Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:28 pm
Agreed with everything said thus far. 1) the motherboard is of the "H" variety meaning you cannot overclock the processor (very much) so getting an Intel "K" series processor is pointless and not worth the extra money as you will not be able to use its benefits. As far as getting a better processor, the one you have there already costs more than $100, so thats out. (an i5 2400 is where I would start) Tomshardware frequentlly publishes a "best gaming CPUs for your money" bit. See below for why you should start at a minimum an i5 2400 otherwise you might not notice a substantial increase in performance over what you already have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-overclocking,3052-3.htmlThat brings us to the GPU. I would also wait until early next year when the 28 nm GPU's come out before buying a new one. In the mean time you can dial down the screen resolution a notch to get yourself better frame rates, that should smooth gameplay out a bit. The 768 MB GTX 460 will run into a ceiling at high resolutions because of its limited memory. Dollar for dollar, you'll see more frame rate increase with a GPU upgrade than a CPU upgrade (with your current system)
Edit: Your $100 price limit really only leaves room for a RAM upgrade. An average 8 GB kit of good ram will only cost you $40ish. Ram is dirt cheap right now,
so I don't think another 4GB kit is worth the $10 savings over an 8GB one, maybe it is to you. 8 GB total ram blankets the needs of a vast majority of pc owners and its probably all you need, 12 GB would be even better though!!! Make sure to match the same timings, frequency, and voltage otherwise your mobo will select the slowest common denominator. (capacity can be changed though, aka you can have a 4gb kit and an 8gb kit that will run fine together as long as everything else matches) This information can be found on the ram sticks themselves. I'm doubtful that you will see much gaming performance with this upgrade for most cases, but it may help outside of games if you like to have lots of windows open at the same time or if you have other programs that use alot of ram.
Basically youre shopping for Ferrari's on a Kia budget. You got a very good deal on your computer, a quick figure gets me somewhere in the $700 range (without consulting newegg). While it does have very striking flaws (H61 mobo) for gaming, its still a decent rig. If you want the high end performance you have to pay for it. Although your seemingly stellar ability to find good deals suggests that you may not have to pay quite as much as others.
Also, watch that 430 watt PSU as it might start to get overstressed if you start putting in better (and as a result more power hungry) hardware.
http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/
Last edited by
DPete27 on Fri Nov 04, 2011 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Main: i5-3570K, ASRock Z77 Pro4-M, MSI RX480 8G, 500GB Crucial BX100, 2 TB Samsung EcoGreen F4, 16GB 1600MHz G.Skill @1.25V, EVGA 550-G2, Silverstone PS07B
HTPC: A8-5600K, MSI FM2-A75IA-E53, 4TB Seagate SSHD, 8GB 1866MHz G.Skill, Crosley D-25 Case Mod