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So it's been a few years (close to 4 or 5) since I upgraded last and my comp is starting to show its age when playing newer games so I think it's about time to upgrade again. I'm really wanting to play Skyrim on decent settings and I don't think my current comp is up to the task.

I currently have...

MB: ASUS P5Q Pro
CPU: E8400
GFX: 9800GTX +
RAM: 4GB Corsair (not sure of timings or anything like that, not at my desktop at the moment :/)
Not sure of my power supply, will have to check that too, pretty sure it's some sort of Modular Antec, no idea of wattage..

Rest of my HDD are pretty run of the mill SATA drives. Also playing on a 22" Widescreen monitor so most of my gaming will be done at 1680 x 1050 - I couldn't see me updating my monitor any time soon, don't have that much cash...

Anyway, like I said, I'm assuming the three main parts are what I should be updating - I haven't done, and I'm not really interested in doing any overclocking - not sure whether it's worth me getting an SSD or anything like that. Budget is pretty open at the moment, kind of want to see what's around and what's coming in the NEAR future (Next 6 months) before deciding on a budget, but I wouldn't mind keeping it below $1000 AUD...

Any help would be great!

Have you checked out TR's System Guide? The Utility Player might meet your needs.

Some lunatic wrote:

AU$ 229 Intel Core i5-2500K
AU$ 139 Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3
or AU$ 235 Asus P8Z68-V Gen3
AU$ 69 2x4 GiB PC3-12800 Corsair Vengeance CML8GX3M2A1600C9 (DDR3-1600, CAS 9, 1.5 V)
AU$ 269 Radeon HD6950 2GB

I pretty much have the same computer as you, except vid card and I am playing it on ultra myself. I used to have the 9800GTX+ until it died from heat issues, replaced it with a 6950 2 gig that I OCed to 6970 speeds along with OCing my 8400 from 3.0 to 3.6. A new video card should get you running skyrin well.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Have you checked out TR's System Guide? The Utility Player might meet your needs.

Some lunatic wrote:

AU$ 229 Intel Core i5-2500K
AU$ 139 Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3
or AU$ 235 Asus P8Z68-V Gen3
AU$ 69 2x4 GiB PC3-12800 Corsair Vengeance CML8GX3M2A1600C9 (DDR3-1600, CAS 9, 1.5 V)
AU$ 269 Radeon HD6950 2GB

Yup, just had a look through the system guide over the weekend and I think there's a few good ideas in there. There's nothing coming out anytime in the next 12 months that's going to radically change PC Hardware is there?

Starfalcon wrote:

I pretty much have the same computer as you, except vid card and I am playing it on ultra myself. I used to have the 9800GTX+ until it died from heat issues, replaced it with a 6950 2 gig that I OCed to 6970 speeds along with OCing my 8400 from 3.0 to 3.6. A new video card should get you running skyrin well.

Hehe, yeh, I installed it Friday night and fiddled around with some of the settings and it can run it pretty well with basically all settings on high - definitely happy with how it's running anyway. I don't really know anything about overclocking so I'm not sure whether I can OC my 8400, but will upgrading my video card to a more recent one result in a bottleneck of any sort?

Cheers guys

viper483 wrote:

There's nothing coming out anytime in the next 12 months that's going to radically change PC Hardware is there?

I don't know that it's a "radical" change, but we should see a new generation of GPUs fabricated on TSMC's 28nm process showing up in the next six months. These should offer better performance for less power and heat than current GPUs, which have all been manufactured on TSMC's 40nm process since the Radeon HD4770 appeared in April 2009.

Yeah, wait for the 28nm GPU's is my suggestion.

Thumbs up for the E8400 owners (thats what I have in my gaming rig right now, overclocked to 3.6 as well at stock voltage). I nabbed a 6850 for $110 about 6 months ago and am enjoying the results. Its not the best in terms of performance but the price was right.

I'll be waiting until Ivy Bridge with PCIe 3.0 comes out sometime around April? and the new 28nm GPUs due out slightly before that to make my upgrade move.

As a new SSD owner, I would highly recommend picking one up. The load/access times are phenominal, night and day difference.