of current performance, although my system tells me it can run on high but it lags like crazy...

Thanks for any and all help anyone has to offer

ADDED:

Oh yeah, I'm running dual screens at the moment too, so have no idea if that's impacting performance.  The other screen is a 14" running at 1024x768 while the main screen is a 22" running at 1680x1050.  Dunno if that helps out at all

[Barbaric Soul]

How much you looking to spend?

Personally, without a full system rebuild which you really don't need if all you do is gaming, I'd look into a PSU and video card upgrade. Something along the lines of a ATI 5000 card, but not lower than the 5770 and a quality brand PSU in the 600 watt range.

pick one of these according to how much you wanna spend(remember, you get what you pay for)-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161317

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102857

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161301

and this-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

Upgrading anything else will not yeld you any noticable improvements in performance playing Crysis or MWLL. If you can, try to OC your CPU to 3 ghz or more(3.6 to 3.8 would be ideal).

[(TLL)martinroshak]

That's the thing really isn't it?  At the moment, I'm thinking about 200 (that's in Aussie dollars) as I don't have much money atm.  I may jack that up to 500 depending on what i can save...

[Barbaric Soul]

edited my first post

[(TLL)martinroshak]

edited my first post

Thanks

[Barbaric Soul]

oh, just noticed your still on 32bit XP, get a copy of 64bit Windows7 also.

[Rally]

oh, just noticed your still on 32bit XP, get a copy of 64bit Windows7 also.

Will that make it go faster for him?

[Barbaric Soul]

oh, just noticed your still on 32bit XP, get a copy of 64bit Windows7 also.

Will that make it go faster for him?

Considering it'll allow him to use all 4 gig of his RAM, yes it will.

[Rally]

Considering it'll allow him to use all 4 gig of his RAM, yes it will.

I see. I asked because I've 32bit XP and 4GB too, but I'll keep it. Because I'd never use all that RAM up anyway.

[VicVegas84]

A 260 gtx core 216 and a 700 watt psu with high 12v amp rating. Not all 700 watt psu's are the same.

[sleepysheep]

oh, just noticed your still on 32bit XP, get a copy of 64bit Windows7 also.

Will that make it go faster for him?

Considering it'll allow him to use all 4 gig of his RAM, yes it will.

You can make 3gb of ram easy if you run crysis on max graphic settings. I only run on high and crysis uses 1.6gb by itself! Win 7 is using 1.2gb so thats 2.8gb usage + what other crap is in background. On very high you would run out of ram.


And x64 does run better than x32, FPS increase isn't that much but it allows the game to use more ram which sometimes have a great effect on performance.
*Edit* This is memory usage with game shrunk so it could be using even more, until I get new keboard I can't tell usuage while running game.

[Sirius]

Crysis doesn't need 4 GB of RAM - at best I'd expect such an upgrade to make no difference. If MWLL requires in the 3 GB ballpark, it could, though...

[Barbaric Soul]

oh, just noticed your still on 32bit XP, get a copy of 64bit Windows7 also.

Will that make it go faster for him?

Considering it'll allow him to use all 4 gig of his RAM, yes it will.

You can make 3gb of ram easy if you run crysis on max graphic settings. I only run on high and crysis uses 1.6gb by itself! Win 7 is using 1.2gb so thats 2.8gb usage + what other crap is in background. On very high you would run out of ram.


And x64 does run better than x32, FPS increase isn't that much but it allows the game to use more ram which sometimes have a great effect on performance.
*Edit* This is memory usage with game shrunk so it could be using even more, until I get new keboard I can't tell usuage while running game.

Crysis doesn't need 4 GB of RAM - at best I'd expect such an upgrade to make no difference. If MWLL requires in the 3 GB ballpark, it could, though...

Who cares how much RAM Crysis actually needs. That isn't why I said to get 64bit 7. I said to get 7 so that he can use all 4 gig of RAM the he ALREADY PAID FOR. Also, Windows7 will allow him to use DX10 and beyond. Here's a list of upcoming DX11 games(some rumored, some confirmed true)-

Aliens versus Predator (confirmed)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (confirmed) Q1/10
BattleForge (confirmed)
BioShock 2 (Unreal 2.5 Engine, no confirmation)
Crysis 2
Dirt 2 (confirmed) Dec 2009 
Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited (confirmed) 2010
F1 2010 (awaiting confirmation)
Genghis Khan MMO (confirmed) 2010
Half-Life 2 Part III (awaiting confirmation)
FrostBite Engine 2 (Some sort of BF type of game)
Lord of the Rings Online (awaiting confirmation)
Mass Effect 2 (Unreal 3.0 Engine, no confirmation)
Race Driver Grid 2 (awaiting confirmation)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat (confirmed) Q1 2010
StarCraft 2: Wings of Freedom (awaiting confirmation)
Two Worlds 2 (awaiting confirmation)

source of list-http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=103614

I don't know about you guys, but I see a few names there I want to play with the DX11 eye candy on.

[Barbaric Soul]

A 260 gtx core 216 and a 700 watt psu with high 12v amp rating. Not all 700 watt psu's are the same.

You don't need 700 watts for a single GTX260 rig. Hell, you don't need 700 watts for any single GPU gaming rig. I used to run two GTX280 cards in SLI on a 750 watt psu just fine. Honestly, 600 watts is just fine for any single GPU video card system as long as it isn't water cooled or have alot of DVD drives or hard drives. I recommended the 650watt to give alittle head room for future hardware additions to the computer.

[sleepysheep]

He wants to improve performance thats the point of the upgrade, not destory his FPS by using DX10.