Time to upgrade.

[jbinner 15]

Hey all, I am going to try and ramp up my rig a bit in the coming month to months. My choke point on my rig right now IS the MB and RAM.....so I figured I'd ask the people I know best. I'll post this in the hardware forum also.

 

So, here is a link to my current specs:

http://www.binnerfam...ut/system-specs

 

My thoughts:

• NEED am AM3+ MB....and no, I am not switching to Intel, sorry, I don't buy into the hype, I can tweak an AMD chip just as fast, and the NEW FAB-8 chip plant is right around the corner from my house in Malta, NY, I will buy local! LOL The board I have now RUNS the CPU I have, but I am sure I can get faster with an AM3+ board. Which do you all recommend?
  
• I am going to undo the Matrox and go SLI; use Nvidia's "surround" to push 3 screens. Should I get another of what I have or 2 new cards or ONE beefier card? The idea is 3-wide again on screens.
  
• Memory, I am going to go to 8GB. Maybe even 16. Mushkin or crucial still good names?
  

About it for now. The idea is to reuse AS MUCH as I can; try to get away with ONLY buying a new MB, RAM and either a second video card of like make or a newer, beefier card.

 

Thanks in advance....and keep it "cheap" please! LOL (but not so cheap that it's worthless!

 

Target sim is FSX....I offload weather programs to a laptop via network, so the only thing running when I fly is FSX and VATSIM on Squakbox. Thanks!

[dazz 69]

Hey all, I am going to try and ramp up my rig a bit in the coming month to months. My choke point on my rig right now IS the MB and RAM.....so I figured I'd ask the people I know best. I'll post this in the hardware forum also.

 

So, here is a link to my current specs:

http://www.binnerfam...ut/system-specs

 

My thoughts:

• NEED am AM3+ MB....and no, I am not switching to Intel, sorry, I don't buy into the hype, I can tweak an AMD chip just as fast, and the NEW FAB-8 chip plant is right around the corner from my house in Malta, NY, I will buy local! LOL The board I have now RUNS the CPU I have, but I am sure I can get faster with an AM3+ board. Which do you all recommend?
  
• I am going to undo the Matrox and go SLI; use Nvidia's "surround" to push 3 screens. Should I get another of what I have or 2 new cards or ONE beefier card? The idea is 3-wide again on screens.
  
• Memory, I am going to go to 8GB. Maybe even 16. Mushkin or crucial still good names?
  

About it for now. The idea is to reuse AS MUCH as I can; try to get away with ONLY buying a new MB, RAM and either a second video card of like make or a newer, beefier card.

 

Thanks in advance....and keep it "cheap" please! LOL (but not so cheap that it's worthless!

 

Target sim is FSX....I offload weather programs to a laptop via network, so the only thing running when I fly is FSX and VATSIM on Squakbox. Thanks!

 

 

In FSX more than 4 cores are almost useless. So John seriously, if you don't buy into the Intel "hype" there's nothing you can do to improve performance since any other AMD option is going to be a lateral move, unless the main purpose of your rig is other than FSX?

 

Also IIRC, you are not keen to overclocking right?

[jbinner 15]

The improvement I am thinking of is a newer AM3+ motherboard, currently on an AM2+, so a newer board would be quicker. Same for more memory and faster DDR3 memory, currently using DDR2. Same story for video....cores wasn't the issue, I'm not replacing the CPU.

[dazz 69]

The improvement I am thinking of is a newer AM3+ motherboard, currently on an AM2+, so a newer board would be quicker. Same for more memory and faster DDR3 memory, currently using DDR2. Same story for video....cores wasn't the issue, I'm not replacing the CPU.

 

It's not going to make that much of a difference. DDR3 vs DDR2 is maybe a 10%. 8GB of 2133MHz RAM, another 10% or so. Even if you upgrade your video card, you're still going to be severely CPU limited

If you are going to swap boards, you might as well switch to Intel (I5 3550) for just another $200 and add to that a good 50% perf boost.