# Upgrading Time



## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

^^^
Current system

Built this system around 2 years ago while mobo is around 8 months - 1 year old.

Right now I feel that I need to look into a new CPU or a GPU.
Not 100% though.

Been using this system for random games I feel like playing.
All of which I use FRAPs with to record at max settings.

I only plan to use Newegg.


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## rmartz20 (Nov 4, 2009)

What psu do you have?


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

rmartz20 said:


> What psu do you have?


Corsair - 850W


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

The easy upgrade is to a Q9550, And or a GTX400 series.
Did you have a budget in mind?


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> The easy upgrade is to a Q9550, And or a GTX400 series.
> Did you have a budget in mind?


I am looking to spend around $200 - 300, $350 if it is a good deal but would like to avoid it.

Still trying to find out which is the main part I should look into upgrading.
Watched my CPU usage while playing a few games and it was around 50% - 70% all the time. Which is the reason i feel that that part is something I should look into. I regret buying an Intel CPU... wasted money.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

My main reasoning for upgrading is because few days ago I bought TF2 and could not run it on the lowest settings without some form of FPS lag.
Yet I play L4D2 max settings fine.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

When you bought it AMD didn't have a cpu to compete with it, is far better then old Athlon x2's, it wasn't until the Phenom II that AMD got back in the game.

First you should overclock the CPU to the 3.6-3.8 range, The requirements for TF2 are not very high here are the Ideal requirements>


> Team Fortress 2 Ideal System Requirements
> For running the game smooth in 1280x1024 with High Quality graphics.
> 
> CPU: 3.4 GHz Processor(that's a single core CPU)
> ...


What are you seeing for Video card temps?
And ram usage?


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Your problem is not the brand of CPU & the E8400 is quite capable. 
Look into the questions that wrench97 asked.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> When you bought it AMD didn't have a cpu to compete with it, is far better then old Athlon x2's, it wasn't until the Phenom II that AMD got back in the game.
> 
> First you should overclock the CPU to the 3.6-3.8 range, The requirements for TF2 are not very high here are the Ideal requirements>
> 
> ...


Going to have to do some googleing for a program to see video card temps.

Right now sitting idle my RAM usage is at 1.4GB
While I was play one of my games (Soldier Front)
It spiked to 2 - 2.5GB.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

Ok SpeedFan is telling me

Idle
GPU - 63C
System - 124C
CPU - 49C
AUX - 49C
Temp - 124C
HD0 - 46C
HD1 - 49C
Temp1 - 40C
Core 0 - 46C

Game running (Testing now)


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

Screen goes white while playing the game so I could not test the temps while playing a game.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Speedfan is often wrong, try HWmonitor> http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
GPUz > http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1207/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.2.8.html

The screen turning white while loaded sounds like a Video card issue to me.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Speedfan is often wrong, try HWmonitor> http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
> GPUz > http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1207/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.2.8.html
> 
> The screen turning white while loaded sounds like a Video card issue to me.


It was like when you load a game and Win7 / Vista turn off areo and that stuff.
Only speedfan went white.

Going to work soo Ill try those 2 when I get back.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

Ok here is the GPUz.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

Ewww double post...


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Click log to file and Continue Refreshing........... then open a game, check Gpuz when you see any issues.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Click log to file and Continue Refreshing........... then open a game, check Gpuz when you see any issues.


Here is the .txt.

Er it is a 5.3MB file. Had it running for our whole scrimming time. (Like 5 hours or so)

Since it was so large there is a few from the start and a few from the end.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Doesn't appear to be a temp issue, they look good.

Do you have all the patches installed for TF2?


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Doesn't appear to be a temp issue, they look good.
> 
> Do you have all the patches installed for TF2?


Yes I have them all just checked.

Also something new when I record my other game (Soldier Front) with FRAPs I used to get 32FPS(FPS caped) now I go down to as low as 15 FPS.
I have been told it is due to Soldier Front using such a low DXDirect then what FRAPs is used to recording.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Does it make any difference which OS your using XP or 7?


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Does it make any difference which OS your using XP or 7?


I have been using Windows 7 with Soldier Front for a month before FRAPs started to lag me like this. I tried to downgrade my FRAPs version which did not help.

I did not have TF2 back when I was running XP.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Ah ok, I assumed you where dual booting.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Ah ok, I assumed you where dual booting.


Windows 7 is on my 1TB Harddrive
Windows XP is on my 500GB Harddrive

I have not used XP in a long time now.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Try running it on XP if you just swap in the drive and see if there is any difference.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Try running it on XP if you just swap in the drive and see if there is any difference.


Ok TF2 same as it is on Win7.

XP was able to play SoldierFront with FRAPs recording at 32FPS still, just like it used to before I switched to Win7.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

I asked one of the Game Team mods to have a look, I have a feeling it has to do with TF2 more so then the system.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> I asked one of the Game Team mods to have a look, I have a feeling it has to do with TF2 more so then the system.


Oh ok, thanks. ray:
Little more info about TF2, I can run the game fine in the lowest settings in small servers.

Also any ideas about the FRAPsing Soldier Front?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

FRaps from all I've read runs slower in a 64 bit environment, I suspect you'll need to wait for a 64 bit version of the software.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> FRaps from all I've read runs slower in a 64 bit environment, I suspect you'll need to wait for a 64 bit version of the software.


Dam.. is that so?
Do you happen to know of another good recording program out there that could match or come close to FRAPs?

I have tried DXTory. Growler is being saw as a hack for Soldier Front.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Fraps is about the best option out there that I know of.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

So as it stands the best part for me to look into upgrading is my GPU?

Since this was the main reasoning for this thread. Kinda got sidetracked but a good type of sidetrack.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Problem is from a GTX260 your not going to see a large gain until you get to the GTX295 but at this point the GTX470-480 would be the better choice and with either of the 3 your CPU/Ram will be holding you back, even going to the i7 930 with DDR3 and a GTX470 is not going to be a giant leap forward it's just a step up, your caught in middle of the cycle so to speak, from the P4 to the C2D was a leap from a C2D to a i7 is a step, partly because the hardware has outpaced the software most games still do not have full support for quads doing so would eliminate a lot of potential customers and the developers are not about to do so.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> Problem is from a GTX260 your not going to see a large gain until you get to the GTX295 but at this point the GTX470-480 would be the better choice and with either of the 3 your CPU/Ram will be holding you back, even going to the i7 930 with DDR3 and a GTX470 is not going to be a giant leap forward it's just a step up, your caught in middle of the cycle so to speak, from the P4 to the C2D was a leap from a C2D to a i7 is a step, partly because the hardware has outpaced the software most games still do not have full support for quads doing so would eliminate a lot of potential customers and the developers are not about to do so.


So what your saying is that until I look into doing a full system rebuild it will not be worth it?


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

Starting to feel like just reformatting to Win7 32bit...


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

I don't think it would be cost effective to do a complete system at this time, you have a decent setup now.
For example my sons system is a E8500 on a P35 MB with a 9800GTX+, from his to mine with the i7 860, p55 and GTX280 is about 5-9 frames difference in Crysis and COD(the only 2 games played on both) the difference is in Adobe Audition and PhotoShop Audition renders frames close to twice as fast as the old machine(his) and PS4 with large or multiple images is a world of difference, for gaming alone it would not be worth the price.

Now I do have his CPU clocked up to 3.6 ghz on the stock cooler with the ram running at 800.


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

wrench97 said:


> I don't think it would be cost effective to do a complete system at this time, you have a decent setup now.
> For example my sons system is a E8500 on a P35 MB with a 9800GTX+, from his to mine with the i7 860, p55 and GTX280 is about 5-9 frames difference in Crysis and COD(the only 2 games played on both) the difference is in Adobe Audition and PhotoShop Audition renders frames close to twice as fast as the old machine(his) and PS4 with large or multiple images is a world of difference, for gaming alone it would not be worth the price.
> 
> Now I do have his CPU clocked up to 3.6 ghz on the stock cooler with the ram running at 800.


May I ask you a question about your system and your son's?
Are you running a 32 or 64 bit OS?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

His is Win 7 32, mine is both XP 32, Vista 32, Win7 64.


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## RockmasteR (Aug 10, 2007)

the problem here is Windows 7 why? I really don't know
I have the same problem with some games
I play Blur on Windows XP and I get 30 to 40 fps on 1440 x 900 with med high settings (Geforce 9600 GT)
but on Windows 7 I get 15 fps max
so what I suggest to do is to use XP to record the games for now
and maybe you can reinstall Windows 7 (after a clean format) and I can assure that things will return as they were


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## **ME** (Jun 4, 2009)

RockmasteR said:


> the problem here is Windows 7 why? I really don't know
> I have the same problem with some games
> I play Blur on Windows XP and I get 30 to 40 fps on 1440 x 900 with med high settings (Geforce 9600 GT)
> but on Windows 7 I get 15 fps max
> ...


Ug.
I love how DX11 makes the games look better.
Yet I need to record that one game (Soldier Front) for tournaments. -.-

Atleast I know it is the OS now. >.>
Have you happened to try a 32bit Win7? Just wondering.


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