Upgrade Advice Needed

W

William0d0

Active member
Computer upgrade advice needed.

My current system:

XFX 680i LT SLI motherboard. 1333 mhz fsb.
Intel E6550 core 2 duo 2.33 ghz.
Nvidia GeForce 9400GT vid card with 1 gig mem.
2x 1tb hard drives.
4 gigs DDR2-SDRAM PC2-6400 ram.
32 bit Windows XP SP3.

I have narrowed my search down to:

1. PNY VCGGTX4601XPB-OC GeForce GTX 460 XLR8 OverClocked Video Card - 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0, Dual-DVI, HDMI, SLI-Ready, DirectX 11 $199.99

or

2. Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Processor AT80569PJ073N - 2.83GHz, 12MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Yorkfield, Quad-Core, Socket 775, OEM $229.99

Not enough money to buy both.:'(

Which one by itself would give the most bang for the buck?

Thank you,
 
William0d0 said:
Not enough money to buy both.

Which one by itself would give the most bang for the buck?

Thank you,
Click to expand...


I'd save my money and hold off until you have enough money to build a new machine.


For now I'd overclock the Intel E6550 to pick up some performance.
 
djt said:
I'd save my money and hold off until you have enough money to build a new machine.


For now I'd overclock the Intel E6550 to pick up some performance.
Click to expand...

I've looked at that option, but the money would be far (really far) down the road.

My last attempt at overclocking didn't get me anywhere. Perhaps another try is in order.

Will take it under advisement.
 
William0d0 said:
Computer upgrade advice needed.

My current system:

XFX 680i LT SLI motherboard. 1333 mhz fsb.
Intel E6550 core 2 duo 2.33 ghz.
Nvidia GeForce 9400GT vid card with 1 gig mem.
2x 1tb hard drives.
4 gigs DDR2-SDRAM PC2-6400 ram.
32 bit Windows XP SP3.

I have narrowed my search down to:

1. PNY VCGGTX4601XPB-OC GeForce GTX 460 XLR8 OverClocked Video Card - 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0, Dual-DVI, HDMI, SLI-Ready, DirectX 11 $199.99

or

2. Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Processor AT80569PJ073N - 2.83GHz, 12MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Yorkfield, Quad-Core, Socket 775, OEM $229.99

Not enough money to buy both.:'(

Which one by itself would give the most bang for the buck?

Thank you,
Click to expand...

TS2010 only use two cores so a quad core won't buy you much.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-geforce-radeon,2761-7.html

the 9400 GT is not at the top of the list so you can get some idea of how much improvement you might get.

Win 7 upgrade to 64 bit would you you more up to date drivers plus allow TS2010 to use more than 2 gigs of memory.

Cheerio John
 
Upgrade

I am running the following

AMD 3.2Ghz Dual Core
nVidia GT450 1Gb DDDR5
Windows Vista x32
4Gb DDR RAM
2 x SATA II HDD (not RAID)

I would suggest that you buy the GT450 or better as this will give you a greater benefit. TS2009 /10 use more of the GPU than previous versions. The only bottle-neck I have found is in load times from HDD, a SSD (solid state drive) would fix this problem and they are getting quite affordable now.

Peter
 
....The only bottle-neck I have found is in load times from HDD, a SSD (solid state drive) would fix this problem and they are getting quite affordable now.

The HDD is the only thing slowing me down. I'm running and intel Core 2 Duo CPU. at 3.0 ghz. With an Nvidia gts 450 with a gig on that, plus 8 gigs for Win 7 64. The windows experience index I'm getting is 5.9, and that all the hard drive. Everything else is 6.6 to 7.2.

The one thing that really get's it banging though is that 64 bit operating system and mucho gigs of ram. For instance, I've got 2 ie browser windows open, google earth, the content manager, my virus stuff and whatever else is running in services. And the resource monitor is telling me I've got 5.584gigs of ram on standby. Tranz don't jerk my screens and I bet I've got one layout of northern michigan with at least a hundred thousand trees on it.
 
...If Trainz is heavily CPU dependent why would “the HDD be the only thing slowing you down?

Loading the route off the hard disk to begin with...or saving it. Some route that I've got track laid on...ala fishlipsatwork dems have thousands of tiles and are about 1/2 a gig in size... by the time you get about a 1,000 miles of track on them.
 
A plan is forming in my head.

djt is right about a new system. I really can't expect to get a whole lot more bang for the buck. I tried the overclocking thing again, trains is running fine after bumping CPU from 2.33 to 2.68. Maybe I can squeeze a little more.

gawpo50 suggested a 450, I was only looking at a 460. That idea is looking really good.

I think I shall go with a 450, bank the cost difference and save up for a new system.:)

Thanks guys,

Bill Paradise
 
....I think I shall go with a 450, bank the cost difference and save up for a new system.

The only thing you should check first it that you have enough room on the motherboard for the new video cards. They take a dual slot on the motherboard...not a single and are about as big as brick. Easily 6 times the size of the previous generation cards. The 450 GT is OEM, the one for builders is the 450 GTS. Hope that helps.
 
Easily 6 times the size of the previous generation cards.
Click to expand...
Really?

I'm running a 480 GTX in one of my i7 setups and I don't see any big difference in size compared to my GTX 285.

I've even run the two of them together with the GTX 285 dedicated for PhysX work and haven't had any problems.
 
wawasoo said:
....I think I shall go with a 450, bank the cost difference and save up for a new system.

The only thing you should check first it that you have enough room on the motherboard for the new video cards. They take a dual slot on the motherboard...not a single and are about as big as brick. Easily 6 times the size of the previous generation cards. The 450 GT is OEM, the one for builders is the 450 GTS. Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Judging from a pic of one, I'd say it's length would come right up to edge of my motherboard. Worst case scenario I have to move one of my hard drives.

Dual slot won't pose a problem, got lots of room that way.

It's a 450 GTS I'm looking at.
 
The pictures make them look the same size, but believe me they are not.

The card is twice as long and 3 times thicker, got a jumbo cooling sytem on it which needs it's own 5 volts of power.
 
wawasoo said:
The pictures make them look the same size, but believe me they are not.

The card is twice as long and 3 times thicker, got a jumbo cooling sytem on it which needs it's own 5 volts of power.
Click to expand...

I tried that link you included earlier.

With my 650 watt power supply and 9.6 inches of motherboard width, I can use a GTS 450 up to a GTX 470.

edit to add: I have a few inches of spare room beyond the edge of the motherboard.
 
Last edited:
Well if it will fit in your box, you'll get twice the graphics memory and 10 x the performance...from the card. I had a geforce 8400 in the last computer I had....good for watching movies. Did good with trainz 6..age of empires, but this Trainz 10 really needs room to run, to run right.
 
I built a bunch of tigers back in the day....good company.

You know these keyboards....they are a miracle. I can remember way back in the day if you wanted to talk to a CPU you had to sit down on a key punch machine for hours. And if you got one darn coma in the wrong place, you have to go fix your damm card...and wait back in line to run you stack back through the card reader.

ie these guys bitching about fps and jerky this or that....just get the machine to run it the way you want and be done with it. Beats running a stack.
 
wawasoo said:
I wasn't talking to you...the geforce 9400gt he has is a legacy card...single slot.
Click to expand...


I don't give a chit who you're talking to, you said “previous generation”. The previous generation to the 400 GTX is the 200 GTX series.
 
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