The Gaming PC Building/Upgrade Thread

[Shinobi-san]

smbu2000 said:

Shinobi-san said:

 

I had an idea it was the cpu :( Im getting 1-4 fps in the cpu test on 3dmark11...well below the average fps. From your experience would overclocking it to 3ghz make a substantial difference in performance? I dont know much about overclocking apart from moving a few sliding bars up and down in a utility program :/ Il look into overclocking though...Im also planning on upgrading to windows 7 64bit and adding an additional 1gb ram...and im gona do away with the IDE hdd although from the research ive done that shoudnt make a big difference.

Thanx for the advise smbu2000 :)

The IDE hdd is probably just slowing all everything down(windows, etc.) I hope you don't have the game(s) installed on it?

Increasing the clock speed will definitely help, especially when games require more cpu power (e.g. GTAIV), but as you increase the resolution/effects, it puts it more on the gpu and less on the cpu.

Some games are still demanding on current hardware. For example, Crysis: Warhead ( http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-review/14 ) still puts a hurt on modern gpu's especially running on Enthusiast settings.

My games are installed on my SATA hdd, however my OS is installed on the IDE. Il be fixing this soon though, as in tomoro!

I had a look into overclocking and aparently overclocking to 3ghz is quite easily acheived on the q9400 cpu, so i went ahead and tried it. It actually worked, and i didnt have to change vcore settings left it on auto.. i got a minor increase in performance. However i was noticing games stalling so i decided to overclock it too 2.8ghz.  The thing with overclocking though is that if u have a stock cpu cooler then overclocking is not recommended so im gona leave it at that. For me investing in a cpu cooler is not worth it especially if my performance gains will be minimal and overclocking is not a sure thing.

Crysis(not warhead) is running okay i guess....however in medium settings i dont really get a big increase in performance(it stays between 25-50 in intensive gameplay) on very high settings in intensive gameplay it becomes just barely playable otherwise its round about 30.

Im thinking i assumed wrongly that id get great performance from my pc just by upgrading my gpu. So ive decided to just leave my pc as is for now(apart from the minor changes il be making hdd, OS, 1gbram) and play my games at settings that are comfortably playable. After that il look to upgrade my pc again hopefully through out the rest of this year. Atleast now i already have a good gpu to get me started :)